Adapted Excerpt: Abraham Lincoln, Proclamation Calling for Troops, April 15, 1861
Whereas the laws of the United States have been opposed in several Southern states, and their enforcement has been blocked by groups too powerful for normal courts to handle, I have decided that action is required.
Therefore, I call upon the militia of the states of the Union, to the number of seventy-five thousand, in order to stop these unlawful actions and to see that the laws are properly carried out. The details of this call will be sent to the states through the War Department.
I ask all loyal citizens to support this effort to protect the Union, to preserve the authority of the government, and to maintain the system of popular government passed down to us. The first duty of these forces will be to recover federal property, including forts and other places that have been taken from the United States.
I direct those involved in these actions to return peacefully to their homes within twenty days. I make this request in the hope that order may be restored without further violence.
Because the situation is serious, I have also called Congress to meet and consider what steps are needed to protect the nation.
In witness whereof, I have set my hand and caused the seal of the United States to be placed, this fifteenth day of April, in the year eighteen hundred and sixty-one.
Adapted Excerpt: Jefferson Davis, Message to the Confederate Congress, April 1861
Every event connected with Fort Sumter shows the honor of South Carolina and of this government. Even after victory, our people showed restraint and did not act harshly. This proves that we sought peace and wished only to protect our own safety and independence. We did not desire the suffering and destruction that come with war.
Soon after the President of the United States learned that his plan to resupply Fort Sumter had failed, he called for an army of seventy-five thousand men. This action forced me to call you together. In that declaration, he acted as if no independent government existed in these Confederate States, even though our people support it fully, and it governs seven states and millions of citizens.
He described sovereign states as unlawful groups and called for troops to capture forts within our borders. His own words made it clear that these forces were not meant to carry out laws, but to seize our strongholds. This was a plain declaration of war, and I could not ignore it. Under international law, I was required to treat this action as an act of war, even if I believed the President had exceeded his authority.
I hoped that more states would reject this call for troops, as some already had, and that the conflict could still be avoided. However, many states accepted his orders and began raising armies. With Congress not in session, I called for volunteers only to defend ourselves. I have no doubt that this conflict need not become a long or destructive war, and I trust that reason will yet spare our people from its worst horrors.