Boston Daily Post, April 16, 1861

The spectacle our country presents, if inexpressibly painful, is most imposing. The constituted authorities, uttering the will and speaking the voice of the nation, in the exercise of their legitimate functions, have raised the standard of REPUBLICAN LAW. Let us think up to the magnitude of the great fact and solemnly of the dire necessity that occasioned it. The course of South Carolina, from first to last, has been arrogant, precipitate, unjust to her Southern sister States, and false to the first principles of Republican Government; and we do not see how a candid mind in the civilized world can justify her immediate attack, under the circumstances, on Fort Sumter because it was about to be supplied with provisions. This act of war made necessary the Presidential Proclamation.

This unsheaths the sword of the law, and there was no other course. But the good citizen will observe that the President is careful to say, that in every event the utmost care will be observed to avoid devastation, not to interfere with or destroy any property, or to disturb peaceful citizens in any part of the country. This is well put and must meet the approbation of every considerate mind. No people and no State have done more to exasperate than South Carolina; but not even for her peaceful citizens and her towns and cities is to be the devastation of war: if for nothing else, for the sake of old memories, that will come thronging in with every passing event.

At this call of the LAW, this great country, in the armed men springing to the rescue, now presents a spectacle that the world will contemplate with wonder. President Jefferson said in his first inaugural that it was a theoretic and visionary fear, that this republican government, the world's best hope, was not strong enough; or that it could, even by possibility, want energy to preserve itself; and he pronounced it to be the strongest government on the face of the earth. His words are:—"I believe it the only one where every man, at the call of the law, would fly to the standard of the law, and would meet invasions of the public order as his own personal concern." This is what the people are doing now! The uprising is tremendous; and well would it be for each good citizen, South and North, to feel this invasion of the public order at Fort Sumter as his own personal concern. In reality it is so. There is left no choice but between a support of the Government and anarchy! The rising shows that this is the feeling. The Proclamation calls for seventy-five thousand men; and from one State alone, Pennsylvania, a hundred thousand are at the President's command at forty-eight hours' notice! Nor is this all. Capitalists stand ready to tender millions upon millions of money to sustain the grand Government of the Fathers. Thus the civilized world will see the mighty energy of a free people, supplying in full measure the sinews of war, men and money, out of loyalty to the supremacy of law.

Patriotic citizen! choose you which you will serve, the world's best hope, our noble Republican Government, or that bottomless pit, social anarchy. Adjourn other issues until this self-preserving issue is settled. Hitherto a good Providence has smiled upon the American Union. This was the Morning Star that led on the men of the revolution. It is precisely the truth to say, that when those sages and heroes labored, they made UNION the vital condition of their labor. It was faith in Union that destroyed the Tea and that nerved the resistance to British aggression. Without it the patriots felt they were nothing, and with it they felt equal to all things. That Union flag they transmitted to their posterity. To-day it waves over those who are rallying under the standard of the LAW. And God grant, that in the end, as it is with Old Mother Country after wars between White and Red Roses, and Roundheads and Cavaliers, so it may be with the Daughter; that she may see PEACE in her borders, and all her children loving each other better than ever.