ery, Alabama, adopted a constitution, set up a provisional government-the Confederate States of America-and elected Jefferson Davis as their president. By March 2, when Texas officially joined the Confederacy, the new government had seized nearly all of the Federal forts and navy yards in these Seven States (Davis 159). Fort Sumter was one of the few that remained in Federal hands.
             At his inaugural, Lincoln promised not to initiate hostilities against the South but nevertheless to "hold occupy and possess the property and places belonging to the government"(McPherson 268). One of the possessions he was talking about was the military post of Fort Sumter. Secretary of State William Seward was foremost in urging that the fort be abandoned in order to appease the south and keep the issue from being seen as one of slavery versus abolitionism. Against all such urgings, Lincoln remained firm on his decisions.
             Davis was equally distressed. He was faced with the problem of whether to await the hoped for Northern evacuation of the fort or to order a Southern attack. It was an unpleasant dilemma. To allow a military force of Northern troops to remain in a fort in the harbor of one of its chief cities would appear to indicate the confederacy was neither independent nor in earnest about becoming so. Ultimately, Davis did not want to appear weak in any sense. On the other hand, to attack the fort would be to take upon the South the burden of firing the first shot and initiating a civil war, make the south appear the aggressor, rather than the victim of aggression, as Davis and most other Southerns believed it to be. Meanwhile, the south clamored for Davis to take some sort of action. In addition, Davis surly knew that the border states would never join the Confederacy unless they proved their power to free themselves. An Alabama newspaper even suggested that:
             The spirit and even the partiotism of the people is oozing out under th...