They had treasured all the extreme sayings of Northern Democrats about resisting the march of a Black Republican army towards the South, and offering their dead bodies as obstructions to its progress.

They believed, and had good reason for believing, that half the population of the North was opposed to the policy of subjugation, and they accepted the creed of Mr.
Buchanan that there was no power in the Constitution to coerce a sovereign State.
Never was popular delusion so suddenly and so completely dispelled.
The effect of the assault on Sumter and the lowering of the National flag to the forces of the Confederacy acted upon the North as an inspiration, consolidating public sentiment, dissipating all differences, bringing the whole people to an instant and unanimous determination to avenge the insult and re-establish the authority of the Union.

Yesterday there had been doubt and despondency; to- day had come assurance and confidence.

Yesterday there had been division; to-day there was unity.

The same issue of the morning paper that gave intelligence of the fall of Sumter, brought also a call from the President of the United States for seventy-five thousand men to aid him "in suppressing combinations against the law, too powerful to be suppressed by the ordinary course of judicial proceedings." He notified the people that "the first service assigned to the force hereby called forth will probably be to repossess the forts, places, and property which have been seized from the Union;" and he concluded by convening an extra session of Congress to assemble on the fourth day of the ensuing July.