United States Government, to the Confederate Gov- March 10.—It is reported at Washington that such word has been received from Major Anderson as to render the evacuation or the reprovisioning of Fort Sumter a necessity. Great excitement exists in consequence. General Scott is willing to assume the responsibility of the withdrawal, considering it impossible to throw in reenforcements and provisions, except at great cost of life. March 12.--The Southern Commissioners, Messrs. Crawford and Forsythe, communicate their mission to Secretary Seward, pronounce their Government an independency de facto et de jure, and request a day to be named when they may present to the President their credentials. March 13.-The Georgia Convention turns over all forts, arsenals, arms, &c., seized from the Federal Government, to the Confederate Government. -The Charleston (South Carolina) Courier of to- enforcement of Fort Sumter an impossibility. It es- Seats of United States Senators from the ceded States declared vacant, and their names stricken from the roll. ، ، March 15.-Mr. Seward, Secretary of State, answers the cornmunication of the Southern Commissioners, Messrs. Crawford and Forsythe, by a memorandum," without signature, refusing to recognize the agents in any public capacity, &c. This memorandum" was not called for by the Commissioners until April 8th-understanding it to be a refusal of recognition. "" -The Texas State Convention passes an ordinance declaring, on the refusal of Governor Houston to take the oath under the State Constitution, the office of Governor vacant, and appointing Lieutenant-Governor Clark Governor. The office of Secretary of State is also declared vacant. March 18.-The Texas Legislature met. The members of the House and Senate took the oath of allegiance to the new Government, a few of them under protest. Governor Houston and the Secretary of State have retired from their offices and surrendered the archives. Governor Houston had issued an appeal to the people denouncing the State Convention. -By proclamation of General Bragg, all vessels are probibited to furnish supplies to war vessels off Pensacola or to Fort Pickens, under penalty of for feiture to the Confederation. March 27.--Colonel Lamon, Mr. Lincoln's special messenger to Fort Sumter returns and reports favorably upon the condition of the garrison, but is fully satisfied that reenforcements cannot be introduced without a serious collision, and that the attempt to Se-introduce them would be of doubtful success with the force now at the command of the Administration. He describes the military preparations of the rebels as of great magnitude, and very skilfully made. March 20.-The Arkansas Convention adjourns, after having rejected an ordinance of secession. It was decided, however, to take a vote of the people, in August, on the question of" secession” or “no secession." -The Texas Legislature passes a resolution approving of the Convention act deposing Governor Houston. March 22.-The Missouri Convention adjournshaving passed no ordinance of secession. -Alexander H. Stephens makes a speech at Savannah, (Georgia,) expounding the principles and purposes of the new Confederacy. He argued that negro slavery was the "chief corner-stone of the new edifice." [See History of Rebellion, Vol. I., | pages 30, 31.] March 21.—A resolution passes the Ohio State Legislature, asking Congress to call a National Convention. -A dispatch from New Orleans says: "The Commissioners of the Confederate States to EuropeMessrs. Yancey, Mann, and Rost-will leave here on the 31st inst. for Havana, and connect with the British steamer of the 7th of April for England." The April 4.-Virginia Legislature adjourns. March 16.-The Montgomery Congress adjourns, Convention still in session. Proceedings are highly to meet again the 2d Monday in May. exciting. The Secessionists evidently have the upper hand. March 26.-The South Carolina State Convention reassembles. -A dispatch from Washington reads: "The Administration has determined to reenforce Fort Pickens, at all hazards. This determination has not yet been officially announced, but there is reason to believe that active measures will be taken at once -A" Convention" of about twenty persons held for the relief of Lieut. Slemmer's command. The a session at Mesilla, in Arizona, and voted that Ter- troops of the Confederate States are rapidly concenritory out of the Union. An election for CongressAn election for Congress-trating at Pensacola, under command of General men to the Confederate Congress was ordered. Bragg, and preparations are making for a decisive movement. Bragg has nearly four thousand troops under his command, all well armed and in a state of efficiency. Lieut. Slemmer is prepared for the worst, and will sustain the honor of his flag to the last. April 2.-Gov. Houston sends a message to the Texas Legislature protesting against the Convention, appealing to the Legislature to sustain him, and claiming still to be Governor. The Legislature took not the slightest notice of it. April 5-8.