le. Their prudence told
them that they ought to prepare for such an emergency by at once taking
possession of all the arms and military forts within their borders.

At this time there was a large navy-yard at Pensacola, Florida; from
twelve to fifteen harbor forts along the Atlantic and Gulf coasts;
half-a-dozen arsenals, stocked with an aggregate of one hundred and
fifty thousand arms (transferred there about a year before from Northern
arsenals, by Secretary Floyd); three mints; four important
custom-houses; three revenue cutters, on duty at leading Southern
seaports, and a vast amount of valuable miscellaneous property,--all of
which had been purchased with the money of the Federal Government.

The land on which the navy-yards, arsenals, forts, and, indeed, all the
buildings so purchased and controlled, stood, was vested in the United
States, not alone by the right of eminent domain, but also by formal
legislative deeds of cession from the States themselves, _wherein
they_ were located. The self-constituted governments of these State
now assumed either that the right of eminent domain reverted to them, or
that it had always belonged to them; and that they were perfectly
justified in taking absolute possession, "holding themselves responsible
in money damages to be settled by negotiation." The Federal Government
and the sentiment of the North regarded this hypothesis false and
absurd.

In due season the governors of the Cotton States, by official orders to
their extemporized militia companies, took forcible possession of all
the property belonging to the Federal Government lying within the
borders of these States. This proceeding was no other than _levying
actual war against the United States_. There was as yet no bloodshed,
however, and for this reason: the regular army of the United States
amounted then to but little over seventeen thousand men, and, most of
these being on the Western frontier, there was only a small garrison at
each of the Southern forts; all that was necessary, therefore, was for a
superior armed force--as a rule, State militia--to demand the surrender
of these forts in the name of the State, and it would at once, though
under protest, be complied with. There were three notable exceptions to
this peaceable evacuation,--first, no attempt was made against Fort
Taylor, at Key West; Fort Jefferson, on Tortugas Island; and Fort
Pickens, at Pensacola, on account of the distance and danger; second,
pa