X. 1857-1861…

X. 1857-1861

FOREIGN RELATIONS DURING MR. BUCHANAN’S ADMINISTRATION.

The internal affairs of the country during the administration of Mr. Buchanan occupied so much of the public attention at the time, and have since been a subject of so much interest, that his management of our foreign relations has been quite obscured. Before I approach the troubled period which witnessed the beginning of the Southern revolt, I shall describe, with as much brevity as I can use, whatever is most important in the relations of the United States with other countries, that transpired during his Presidency.

It will be seen, hereafter, from what he recorded in his private papers at the time of the resignation of General Cass from the State Department, in the latter part of the year 1860, that Mr. Buchanan had to be virtually his own Secretary of State, until Judge Black succeeded to that office. This was less irksome to him than it might have been to other Presidents, because of his great familiarity with the diplomatic history of the country, and his experience in the diplomatic service. His strong personal regard for General Cass, whose high character, as well as his political standing in the party of which they were both members, and the demand of the Western States, had been the reasons for offering to him the Department of State, made Mr. Buchanan patient and kind towards one who did not render him much aid in the business of that office. Mr. Buchanan, too, was a man who never shrank from labor. His industry was incessant and untiring; it did not flag with his advancing years; and it was an industry applied, in foreign affairs, to matters of which he had a fuller and more intimate knowledge than any American statesman of his time who was living when he became President of the United States. His private papers bear ample testimony to the minute and constant attention which he gave to the foreign relations of the country, and to the extent of his employment of his own pen. He wrote with great facility, precision and clearness, from a mind stored with historical information and the principles of public law. There was no topic and no question in the foreign relations of the United States on which his knowledge did not come readily and promptly to his hand. In this respect, with the exception of Mr. Jefferson and Mr. John Quincy Adams, we have as yet had no President who was his superior, or his equal. Like them, he had passed through the office of Secretary of State, as well as through very important foreign missions; an advantage which always tells in the office of President, when it is combined with the qualifications that are peculiar to American statesmanship.

First in importance, if not in dignity, the relations of the United States with England, at any period of our history, and the mode in which they were handled, are topics of permanent interest. How often these two kindred nations have been on the verge of war, and how that peril has been encountered and averted cannot cease to be instructive. Nor is it of less consequence to note the course of a President, who, during an administration fraught with the most serious hazards to the internal relations of the United States with each other, kept steadily in view the preservation of peace and good will between the United States and Great Britain, while he abated nothing from our just claims or our national dignity. Mr. Buchanan left to his successor no unsettled question between these two nations, that was of any immediate importance, and he left the feeling between them and their respective governments in a far better condition than he found it on his accession to the Presidency, and in a totally different state from that which ensued after the beginning of our civil war.

But when he became President, two irritating and dangerous questions were pending, inherited from former administrations. The first of these related, as we have seen, to the British claim of a protectorate over the Mosquito coast, and to the establishment of colonial government over the Bay Islands; territories that belonged respectively to the feeble republics of Nicaragua and Honduras. It has been seen in a former chapter how the ambiguity of the Clayton-Bulwer treaty had led the British government to adopt a construction of it which would support these claims, and which would justify the pretension that by that treaty the United States had receded from what was called the “Monroe Doctrine.” This treaty, concluded in 1850 by the administration of General Taylor, was supposed in this country to have settled these questions in favor of the United States, and that Great Britain would withdraw from the territories of Nicaragua and Honduras. But she did not withdraw. Her ministers continued to claim that the treaty only restrained her from making future acquisitions in Central America, and that the true inference from this was that she could hold her existing possessions. It was, as has been seen, in the hope of settling this question, that Mr. Buchanan accepted the mission to England in 1853. Why it was not settled at that time, has been already stated in detail. It remained to be amicably and honorably settled, under his advice and approbation, after he became President, by treaties between Great Britain and the two Central American States, in accordance with the American construction of the Clayton-Bulwer treaty.

