eir property, peace, and personal
security were in no danger from a Republican administration.

"One section of our country believes slavery is right and ought to be
extended," he said, "while the other believes it is wrong and ought not
to be extended; that is the only substantial dispute.... Physically
speaking, we cannot separate. We cannot remove our respective sections
from each other, nor build an impassable wall between them. A husband
and wife may be divorced, and go out of the presence and beyond the
reach of each other; but the different parts of our country cannot do
this. They cannot but remain face to face, and intercourse, either
amicable or hostile, must continue between them. Is it possible, then,
to make that intercourse more advantageous or more satisfactory after
separation than before? Can aliens make treaties easier than friends can
make laws? Can treaties be more faithfully enforced between aliens, than
laws can among friends? Suppose you go to war, you cannot fight always;
and when, after much loss on both sides and no gain on either, you cease
fighting, the identical old questions as to terms of intercourse are
again upon you.... In your hands, my dissatisfied fellow-countrymen, and
not in mine, is the momentous issue of civil war. The government will
not assail you. You can have no conflict without being yourselves the
aggressors.... I am loath to close. We are not enemies, but friends. We
must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break
our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from
every battle-field and patriot grave to every living heart and
hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the
Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels
of our nature."

But the peaceful policy here outlined was already more difficult to
follow than Mr. Lincoln was aware. On the morning after inauguration the
Secretary of War brought to his notice freshly received letters from
Major Anderson, commanding Fort Sumter in Charleston harbor, announcing
that in the course of a few weeks the provisions of the garrison would
be exhausted, and therefore an evacuation or surrender would become
necessary, unless the fort were relieved by supplies or reinforcements;
and this information was accompanied by the written opinions of the
officers that to relieve the fort would require a well-appointed army of
twenty thousand men.

T