ght be to relieve Fort Sumter, which
expedition was intended to be ultimately used, or not, according to
circumstances. The strongest anticipated case for using it was now
presented, and it was resolved to send it forward. As had been intended
in this contingency, it was also resolved to notify the governor of South
Carolina that he might expect an attempt would be made to provision the
fort; and that, if the attempt should not be resisted, there would be no
effort to throw in men, arms, or ammunition, without further notice, or
in case of an attack upon the fort. This notice was accordingly given;
whereupon the fort was attacked and bombarded to its fall, without even
awaiting the arrival of the provisioning expedition.

It is thus seen that the assault upon and reduction of Fort Sumter was in
no sense a matter of self-defense on the part of the assailants. They
well knew that the garrison in the fort could by no possibility commit
aggression upon them. They knew--they were expressly notified--that the
giving of bread to the few brave and hungry men of the garrison was all
which would on that occasion be attempted, unless themselves, by resisting
so much, should provoke more. They knew that this government desired to
keep the garrison in the fort, not to assail them, but merely to maintain
visible possession, and thus to preserve the Union from actual and
immediate dissolution--trusting, as hereinbefore stated, to time,
discussion, and the ballot-box for final adjustment; and they assailed
and reduced the fort for precisely the reverse object--to drive out the
visible authority of the Federal Union, and thus force it to immediate
dissolution. That this was their object the executive well understood; and
having said to them in the inaugural address, "You can have no conflict
without being yourselves the aggressors," he took pains not only to keep
this declaration good, but also to keep the case so free from the power of
ingenious sophistry that the world should not be able to misunderstand
it. By the affair at Fort Sumter, with its surrounding circumstances, that
point was reached. Then and thereby the assailants of the government began
the conflict of arms, without a gun in sight or in expectancy to return
their fire, save only the few in the fort sent to that harbor years before
for their own protection, and still ready to give that protection in
whatever was lawful. In this act, discarding all else, they have forced
u