The long standing question in regard to the right of search came into the hands of President Buchanan at a moment and under circumstances that required the most vigorous action. The belligerent right of search, exercised by Great Britain in the maritime wars of 1812, had been a cause of constant irritation to the people of this country. In progress of time, England undertook to assert a right to detain and search merchantmen on the high seas, in time of peace, suspected of being engaged in the slave trade. There was no analogy, even, in this to the belligerent right of visitation and search, whatever the latter might comprehend. An accommodation, rather than a settlement, of this claim was made in the treaty of 1842, negotiated between Lord Ashburton and Mr. Webster, by which each nation agreed to keep a squadron of its own on the coast of Africa, for the suppression of the slave trade when carried on under their respective flags, or under any claim or use of their flags, or by their subjects or citizens respectively. Although this stipulation was accompanied by a very forcible declaration made by Mr. Webster, under the direction of President Tyler, that the American Government admitted of no right of visitation and search of merchant vessels in time of peace, England did not wholly abandon or renounce her claim of a right to detain and search all vessels on the high seas which the commanders of her cruisers might suspect to be slave traders. In the spring of 1858, a number of small cruisers which had been employed in the Crimean war was despatched by the British government to the coast of Cuba and the Gulf of Mexico, with orders to search all merchantmen suspected to be engaged in the slave trade. The presence of these cruisers, acting under such orders, in waters traversed in all directions by American vessels engaged in the foreign and coastwise trade, became most alarming. Nor was the alarm lessened by the manner in which the orders were carried out. Many American vessels were stopped and searched rudely and offensively. A loud call was made upon the President to interfere. A general indignation broke forth in all quarters of the Union. President Buchanan, always vigilant in protecting the commerce of the country, but mindful of the importance of preventing any necessity for war, remonstrated to the English government against this violation of the freedom of the seas.

Still, the occasion required, in the opinion of the President, that remonstrance should be backed by force. Great Britain had thought proper, without warning, to send a force into waters filled with American commerce, with orders to do what she had not the smallest right to do. It was a very aggressive proceeding to be taken against the commerce of a nation that had always denied the alleged right of search as a right to be exercised in time of peace for any purpose whatever. A very large naval force was at once despatched to the neighborhood of Cuba, by order of the President, with instructions “to protect all vessels of the United States on the high seas from search or detention by the vessels of war of any other nation.” Any one of the cruisers sent on this mission could have resisted a ship of the largest class. The effect was most salutary. The British government receded, recalled their orders, abandoned the claim of the right of search, and recognized the principle of international law in favor of the freedom of the seas. This was the end of a long controversy between the two governments.[39]

Footnote 39:

The Senate, although at a late period, unanimously approved of the instructions given to the Secretary of the Navy, and by him carried out. (See Congressional Globe, 1858-9, p. 3061; Senate Documents, vol. IV, p. 3, Report of the Secretary of the Navy.)

During the whole of Mr. Buchanan’s administration our relations with Mexico were in a complicated and critical position, in consequence of the internal condition of that country and of the danger of interference by European powers. Mr. Buchanan has himself concisely and accurately described the state of things in Mexico at the time of his accession to the Presidency, and down to the end of the year 1859, and I therefore quote his description, rather than make one of my own:

That republic has been in a state of constant revolution ever since it achieved its independence from Spain. The various constitutions adopted from time to time had been set at naught almost as soon as proclaimed; and one military leader after another, in rapid succession, had usurped the government. This fine country, blessed with a benign climate, a fertile soil, and vast mineral resources, was reduced by civil war and brigandage to a condition of almost hopeless anarchy. Meanwhile, our treaties with the republic were incessantly violated. Our citizens were imprisoned, expelled from the country, and in some instances murdered. Their vessels, merchandise, and other property were seized and confiscated. While the central government at the capital were acting in this manner, such was the general lawlessness prevailing, that different parties claiming and exercising local authority in several districts were committing similar outrages on our citizens. Our treaties had become a dead letter, and our commerce with the republic was almost entirely destroyed. The claims of American citizens filed in the State Department, for which they asked the interposition of their own Government with that of Mexico to obtain redress and indemnity, exceeded $10,000,000. Although this amount may have been exaggerated by the claimants, still their actual losses must have been very large.[40]

Footnote 40:

List of Claims, Senate Executive Documents, p. 18, 2d session 35th Congress, President’s Message.

In all these cases as they occurred our successive ministers demanded redress, but their demands were only followed by new injuries. Their testimony was uniform and emphatic in reference to the only remedy which in their judgments would prove effectual. “Nothing but a manifestation of the power of the Government of the United States,” wrote Mr. John Forsyth, our minister in 1856, “and of its purpose to punish these wrongs will avail. I assure you that the universal belief here is, that there is nothing to be apprehended from the Government of the United States, and that local Mexican officials can commit these outrages upon American citizens with absolute impunity.”

