And yet during the whole time that Anderson was in Sumter not a single ship had been threatened. Not a single ship had been fired upon. Ships were entering and leaving Charleston up to the day the South bombarded it into surrender.
Philadelphia Press, January 15, 1861
Northern newspapers did not run the country. In the almost three months following that editorial the guns of Sumter were not used, as the Philadelphia press demanded, to enforce their laws.
The mere presence of a presumably hostile force at the entrance to one of your major ports is itself a deterrent of trade. Nobody wants to be the first to learn that they may be fired upon by a change in policy that occurred while they were crossing the Atlantic.
Have you never heard of the "Sword of Damocles"? Same principle.
Northern newspapers did not run the country.
They influenced the people, and who can say that what is editorial opinion one day is not going to be National policy the next? Certainly the Chicago Newspapers got the war for which they called.