1

What the Traitors Demand.

The traitors demand of Mr. LINCOLN that which it is impossible for him to grant, even if he had the disposition. The forts located in the seceded States belong to the United States, and Mr. LINCOLN has no more right to give them up than the traitors have to steal them. He not only has no right to give them up, but he is under a solemn obligation to hold and protect them, and in our judgement to recover them when lost. Jeff. Davis and his confederates in treason know this as well as we do, but they know that they have an ignorant class of people to deal with at home — a class whom they can humbug into the belief that the forts located in their States belong to them, and that Mr. Lincoln wrongfully holds possession of them, and that he refuses to give them up because he hates the people of the South. These men well know that their demands cannot be complied with. What then? Why, they will make the mass of their people believe that they are oppressed by an Abolition Administration, and array them in arms against their Government. South Carolina started out in the secession movement with a full recognition of the rightfulness of the claim of the United States to the Government property in that State, and she seized it under a promise to pay for it on settlement with the Federal Government. But now the claim of the United States to property in the seceded States is denied and entirely ignored, and the howl set up that the Federal Government is coercing and oppressing the people of the South by attempting to enforce its claim.

This is the frivolous pretext upon which civil war has been inaugurated by the traitors.