This prospect was especially alarming to the comparatively few men who owned so many slaves that they could not afford emancipation on any terms. Their wealth and leisure gave them complete control of politics, business, public opinion, and social life in the cotton States; where both press and pulpit were in bondage. Their influence was much less in the farming States than in 1850; but they had since come into such perfect union among themselves, as to constitute the most powerful aristocracy then extant. Their number may be judged from the fact that there were in 1850 about six thousand people in the cotton States who owned fifty slaves or more each. It was in the interest of these barons of slavery that South Carolina seceded soon after the election, and that her example was followed by Georgia and all the Gulf States before Lincoln was inaugurated. The Garrisonists wished to have them depart in peace; but there was a strong and general preference for another compromise. Lincoln and other Republicans insisted that the territories should be kept sacred to freedom, and that "The Union must be preserved." The question was settled by those aggressions on national property which culminated in the bombardment of Fort Sumter. Lincoln's call to arms was answered by a great uprising of the united North. Loyalty to the nation burst forth in so fierce a flame that abolitionists who had been trying for many years to extinguish it now welcomed it as the destined destroyer of slavery. War had been declared for the sole purpose of suppressing rebellion; and nothing more could at first have been attempted without violating the Constitution. Fugitives were sent back promptly by Federal generals, and anti-slavery songs forbidden in the camps. This policy seemed necessary to keep the North united, and prevent secession of doubtful States. Some of those already in revolt might thus, it was hoped, be induced to return voluntarily, or be conquered easily. These expectations were soon disappointed. A few of the slave States were kept in subjection by military force; but the people of the others united in a desperate resistance, with the aid of the slaves, who supplied the armies with food and laboured without complaint in camps and forts. But little was accomplished by the immense armies raised at the North; for the discipline was at first lax, and the generals were inefficient. Many defeats of Union armies by inferior forces showed how difficult it is for a nation that has enjoyed many years of peace to turn conqueror.