JULY 4, 1861.

_Fellow-Citizens of the Senate and House of Representatives_:

Having been convened on an extraordinary occasion, as authorized by the
Constitution, your attention is not called to any ordinary subject of
legislation.

At the beginning of the present Presidential term, four months ago, the
functions of the Federal Government were found to be generally suspended
within the several States of South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama,
Mississippi, Louisiana, and Florida, excepting only those of the
Post-Office Department.

Within these States all the forts, arsenals, dockyards, custom-houses,
and the like, including the movable and stationary property in and
about them, had been seized and were held in open hostility to this
Government, excepting only Forts Pickens, Taylor, and Jefferson, on and
near the Florida coast, and Fort Sumter, in Charleston Harbor, South
Carolina. The forts thus seized had been put in improved condition,
new ones had been built, and armed forces had been organized and were
organizing, all avowedly with the same hostile purpose.

The forts remaining in the possession of the Federal Government in
and near these States were either besieged or menaced by warlike
preparations, and especially Fort Sumter was nearly surrounded by
well-protected hostile batteries, with guns equal in quality to the
best of its own and outnumbering the latter as perhaps ten to one. A
disproportionate share of the Federal muskets and rifles had somehow
found their way into these States, and had been seized to be used