"
On the 16th, Colonel Hayne, of South Carolina, developed his mission,
which was to demand of the President the surrender of Fort Sumter to the
South Carolina authorities--a demand that had already been made upon,
and refused by, Major Anderson.
The correspondence concerning this demand, between Colonel Hayne and ten
Southern United States Senators;--[Senators Wigfall, Hemphill, Yulee,
Mallory, Jeff. Davis, C. C. Clay, Fitzgerald, Iverson, Slidell, and
Benjamin.]--the reply of the President, by Secretary Holt, to those
Senators; Governor Pickens's review of the same; and the final demand;
consumed the balance of the month of January; and ended, February 6th,
in a further reply, through the Secretary of War, from the President,
asserting the title of the United States to that Fort, and declining the
demand, as "he has no Constitutional power to cede or surrender it."
Secretary Holt's letter concluded by saying: "If, with all the
multiplied proofs which exist of the President's anxiety for Peace, and
of the earnestness with which he has pursued it, the authorities of that
State shall assault Fort Sumter, and peril the lives of the handful of
brave and loyal men shut up within its walls, and thus plunge our Common
Country into the horrors of Civil War, then upon them and those they
represent, must rest the responsibility."
But to return from this momentary diversion: On the 18th of January,
Georgia seceded; and on the 20th, the Federal Fort at Ship Island,
Mississippi, and the United States Hospital on the Mississippi River
were seized by Mississippi troops.
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