The president accordingly suggested to Mr. Memminger that the government buy this cotton, immediately ship it to Europe and there store it to await developments. His theory was that if war should come, it must be a long one and that in less than two years this cotton would be worth from seventy to eighty cents a pound, which would then give the government assets, convertible at any time into gold, of at least a billion dollars. The plan was sound and feasible, for a blockade did not become seriously effective until more than a year after the beginning of war, and we know the price of cotton went even beyond Mr. Davis' figures. The secretary, however, engrossed in the puerile plans of fiat money, which the history of almost any revolution, from the days of Adam, should have proved a warning, turned a deaf ear to this suggestion which at once combined profound statesmanship and admirable financial sagacity, and the matter came to naught. But this was only one of the many serious blunders and lapses which retarded the adequate preparation which all at a later day recognized should have been made by the Confederacy. When the stern logic of events portrayed this neglect as the parent of failure, the spirit of criticism emerged even in the South and failed not to spare Mr. Davis. But these critics have, for the most part, overlooked the very important fact that it was impossible for the president to accomplish a great deal without the co-operation of his Congress. The states' rights ideas, we must remember, were the predominant ones entertained by the people and their representatives, and that they, more than anything else, paralyzed action, promoted delays and fostered confusion, can admit of no doubt. The forts, arsenals, docks and shipyards belonged to the states, and although Mr. Davis early in his administration urged that they be ceded to the general government, it was not until war became a certainty that a reluctant consent was yielded and this most necessary step consummated. Another weakness lay in the fact that the provisional army, in so far as one existed, was formed on the states' rights plan. That is to say, it was composed of volunteers, armed and officered by the states, who alone possessed power over them. Any governor might at any time without any reason withdraw the troops of his state from the most important point at the most critical moment, without being answerable to any power for his action. These are but two examples of many that might be adduced, but they will serve to demonstrate how impossible it was for any man, whatever his influence or position, to make the preparations demanded by the situation while hedged about by such fatal limitations. And, whatever Mr. Davis' failures may have been in this regard, they are chargeable to the system adopted by the people themselves, rather than to any serious derelictions on his part. XIV. The Bombardment of Sumter