They now leaned toward demanding that Anderson surrender the fort, and if he refused, then ordering Beauregard to destroy it. As this debate was underway, Confederate Secretary of State Toombs joined the meeting. Once he grasped that his fellow cabinet members were discussing whether to attack Sumter, he objected. “Mr. President,” he said, “at this time it is suicide, murder, and will lose us every friend at the North. You will wantonly strike a hornet’s nest which extends from mountain to ocean, and legions now quiet will swarm out and sting us to death. It is unnecessary; it puts us in the
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