became known in the North, and the people there realized that the new banner would be raised instead of the stars and stripes, they became so excited that Secretary Dix telegraphed to New Orleans: "If any person attempts to haul down the American flag, shoot him on the spot!"

The Confederates, or secessionists, next seized most of the Southern forts belonging to the United States, except Forts Pick'ens and Sum'ter, which the officers refused to surrender. They also fired upon a ship called the Star of the West, when it came into the Charleston harbor to bring supplies to the government troops at Fort Sumter. In fact, the Confederates showed themselves so determined not to let it come in that it had to turn around and go back.

The Southerners believed so thoroughly in state rights that, although many of them did not wish to secede, they felt it their duty to do so. Thus more than two hundred officers who had been in the United States service, and had won laurels in the Mexican War, now gave up their positions in the army and navy and returned home.

The action taken by the Southern states greatly bewildered President Buchanan, who looked on helplessly, and did nothing. He said that the Southern states had no right to secede, but added that he had no right to force them to stay in the Union. Everything was therefore left for Lincoln to settle, and people anxiously wondered what he would do.

A rumor had arisen that, even if elected, Lincoln should never be inaugurated. This made his friends so anxious for his safety that they persuaded him to travel secretly to

Washington. There he was inaugurated, on March 4, 1861. After taking his solemn oath to "preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States," Lincoln made a grand speech, saying that, while he must at any cost keep this oath, he had no intention whatever of meddling with slavery in the states where it already existed.

He said that, in his opinion, no state could leave the Union, declared that he would hold the forts still belonging to the Union, and firmly but kindly added: "In your hands, my dissatisfied countrymen, and not in mine, is the momentous issue of civil war. The government will not assail you. You can have no conflict without being yourselves the aggressors.'

For the first month after his inauguration, Lincoln was so bothered by office seekers that he could not attend to much else. But by this time Major An'der-son, who was holding Fort Sumter, was so short of food and supplies that Lincoln sent word to South Carolina that he was going to send him help. This message was given to Jefferson Davis, who called a council to decide whether the supply should be allowed to come in or not.

There were two opinions about this, even in the Confederate Cabinet, and after some one had spoken warmly in favor of taking the fort by force, the secretary of state gravely said: "The firing upon that fort will inaugurate a civil war greater than any the world has yet seen. You will wantonly strike a hornet's nest which extends from mountains to ocean, and legions now quiet will swarm out and sting us to death."

In spite of this warning, Jefferson Davis finally decided

that Sumter must be taken. He bade the Southern general, Beau're-gard, not to allow any supplies to pass in, and to fire

upon the fort if it did not surrender. As Anderson firmly refused to yield to Beauregard's summons, the bombarding of Fort Sumter began on April 12, 1861.

At the end of about thirty hours the fort was a heap of smoking ruins, and as there was neither food nor ammunition left, Anderson was forced to haul down the Union flag and surrender. But he and his men were allowed to leave with their arms and colors, and the flag they thus saved was, as we shall see, again raised over Fort Sumter four years later.

Although there were none killed on either side in this battle of "seventy men against seven thousand," the firing on Fort Sumter acted like an electric shock upon the whole nation. Until then there had been two kinds of patriots in the North; but the fact that the flag had been fired upon put an end to all disputes, and the people rose like one man to defend it.

Lincoln, who had made no preparations for war, so as not to make the South angry and force matters, now called for seventy-five thousand men "to maintain the