-The steamers Atlantic, Baltic, and Illinois, load at New York with Navy stores, munitions, &c. Much excitement prevails as to their destination. The frigate Powhatan is hurriedly put into commission, at New York, and sails south, April 6th. Great activity at the Brooklyn, the Philadelphia, and the Charlestown (Mass.) Navy-yards. Every Government vessel of war, it is understood, is ordered out of ordinary, to be fitted for commission. April 5.-Kentucky Legislature adjourns. No action taken looking to secession, or resistance to the Federal Government. April 6.-Great excitement prevails throughout the South in consequence of the great naval move HISTORICAL SUMMARY. ments announced. Gen. Beauregard announces to Major Anderson that no further communications will be allowed with the land-thus placing him in a state of siege. 3 ed orders from Norfolk. She mounts 10 guns and carries 200 men. April 10.-Sloop-of-war Jamestown and frigate St. Lawrence at the Philadelphia Navy-yard, ordered to be fitted for sea forthwith. -Troops mustering in Washington from the militia. Adjutant-General McDowell is organizing them into regiments and preparing them for service. Additional forces of regulars ordered to the Capital: Sherman's Artillery from Fort Ridgely, in Minnesota, and two companies of cavalry ordered to report immediately at Washington. The active preparations are understood to result from the known presence, in the vicinity of Washington, of Colonel Ben McCullough, the Texan Ranger, who, having secured the United States forts in Texas, has hurried to the East to lead an attempt upon the Capital. 66 -A dispatch from Charleston says: Troops are pouring in from the interior and all is ready for a collision. Fort Sumter will be attacked without waiting for the Abolition fleet. Eagerness for the conflict is unbounded. Messrs. Wigfall, Chesnut, Roylston, and others, have secured a place on Gen. Beauregard's staff. The floating battery, finished, mounted, and manned, was taken out of the dock last evening and moored in the cove near Sullivan's Isıand. The Convention has just adjourned, subject to the call of its President. A large number of its members, after adjournment, volunteered as privates. About 7,000 troops are in the defences, with as many more in reserve." -L. P. Walker, Secretary of War of the Confederate States, orders General Beauregard to demand the evacuation of Fort Sumter, which demand he is to enforce by proceeding to reduce the fort. April 11.-The Southern Commissioners, Messrs. Crawford, Forsythe, and Roman, left Washington today. Before leaving they transmitted [April 9th] to Secretary Seward a rejoinder, setting forth their reasons for departing, and replying to the positions assumed in his answers to their demands. It was very severe in its tone, charging duplicity on the part of the Secretary. They take the ground that they have exhausted every resource for a peaceful solution of the existing difficulties, and that if civil war results, on the head of the Federal Government will rest the responsibility. They charge the Administration with gross perfidy, insisting that under the shelter of the pretext and assertion that Fort Sumter was to be evacuated, an immense armada has been dispatched to provision and reenforce that fort. They repeat they had almost daily indirect assurances from the Administration that Fort Sumter was positively to be abandoned, and that all the Government's efforts were to be directed towards peace. The Commissioners allege that the Government at Montgomery was earnestly desirous of peace; and that, in accordance with its instructions, as well as their own feelings, they left no means unexhausted to secure that much-desired end; but all their efforts having failed, they were now forced to return to an outraged people with the object of their mission unaccomplished; and they express the firm conviction that war is inevitable. -A formal demand made by General Beauregard, of Major Anderson, for the surrender of Fort Sumter. Anderson refused compliance with this demand. April 12.-At one o'clock, A. M., a second demand was made, or rather proposition, in which Beau entered one of the embrasures with a flag of truce. He said Beauregard wished the firing stopped, and asked upon what terms Anderson would evacuate. The answer was, "Upon the terms I proposed, and on those only." Wigfall disappeared with the answer. Soon another deputation from Beauregard came, proposing to treat for terms, when Anderson informed them of Wigfall's proceedings—at which the deputation marveled. Terms finally accepted as Anderson first proposed. -The Legislature of Pennsylvania passes a bill for placing the State on a war footing. Five hundred thousand dollars are appropriated for arming and equipping the military. -Three Commissioners from the Virginia State Convention to the President of the United States call upon Mr. Lincoln, and demand to know what are his purposes in regard to the Confederate States. The President replies that if an unprovoked assault has been made on Fort Sumter, he shall hold himself at liberty to repossess it to repel force by force. This the Commissioners [Messrs. Preston, Stuart, and Randolph] report to the State Convention, (December 14th,) when it is regarded as a Declaration of War, and immediate steps are taken to place Virginia in a state of preparation for secession and resistance. -Walker, Secretary of War, in reply to a serenade in honor of the bombardment then going on, said that, by the 1st of May, the Confederate flag would float over the dome of the Capitol at Wash-son. ington—it might, eventually, float over Faneuil Hall itself. April 14.