him that Congress would sustain him; he determined, therefore, to meet the menace at the threshold and to have the leaders arrested and arraigned for treason. He tried to encourage the Union leaders by assuring them that in forty days he could have fifty thousand men within the limits of South Carolina, and. in forty days more another fifty thousand. "How impotent," he wrote, is "the threat of resistance with only a population of 250,000 whites and nearly double that in blacks, with our ships in the port to aid in the execution of our laws. The wickedness, madness, and folly of the leaders and the delusion of their followers, in the attempt to destroy themselves and our Union, has not its parallel in the history of the world. The Union will be preserved."[1]
The President's proclamation was printed by the Union leaders in large editions to circulate throughout the districts. It would serve to give courage to the Union men and might convince others of the error of their ways.[2] In no uncertain terms the President declared that he considered
