{
  "schema": "tga.work.v1",
  "identifier": "dresden:vol-11:sumters-gun",
  "slug": "sumters-gun",
  "title": "Sumter's Gun",
  "subtitle": "On the Civil War and its consequences.",
  "excerpt": "A reflection on Fort Sumter — the shot that began the Civil War, and the consequences that followed for slavery, for the Republic, and for the world.",
  "year": 1893,
  "volume": 11,
  "category": "Essay",
  "author": {
    "name": "Robert G. Ingersoll",
    "wikidata": "Q360326",
    "viaf": "44331023"
  },
  "isPartOf": {
    "title": "The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll",
    "edition": "Dresden Edition",
    "publisher": "C. P. Farrell",
    "year": 1900
  },
  "license": "https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/",
  "url": "https://thegreatagnostic.com/works/sumters-gun/",
  "wordCount": 577,
  "body": "1861—April 12th—1891\n\nFOR about three-quarters of a century the statesmen, that is to say, the\npoliticians, of the North and South', had been busy making compromises,\nadopting constitutions and enacting laws; busy making speeches, framing\nplatforms and political pretences, to the end that liberty and slavery\nmight dwell in peace and friendship under the same flag.\n\nArrogance on one side, hypocrisy on the other.\n\nRight apologized to Wrong for the sake of the Union.\n\nThe sources of justice were poisoned, and patriotism became the defender\nof piracy. In the name of humanity mothers were robbed of their babes.\n\nThirty years ago to-day a shot was fired, and in a moment all the\npromises, all the laws, all the constitutional amendments, and all\nthe idiotic and heartless decisions of courts, and all the speeches of\norators inspired by the hope of place and power, were blown into rags\nand ravelings, pieces and patches.\n\nThe North and South had been masquerading as friends, and in a moment,\nwhile the sound of that shot was ringing in their ears, they faced each\nother as enemies.\n\nThe roar of that cannon announced the birth of a new epoch. The echoes\nof that shot went out, not only over the bay of Charleston, but over the\nhills, the prairies and forests of the continent.\n\nThese echoes said marvelous things and uttered prophecies that none were\nwise enough to understand.\n\nWho at that time had the slightest conception of the immediate future?\nWho then was great enough to see the end? Who then was wise enough\nto know that the echoes would be kept alive and repeated for years by\nthousands and thousands of cannon, by millions of muskets, on the fields\nof ruthless war?\n\nAt that time Abraham Lincoln, an Illinois lawyer, was barely a month in\nthe President's chair, and that shot made him the most commanding and\nmajestic figure of the nineteenth century—a figure that stands alone.\n\nWho could have guessed the names of the heroes to be repeated by\ncountless lips before the echoes of that shot should have died away?\n\nThere was at that time a young man at Galena, silent, unobtrusive,\nunknown; and yet, the moment that shot was fired he was destined to lead\nthe greatest host ever marshaled on a field of war, destined to receive\nthe final sword of the Rebellion.\n\nThere was another, in the Southwest, who heard one of the echoes of that\nshot, and who afterward marched from Atlanta to the sea; and another,\nfar away by the Pacific, who also heard one of the echoes, and who\nbecame one of the immortal three.\n\nBut, above all, the echoes were heard by millions of men and women in\nthe fields of unpaid toil, and they knew not the meaning, but felt that\nthey had heard a prophecy of freedom. And the echoes told of death\nand glory for many thousands—of the agonies of women—the sobs of\norphans—the sighs of the imprisoned, and the glad shouts of the\ndelivered, the enfranchised, the redeemed.\n\nThey who fired that gun did not dream that they were giving liberty to\nmillions of people, including themselves, white as well as black, North\nas well as South, and that before the echoes should die away, all the\nshackles would be broken, all the constitutions and statutes of slavery\nrepealed, and all the compromises merged and lost in a great compact\nmade to preserve the liberties of all.\n"
}