hat the policy of
the administration is? They have a right to know. "The President of
the United States holds the destiny of this country in his hands. I
believe he means peace, and war will be averted, unless he is
overruled by the disunion portion of his party. We all know the
irrepressible conflict is going on in their camp.... Then, throw aside
this petty squabble about how you are to get along with your pledges
before election; meet the issues as they are presented; do what duty,
honor, and patriotism require, and appeal to the people to sustain
you. Peace is the only policy that can save the country or save your
party."[971]

On the Republican side of the chamber, this appeal was bitterly
resented. It met with no adequate response, because there was none to
give; but Wilson roundly denounced it as a wicked, mischief-making
utterance.[972] Unhappily, Douglas allowed himself to be drawn into a
personal altercation with Fessenden, in which he lost his temper and
marred the effect of his patriotic appeal. There was probably some
truth in Douglas's charge that both senators intended to be personally
irritating.[973] Under the circumstances, it was easier to indulge in
personal disparagement of Douglas, than to meet his embarrassing
questions.

How far Douglas still believed in the possibility of saving the Union
through compromise, it is impossible to say. Publicly he continued to
talk in an optimistic strain.[974] On March 25th, he expressed his
satisfaction in the Senate that only one danger-point remained; Fort
Sumter, he understood, was to be evacuated.[975] But among his friends
no one looked into the future with more anxiety than he. Intimations
from the South that citizens of the United States would probably be
excluded from the courts of the Confederacy, wrung from him the
admission that such action would be equivalent to war.[976] He noted
anxiously the evident purpose of the Confederated States to coerce
Kentucky and Virginia into secession.[977] Indeed, it is probable that
before the Senate adjourned, his ultimate hope was to rally the Union
men in the border States.[978]

When President Lincoln at last determined to send supplies to Fort
Sumter, the issue of peace or war rested with Jefferson Davis and his
cabinet at Montgomery. Early on the morning of April 12th, a shell,
fired from a battery in Charleston harbor, burst directly over Fort
Sumter, proclaiming to anxious ears the close of an era.