The fall of Sumter was the one
topic on every lip. Men stopped their trade, their work, their play and
looked about them for the nearest rallying ground of soldiers.
The President of the United States was quick to seize the favorable
moment to call for 75,000 volunteers. That these troops were to fight
the Confederacy was not questioned for a moment.
The effect of this proclamation on the South was a political earthquake.
In a single day all differences of opinion were sunk in the common
cause. A feeling of profound wonder swept every thoughtful man within
the Southern States. To this moment, even a majority of those who
favored the policy of secession had done so under the belief that it was
the surest way of securing redress of grievances and of bringing the
Federal Government back to its original Constitutional principles. Many
of them believed, and all of their leaders in authority hoped, that a
re-formation of the Union would soon take place in peaceful ways on the
basis of the new Constitution proclaimed at Montgomery. Many Northern
newspapers, led by the New York _Herald_, had advocated this course. The
hope of the majority of the Southern people was steadfast that the Union
would thus be continued and strengthened, and made more perfect, as it
had been in 1789 after the withdrawal of nine States from the Old Union
by the adoption of the Constitution of 1787.
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