" Had an
ordnance-sergeant there represented the Federal Government, had there
been no troops, no physical power to protect it, I would have pledged my
life upon the issue that no question ever would have been made as to its
seizure. Now, not only there, but elsewhere, we find movements of troops
further to complicate this question, and probably to precipitate us upon
the issue of civil war; and, worse than all, this Government, reposing
on the consent of the governed; this Government, strong in the
affections of the people; this Government (I describe it as our fathers
made it) is now furtively sending troops to occupy positions lest "the
mob" should seize them. When before in the history of our land was it
that a mob could resist the sound public opinion of the country? When
before was it that an unarmed magistrate had not the power, by crying,
"I command the peace," to quell a mob in any portion of the land? Yet
now we find, under cover of night, troops detached from one position to
occupy another. Fort Washington, standing in its lonely grandeur, and
overlooking the home of the Father of his Country, near by the place
where the ashes of Washington repose, built there to prevent a foreign
foe from coming up the Potomac with armed ships to take the
capital--Fort Washington is garrisoned by marines sent secretly away
from the navy yard at Washington. And Fort McHenry, memorable in our
history as the place where, under bombardment, the star-spangled banner
floated through the darkness of night, the point which was consecrated
by our national song--Fort McHenry, too, has been garrisoned by a
detachment of marines, sent from this place in an extra train, and sent
under cover of the night, so that even the mob should not know it.
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