Portland Eastern Argus, April 15, 1861

The intelligence received on Saturday of the commencement of hostilities at Charleston, although anticipated from the tenor of the dispatches of the previous day, produced intense excitement in our community, and has formed almost the sole topic of conversation since.—While all, now that the issue is made, felt a deep anxiety for the success of Major Anderson in the conflict. and that of the expedition sent to reinforce him, the sentiment was almost as unanimous that President Lincoln has made an egregious mistake by involving the country in a bloody struggle in this way. He has done it too, it would seem, against the advice of General Scott, and, we doubt not, also against that of nearly all the military men of the country.

The great majority, we believe, of the people of the free States have all along been in favor of an adjustment of the difficulties by compromise. But the ultra war Republicans, having the power, would not allow the people to be consulted and their verdict to be taken. An equal majority of the people, we think, were in favor of a peaceful separation, if a Separation must come. They could see no good to come of a war, brother against brother. At any rate, they insisted that after Congress, in which the Republican party had the power to carry any measure it pleased, had refused to bestow on the President the power to make war—after this refusal, we repeat, they insisted that war should not be inaugurated by the President without consulting Congress and obtaining the requisite authority to raise supplies of men and money. But President Lincoln appears to be as much afraid of the people as the secession leaders are, and he has involved the country in war without consulting them or their representatives. This is not all. He has made the issue at a point where our troops will have almost every disadvantage, and the secessionists almost every advantage—and it is all about a fort which is of no importance in itself, and will not probably be long held, if the present war expedition is successful. Yes; President Lincoln has taken the responsibility to involve the country in war about an unimportant post which might have been evacuated weeks ago without dishonor and has done it under such untoward circumstances that if defeat does not certainly follow, it will be only because of the unconquerable skill, bravery and energy of the men composing the expedition. If those twenty-five hundred men sent by sea, subject to sea-sickness, to the chances of the winds and waves, with a harbor difficult to enter and commanded by powerful batteries—we repeat, if under these and many other difficulties these men succeed, it will be owing to their skill and valor, despite the fatuity and recklessness of the President in sending them upon such a perilous and bootless errand, to meet in battle three or four times their number.

The universal feeling is that if we must have war, let the fight be about something of consequence, something that if we succeed in defending, will be worth keeping; and above all, let us go into it giving our men, at least, an equal chance of success with their antagonists, by the display of equal bravery. While all in this section wish success to the Government forces as against those of the secessionists, there can be no feeling of exultation at victories won, such as is excited by triumphs of our arms over foreign foes; nor among considerate men can the contemplation of the struggle, with its sacrifice of life and treasure, the demoralization of society and the national humiliation which it involves, be unaccompanied by the conviction [that] these all are the fruits of fanaticism—are the penalty we are paying for indulging in offensive intermeddling and the cultivation of a spirit of hatred and revenge between those who, by race, are brethren and who ought to be such in feeling; and that all the calamities could have been avoided by the exercise of good sense and good temper in the direction of our national affairs.

The war has been begotten by extremists in both sections. Let them fight it out. Every day of bloody work will add to the strength of the conservatives of both sections, who, when this ebullition of fanaticism shall have spent itself in butchery and blood, will have to repair the wreck that is left, reconstruct the government and administer it. Let us bide our time. Fanaticism, ultraism, never did administer a government—they have destroyed them without number—and they never can administer a government. The conservatives, let it be borne in mind, are not to be destroyed in this struggle. They are to be reinforced; and when the haters have got tired of killing and mangling each other, what is left of them will sink down into that unenviable and well-merited contempt with which witch hangers and Quaker persecutors are now regarded; and the conservatives will then arrange and proceed with the affairs of the nation in a business—like manner, in all probability for generations to come, until, perhaps, another race of fanatics may be permitted to curse the earth by their presence, prove that nations, as well as individuals, may go mad, and demonstrate how beautifully the negro is to be elevated by white men exhibiting themselves incapable of self-government!