In the year 1857 a favorable change occurred in the affairs of the republic, inspiring better hopes for the future. A constituent congress, elected by the people of the different States for this purpose, had framed and adopted a republican constitution. It adjourned on the 17th February, 1857, having provided for a popular election to be held in July for a president and members of congress. At this election General Comonfort was chosen president almost without opposition. His term of office was to commence on the 1st of December, 1857, and to continue for four years. In case his office should become vacant, the constitution had provided that the chief justice of Mexico, then General Juarez, should become president, until the end of the term. On the 1st December, 1857, General Comonfort appeared before the congress then in session, took the oath to support the constitution, and was duly inaugurated.

But the hopes thus inspired for the establishment of a regular constitutional government soon proved delusive. President Comonfort, within one brief month, was driven from the capital and the republic by a military rebellion headed by General Zuloaga; and General Juarez consequently became the constitutional president of Mexico until the 1st day of December, 1861. General Zuloaga instantly assumed the name of president with indefinite powers; and the entire diplomatic corps, including the minister from the United States, made haste to recognize the authority of the usurper without awaiting instructions from their respective governments. But Zuloaga was speedily expelled from power. Having encountered the resistance of the people in many parts of the republic, and a large portion of the capital having “pronounced” against him, he was in turn compelled to relinquish the presidency. The field was now cleared for the elevation of General Miramon. He had from the beginning been the favorite of the so-called “Church party,” and was ready to become their willing instrument in maintaining the vast estates and prerogatives of the Church, and in suppressing the Liberal constitution. An assembly of his partisans, called together without even the semblance of authority, elected him president, but he warily refused to accept the office at their hands. He then resorted to another but scarcely more plausible expedient to place himself in power. This was to identify himself with General Zuloaga, who had just been deposed, and to bring him again upon the stage as president. Zuloaga accordingly reappeared in this character, but his only act was to appoint Miramon “president substitute,” when he again retired. It is under this title that Miramon has since exercised military authority in the city of Mexico, expecting by this stratagem to appropriate to himself the recognition of the foreign ministers which had been granted to Zuloaga. He succeeded. The ministers continued their relations with him as “president substitute” in the same manner as if Zuloaga had still remained in power. It was by this farce, for it deserves no better name, that Miramon succeeded in grasping the presidency. The idea that the chief of a nation at his own discretion may transfer to whomsoever he please the trust of governing, delegated to him for the benefit of the people, is too absurd to receive a moment’s countenance. But when we reflect that Zuloaga, from whom Miramon derived his title, was himself a military usurper, having expelled the constitutional president (Comonfort) from office, it would have been a lasting disgrace to the Mexican people had they tamely submitted to the yoke. To such an imputation a large majority proved themselves not to be justly exposed. Although, on former occasions, a seizure of the capital and the usurpation of power by a military chieftain had been generally followed, at least for a brief season, by an acquiescence of the Mexican people, yet they now rose boldly and independently to defend their rights.

President Juarez, after having been driven from the city of Mexico by Zuloaga, proceeded to form a constitutional government at Guanajuato. From thence he removed to Vera Cruz, where he put his administration in successful operation. The people in many portions of the republic rallied in its support and flew to arms. A civil war thus began between the friends of the constitution and the partisans of Miramon. In this conflict it was not possible for the American people to remain indifferent spectators. They naturally favored the cause of President Juarez, and expressed ardent wishes for his success. Meanwhile Mr. Forsyth, the American minister, still continued at the city of Mexico in the discharge of his official duties until June, 1858, when he suspended his diplomatic relations with the Miramon government, until he should ascertain the decision of the President. Its outrages towards American citizens and its personal indignities towards himself, without hope of amendment or redress, rendered his condition no longer tolerable. Our relations, bad as they had been under former governments, had now become still worse under that of Miramon. President Buchanan approved the step which Mr. Forsyth had taken. He was consequently directed to demand his passports, to deposit the archives of the legation with Mr. Black, our consul at the city of Mexico, and to proceed to Vera Cruz, where an armed steamer would be in readiness to convey himself and family to the United States.[41]

Footnote 41:

Letter of General Cass to Mr. Forsyth, July 15th, 1858. Senate Documents, 1858-1859, vol. i., p. 48

