Disunion Feed

"Supplies must be lodged in Fort Sumter at all hazards and against all opposition from armed rebels. It is carrying conciliation to its extreme when the government gives fair notice of its purpose, and contents itself with only sending the needed provisions. If the rebels fire at an unarmed supply ship, and make a perfectly proper act the pretext for shedding the blood of loyal citizens, on their heads be the responsibility. [...] The thought uppermost to-day in the popular mind is “Down with rebellion!”"

Lincoln's decision — resupply the fort, tell South Carolina in advance, send provisions only — reaches the public, and a Republican paper immediately frames the trap it sets: if the guns open on a bread ship, the responsibility is fixed. Two passages joined with [...]. Compare se-047, the same maneuver read as a deliberate decoy.

Read it in the original — New York Evening Post, Apr 10, 1861 ↗

"This unarmed vessel, it is well understood, is a mere decoy to draw the first fire from the people of the South, which act by the pre-determination of the government is to be the pretext for letting loose the horrors of war. It dare not itself fire the first shot or draw the first blood, and is now seeking by a mean artifice to transfer the odium of doing so to the Southern Confederacy."

Printed the morning the bombardment began, though written before the news arrived. It reads Lincoln's provisions-only expedition exactly as se-046 does — as a maneuver to fix the blame for the first shot — and draws the opposite conclusion. One contiguous passage, no splice.

Read it in the original — Jersey City American Standard, Apr 12, 1861 ↗