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Sumter, believing that bloodshedding would inflame the passions of Southern men, and that, during the paroxysm of excitement that would ensue,
Virginia might be arrayed against the
National Government.
Suddenly, bribery or threats, or change of ownership, made the
Richmond Whig, the only newspaper in the
Virginia capital that opposed secession, become ominously silent, while the organs of the conspirators were loudly boastful of a majority in the
Convention favorable to secession.
The hearts of the genuine
Unionists of the old State were saddened by gloomy forebodings, for they knew that their friends in that Convention were continually browbeaten by the truculent secessionists, and that the people were hourly deceived by the most astounding falsehoods put forth by the conspirators.
The Commissioners sent to
Washington obtained a formal audience with the
President on the 13th,
almost at the very time when, in their State capital, the bells were ringing, “Confederate” flags were flying, and one hundred guns were thundering, in attestation of the joy of the secessionists because of the attack on
Fort Sumter.
A telegraphic correspondent at
Charleston had said the day before:--“That ball fired at
Sumter by
Edmund Ruffin will do more for the cause of secession in
Virginia than volumes of stump speeches.”
1 The assertion was correct.
While the
Convention was debating the question of the surrender of
Fort Sumter,
Governor Letcher sent in a communication from
Governor Pickens, announcing the attack on that fortress, and saying:--“We will take the fort, and can sink the ships if they attempt to pass the channel.
If they land elsewhere, we can whip them.
We have now seven thousand of the best troops in the world, and a reserve of ten thousand on the routes to the harbor.
The war has commenced, and we will triumph or perish.
Please let me know what your State intends to do?”
Letcher replied:--“The Convention will determine.”
It was this dispatch — this notice of “that ball fired on
Sumter” by
Ruffin — that set the bells ringing, the flags.
flying, the cannons thundering, and the people shouting in
Richmond; and a few days afterward the
Convention revealed its determination to the world.
The President replied to the
Virginia Commissioners,
that it was his intention to pursue the policy clearly marked out in his Inaugural Address.
He had discovered no reasons for changing his views.
He recommended them to give that document a careful perusal, especially that portion in which he declared it to be his intention “to hold, occupy, and possess property and places belonging to the
Government, and to collect the duties on imports; but beyond what is necessary for these objects, there will be no invasion, no using of force against or among the people anywhere.”
He informed them that if an attack had been made upon
Fort Sumter, as it was at that moment rumored, he should feel himself at liberty to repossess it, if he could; for he considered it and other military posts seized by the insurgents as much the property of the
United States as ever.
“In any event,” he said, “I shall, to the best of my ability, repel force by force.”
He also told them that he might feel it his duty to cause the
United States mails to be withdrawn from all the States which
