President Lincoln justified the immediate issuance of his proclamation
because of what he termed the unprovoked attack on Fort Sumter and the
wanton insult thus offered the honor and dignity of the nation. On the
other hand, it was insisted that his action in breaking off the
negotiations, having for their object the peaceful adjustment of all
questions relating to Fort Sumter, his notice to the Governor of South
Carolina that its garrison would be provisioned, and the arrival off the
harbor of Charleston of the Relief Squadron charged with that mission,
not only precipitated the conflict, but justified the inauguration by
the Southern Confederacy of what would have been, under other
circumstances, offensive measures. Had the authorities of the
Confederacy been more thoughtful of their interests than their rights,
or taken counsel of their caution rather than of their courage, they
might have permitted the naval expedition to provision Fort Sumter and
reinforce its garrison with men and munitions of war. Such, however, was
not the temper and fibre of that people. They met what they deemed a
second invasion of their country just as they did four months before,
when they fired upon the "Star of the West" in the first attempt to
relieve the Fort.
Alexander H. Stephens, Vice-President of the Confederacy, in his work
_The War Between the States_, presents the position of his Government
with respect to the matter as follows:
"I maintain that it (the war) was inaugurated and begun though no blow
had been struck, when the hostile fleet, styled the 'Relief Squadron,'
with eleven ships carrying two hundred and eighty-five guns and two
thousand four hundred men, was sent out from New York and Norfolk,
with orders from the authorities at Washington to reinforce Fort
Sumter, peaceably, if permitted, but forcibly, if they resist."