—Evacuation of Fort Sumter by Ander The men all march out with their arms. All individual and company baggage accompanied them. The flag is saluted with a salvo of fifty guns, and is borne away by the troops. The band plays "Yankee Doodle" and "Hail to the Chief" during the debarkation. -Profound excitement throughout the entire country. But one feeling seems to animate the North-that the Government is right, and shall be supported to the last extremity. Military companies, regiments, individuals, hasten to offer their ser April 13.-The bombardment of Fort Sumter continued. The barracks again on fire. Flames obtain control, and the conflagration becomes general in the fort, consuming all wood-work. Magazine has to be closed, and the men are stifled with the in-vices. Governor Sprague, of Rhode Island, offers tense heat and dense smoke. The bombardment | the Marine Artillery and one thousand Infantry for continues with renewed vigor-hot shot and shell instant service, together with his own services. pouring into the fort. The upper service magazine Other Governors were prepared to do likewise, explodes, tearing away the tower and upper por- when the news of a proclamation came. tions of the building. Fire spread to the gates, April 15.-President Lincoln issues a proclamawhich were consumed. Fort is fast becoming a tion, announcing a state of insurrection in the Seven mere ruin—the shot and shell from the rebel batter-Seceded States too powerful for suppression by the ies cutting away the walls freely. The flag-staff is ordinary courts and marshals, and therefore calls out shot down, when Lieutenant Hall, rushing through the militia, to the number of seventy-five thousand, the appalling fire, brought it into the casemates. to cause the laws to be duly respected. The procla The flag was nailed to the staff and planted on the mation also convenes both Houses of Congress, to ramparts. Seeing the flag down, Wigfall, one of assemble on the 4th day of July, to consider and deBeauregard's aids, passed over to the fortress and termine such measures as the crisis demands. THE INAUGURATION OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN AS PRESIDENT. HIS THE 4th day of March, 1861, was a day of | dress. His voice was loud, and very clear; painful suspense to the entire country. It his enunciation deliberate, and his manner was to determine the future of the Republic-impressive. If there was danger of assassinto witness the inauguration of a "sectional" ation, he did not betray the slightest apprePresident, upon whose words would hang hension. His entire action betokened the the issues of peace or war, of union or dis- man ready for duty. The crowd was remarkunion. The fears entertained of violence to ably orderly, composed as it was, in a great prevent the installation, and of danger to the degree, of those who had "come to see the President's person, served to intensify the President safely inaugurated.” Though no apprehension of his friends and partisans, recognition was given, in the order of exerwhile the position he should assume on cises, to the Republican "Wide-Awake” soNational affairs rendered the anxiety in the cieties, as such, it was well understood that South especially acute. at least ten thousand "Wide-Awakes" were present, at the ceremony, armed ready for close conflict, should a resort to arms become necessary. A knowledge of this, together with the imposing disposition of the military, under immediate command of Generals Scott and Wool, served to render the order of the occasion exceedingly satisfactory. The President's voice reached to the outermost rim of the immense assembly, so commanding were its tones. The Address, as pronounced, and sent upon the wings of the telegraph to all parts of the country, was as follows: At a quarter past one the President and President-elect having been ushered into the Senate Chamber-where their appearance was waited for by the Senate, House of Representatives, Foreign Ministers, Judges of the Supreme Court, &c.