How far Douglas still believed in the possibility of saving the Union through compromise, it is impossible to say.  Publicly he continued to talk in an optimistic strain.[974] On March 25th, he expressed his satisfaction in the Senate that only one danger-point remained; Fort Sumter, he understood, was to be evacuated.[975] But among his friends no one looked into the future with more anxiety than he.  Intimations from the South that citizens of the United States would probably be excluded from the courts of the Confederacy, wrung from him the admission that such action would be equivalent to war.[976] He noted anxiously the evident purpose of the Confederated States to coerce Kentucky and Virginia into secession.[977] Indeed, it is probable that before the Senate adjourned, his ultimate hope was to rally the Union men in the border States.[978]

When President Lincoln at last determined to send supplies to Fort Sumter, the issue of peace or war rested with Jefferson Davis and his cabinet at Montgomery.  Early on the morning of April 12th, a shell, fired from a battery in Charleston harbor, burst directly over Fort Sumter, proclaiming to anxious ears the close of an era.

* * * * *

FOOTNOTES: 

[Footnote 892:  Rhodes, History of the United States, III, pp. 116 ff.]

[Footnote 893:  Rhodes, History of the United States, III, pp. 131-132.]

[Footnote 894:  Chicago Times and Herald, December 7, 1860.]

[Footnote 895:  Ibid.]

[Footnote 896:  Globe, 36 Cong., 2 Sess., p. 12.]

[Footnote 897:  Ibid., p. 29.]

[Footnote 898:  Ibid., p. 3.]

[Footnote 899:  Ibid., pp. 11-12.]

[Footnote 900:  Globe, 36 Cong., 2 Sess., p. 28.]

[Footnote 901:  Ibid., p. 57.]

[Footnote 902:  Globe, 36 Cong., 2 Sess., p. 52.]

[Footnote 903:  Rhodes, History of the United States, III, pp. 151-153.]

[Footnote 904:  Report of the Committee of Thirteen, pp. 11-12.]

[Footnote 905:  Globe, 36 Cong., 2 Sess., p. 158.]

[Footnote 906:  December 21st.]

[Footnote 907:  MS. Letter, Douglas to C.H.  Lanphier, December 25, 1860.]

[Footnote 908:  Report of the Committee of Thirteen, p. 16.]

[Footnote 909:  Ibid., p. 18.]

[Footnote 910:  McPherson, Political History of the Rebellion, p. 38.]

[Footnote 911:  Globe, 36 Cong., 2 Sess., App., p. 35.]

[Footnote 912:  Ibid., p. 38.]

[Footnote 913:  Globe, 36 Cong., 2 Sess., App., p. 39.  It is not unlikely that Douglas may have been reassured on this point by some communication from Lincoln himself.  The Diary of a Public Man (North American Review, Vol. 129,) p. 130, gives the impression that they had been in correspondence.  Personal relations between them had been cordial even in 1859, just after the debates; See Publication No. 11, of the Illinois Historical Library, p. 191.]