In obedience to the orders of the President of these United States of America I have landed on your shores with a small force of national troops. The dictates of a duty which, under these circumstances, I owe to a great sovereign State, and to a proud and hospitable people, among whom I have passed some of the pleasantest days of my life, prompt me to proclaim that we have come amongst you with no feelings of personal animosity; no desire to harm your citizens, destroy your property, or interfere with any of your lawful rights or your social and local institutions, beyond what the causes herein briefly alluded to may render unavoidable.
Citizens of South Carolina, the civilized world stands appalled at the course you are pursuing; appalled at the crime you are committing against your own mother—the best, the most enlightened, and heretofore the most prosperous of nations. You are in a state of active rebellion against the laws of your country. You have lawlessly seized upon the forts, arsenals, and other property belonging to our common country and within your borders. With this property you are in arms and waging a ruthless war against your constitutional Government, and thus threatening the existence of a Government which you are bound by the terms of a solemn compact to live under and faithfully support. In doing this you are not only undermining and preparing the way for totally ignoring your own political and social existence, but you are threatening the civilized world with the odious sentiment that self-government is impossible with civilized man.
Fellow-citizens, I implore you to pause and reflect upon the tenor and the consequences of your acts. If the awful sacrifices made by the devastation of our property, the shedding of fraternal blood in battle, the mourning and wailing of widows and orphans throughout our land, are insufficient to deter you from further pursuing this unholy war, then ponder, I beseech you, upon the ultimate but not less certain results which its much further progress must necessarily and naturally entail upon your once happy and prosperous State. Indeed, can you pursue this fratricidal war and continue to imbrue your hands in the loyal blood of your countrymen, your friends, your kinsmen, for no other object than to unlawfully disrupt the confederacy of a great people—a confederacy established by your own hands—in order to set up, were it possible, an independent government, under which you can never live in peace, prosperity, or quietness?
Carolinians, we have come among you as loyal men, fully impressed with our constitutional obligations to the citizens of your State. Those obligations shall be performed as far as in our power. But be not deceived. The obligation of suppressing armed combinations against the constitutional authorities is paramount to all others. If in the performance of this duty other minor but important obligations should be in any way neglected, it must be attributed to necessities of the case, because rights dependent on the laws of the State must be necessarily subordinate to military exigencies created by insurrection and rebellion.
Port Royal, S. C., November 8, 1861.
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