—the procession immediately formed and passed to the east front of the Capitol. A vast crowd was in attendance, composed of persons gathered from all sections of the country. The President-elect, stepping forward to the prominent position assigned him, delivered his Inaugural Ad "In compliance with a custom as old as the Government itself, I appear before you to address you briefly, and to take in your presence the oath prescribed by the Constitution of the United States to be taken by the President before he enters on the execution of his office. I do not consider it necessary at present for me to discuss those matters of administration about which there is no special anxiety or excitement. " Apprehension seems to exist among the people of the Southern States that by the accession of a Republican Administration, their property, and their peace and personal security, are to be endangered. There has never been any reasonable cause for such apprehension. Indeed, the most ample evidence to the contrary has all the while existed, and been open to their inspection. It is found in nearly all the published speeches of him who now addresses you. I do but quote from one of those speeches when I declare that 'I have no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere with the institution of Slavery in the States where it exists. I believe I have no lawful right to Those do so, and I have no inclination to do so.' who nominated and elected me did so with a full knowledge that I had made this and many similar declarations, and had never recanted them. And, more than this; they placed in the platform for my acceptance, and as a law to themselves and to me, the clear and emphatic resolution which I now read: Resolved, That the maintenance inviolate of the rights of the States, and especially the right of each State to order and control its own domestic institutions according to its own judgment exclusively, is essential to that balance of power on which the perfection and endurance of our political fabric depend, and we denounce the lawless invasion by armed force of the soil of any State or Territory, no matter under what pretext, as among the gravest of crimes.' service or labor, but shall be deliv- "No person held to service or labor in one State, under the laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, in consequence of any law or regulation therein, be discharged from such Mr. Lincoln's Inaugural Address. "It is scarcely questioned that this provision was intended, by those who made it, for the reclamation of what we call 'fugitive slaves' and the intention of the law-giver is the law. All members of Congress swear their support to the whole Constitution; to this provision as well as any other. To the proposition, then, that slaves whose cases come within the terms of this clause 'shall be delivered up,' their oaths are unanimous. Now, if they would make the effort, in good temper, could they not, with nearly equal unanimity, frame and pass a law by means of There is which to keep good that unanimous oath? some difference of opinion whether this clause should be enforced by National or by State authority; but, surely, that difference is not a very material one. If the slave is to be surrendered, it can be of but little consequence to him or to others, by which Should any one, in any case, authority it is done. be content that his oath shall go unkept on a merely unsubstantial controversy as to how it shall be kept? 66 Again, in any law upon this subject, ought not all the safeguards of liberty known in the civilized and humane jurisprudence to be introduced, so that a free man be not, in any case, surrendered as a slave? And might it not be well, at the same time, to provide by law for the enforcement of that clause in the Constitution which guarantees that 'the citizens of each State shall be entitled to all the privi leges and immunities of citizens in the several States?' I take the official oath to-day with no mental reservations, and with no purpose to construe the Constitution or laws by any hypercritical rules; and, while I do not choose now to specify particular acts of Congress as proper to be enforced, I do suggest that it will be much safer for all, both in official and private stations, to conform to and abide by all those acts which stand unrepealed, than to violate any of them, trusting to find impunity in having them held to be unconstitutional.' "I now reiterate these sentiments; and, in doing so, only press upon the public attention the most conclusive evidence of which the case is susceptible, that the property, peace, and security of no section "It is seventy-two years since the first inauguraare to be in any wise endangered by the now incoming Administration. I add, too, that all the protection of a President under our National Constitution. tion which, consistently with the Constitution and the laws, can be given, will be cheerfully given to all the States when lawfully demanded, for whatever cause, as cheerfully to one section as to another. “There is much controversy about the delivering up of fugitives from service or labor. The clause I now read is as plainly written in the Constitution as any other of its provisions: During that period fifteen different and very distinguished citizens have in succession administered the Executive branch of the Government. They have conducted it through many perils, and, generally, with great success. Yet, with all this scope for precedent, I now enter upon the same task for the brief Constitutional term of four years, under great and peculiar difficulty. A disruption of the Federal Union, heretofore only menaced, is now formidably attempted. "I hold that, in contemplation of universal law |