In December, 1860, South Carolina seceded, then other states; so that before Mr. Lincoln began his duties as President the seven cotton states had seceded. Believing that they had a right to do so, they formed a government of their own and assumed a warlike attitude to the general government. =306. The Momentous Responsibilities of the Position.=--We have traced the poor boy of the Western cabin step by step up to the highest office of the nation, to rule as the chief magistrate of thirty millions of people. It was not a nation in peace, but torn asunder, each half in deadly conflict with the other. Upon him were to rest the control of vast armies, of a great navy, the decision of questions of unspeakable importance, and the solution of most perplexing international problems. Can this self-trained lawyer from the Western prairies bear all this sudden and tremendous burden, and bear it with courage, credit, and success? Surely no man of modern times ever faced a greater or more difficult task. =307. War begins; the Effect at the North and in the South.=--The next month (April 12, 1861) after Lincoln's inauguration, Fort Sumter, in Charleston Harbor, was attacked by a circle of nineteen hostile batteries. After thirty-six hours of furious bombardment, Major Anderson, his powder and food being exhausted, his flagstaff shot away, his fort crumbling and on fire, felt that he could do nothing but surrender. He and his little force, carrying with them their tattered flag, were taken on board a Union ship to New York. The shots fired at Sumter kindled another fire all through the North. A conflagration of patriotic zeal flamed up all over the loyal states. The people accepted instantly the awful challenge and sternly resolved to defend the endangered Union at every hazard. Both sides had been deceived. Vast numbers through the North had not believed the slave states would really carry out their threat of secession. Vast numbers through the South had always believed the North would never fight, but at the last moment would consent to some sort of compromise. Northern men felt that they had in no way wronged the South, that no act of theirs and no word of President Lincoln had given cause for precipitating the horrors of a civil war. Southern men claimed that according to the Declaration of Independence all governments derive their power from the consent of the governed, and that the South had a right to withdraw its consent and establish a government of its own. Although there were some disloyal men all through the North, political parties vied with each other in the fervor of general devotion to one country and one flag. The President's call for seventy-five thousand volunteers was answered by the enthusiastic enlistment of the whole number.