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"But the indications from the North and the South are that the arbitrament of war is to be resorted to for a solution and decision of our troubles. This is not the choice of Tennessee. Let that be understood at the outset. [...] Shall we assist in a war of subjugation against our Southern brethren? Shall we aid in the permanent overthrow of a government to which we are so devotedly attached [...] Or, shall we, by an act of revolution dissolve our relations with that government, and join the “Confederate States?”"

Tennessee had voted down a secession convention on February 9 by a wide margin. Here, on the day the guns open, a Unionist paper states the question the upper South will actually be asked — not whether secession was right, but which side to join once the shooting starts. Tennessee seceded on June 8. Three passages joined with [...].

Read it in the original — Nashville Daily Patriot, Apr 12, 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 ↗