Even before the secession began, various types of men in politics
had begun to do each after his kind. Those whom destiny drove
first into a corner were the lovers of political evasion. The
issue was forced upon them by the instantaneous demand of the
people of South Carolina for possession of forts in Charleston
Harbor which were controlled by the Federal Government.
Anticipating such a demand, Major Robert Anderson, the commandant
at Charleston, had written to Buchanan on the 23d of November
that "Fort Sumter and Castle Pinckney must be garrisoned
immediately, if the Government determines to keep command of this
harbor."
In the mind of every American of the party of political evasion,
there now began a sad, internal conflict. Every one of them had
to choose among three courses: to shut his eyes and to continue
to wail that the function of government is to do nothing; to make
an end of political evasion and to come out frankly in approval
of the Southern position; or to break with his own record, to
emerge from his evasions on the opposite side, and to confess
himself first and before all a supporter of the Union. One or
another of these three courses, sooner or later, every man of the
President's following chose. We shall see presently the relative
strength of the three groups into which that following broke and
what strange courses sometimes tragic, sometimes comic--two of
the three pursued.
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