Thus was all diplomatic intercourse finally terminated with the government of Miramon, whilst none had been organized with that of Juarez. The President entertained some hope that this rupture of diplomatic relations might cause Miramon to reflect seriously on the danger of war with the United States, and might at least arrest future outrages on our citizens. Instead of this, however, he persisted in his course of violence against the few American citizens who had the courage to remain under his power. The President, in his message of December, 1859,[42] informs Congress that “murders of a still more atrocious character have been committed in the very heart of Mexico, under the authority of Miramon’s government, during the present year. Some of these were worthy only of a barbarous age, and if they had not been clearly proven, would have seemed impossible in a country which claims to be civilized.” And in that of December, 1860, he says: “To cap the climax, after the battle of Tacubaya, in April, 1859, General Marquez ordered three citizens of the United States, two of them physicians, to be seized in the hospital at that place, taken out and shot, without crime, and without trial. This was done, notwithstanding our unfortunate countrymen were at the moment engaged in the holy cause of affording relief to the soldiers of both parties who had been wounded in the battle, without making any distinction between them.”

Footnote 42:

House Journal, p. 207.

“Little less shocking was the recent fate of Ormond Chase, who was shot in Tepic, on the 7th August, by order of the same Mexican general, not only without a trial, but without any conjecture by his friends of the cause of his arrest.” He was represented to have been a young man of good character and intelligence, who had made numerous friends in Tepic, and his unexpected execution shocked the whole community. “Other outrages,” the President states, “might be enumerated; but these are sufficient to illustrate the wretched state of the country and the unprotected condition of the persons and property of our citizens in Mexico.”

“The wrongs which we have suffered from Mexico are before the world, and must deeply impress every American citizen. A government which is either unable or unwilling to redress such wrongs, is derelict to its highest duties.”

Meanwhile, the civil war between the parties was conducted with various success, but the scale preponderated in favor of the constitutional cause. Ere long the government of Juarez extended its authority, and was acknowledged in all the important ports and throughout the sea-coasts and external territory of the republic; whilst the power of Miramon was confined to the city of Mexico and the surrounding States.

The final triumph of Juarez became so probable, that President Buchanan deemed it his duty to inquire and ascertain whether, according to our constant usage in such cases, he might not recognize the constitutional government. For the purpose of obtaining reliable information on this point, he sent a confidential agent to Mexico to examine and report the actual condition and prospects of the belligerents. In consequence of his report, as well as of intelligence from other sources, he felt justified in appointing a new minister to the Mexican republic. For this office Mr. Robert M. McLane, a distinguished citizen of Maryland, was selected. He proceeded on his mission on the 8th March, 1859, invested “with discretionary authority to recognize the government of President Juarez, if on his arrival in Mexico he should find it entitled to such recognition, according to the established practice of the United States.” In consequence, on the 7th of April, Mr. McLane recognized the constitutional government by presenting his credentials to President Juarez, having no hesitation, as he said, “in pronouncing the government of Juarez to be the only existing government of the republic.” He was cordially received by the authorities at Vera Cruz, who have ever since manifested the most friendly disposition toward the United States.

Unhappily, however, the constitutional government, though supported by a large majority, both of the people and of the several Mexican States, had not been able to expel Miramon from the capital. In the opinion of the President, it had now become the imperative duty of Congress to act without further delay, and to enforce redress from the government of Miramon for the wrongs it had committed in violation of the faith of treaties against citizens of the United States.

Toward no other government would we have manifested so long and so patient a forbearance. This arose from our warm sympathies for a neighboring republic. The territory under the sway of Miramon around the capital was not accessible to our forces without passing through the States under the jurisdiction of the constitutional government. But this from the beginning had aways manifested the warmest desire to cultivate the most friendly relations with our country. No doubt was therefore entertained that it would cheerfully grant us the right of passage. Moreover, it well knew that the expulsion of Miramon would result in the triumph of the constitutional government and its establishment over the whole territory of Mexico. What was, also, deemed of great importance by the President, this would remove from us the danger of a foreign war in support of the Monroe doctrine against any European nation which might be tempted, by the distracted condition of the republic, to interfere forcibly in its internal affairs under the pretext of restoring peace and order.[43]

Footnote 43:

Buchanan’s Defence, p. 267 et seq.

It is now necessary to trace the President’s policy in regard to these Mexican affairs, for the remainder of his term after the commencement of the session of Congress in December, 1859. He saw very clearly that unless active measures should be taken by the Government of the United States to reach a power with which a settlement of all claims and difficulties could be effected, some other nation would undertake to establish a government in Mexico, and the United States would then have to interfere, not only to secure the rights of their citizens, but to assert the principle of the “Monroe Doctrine,” which, according to the long standing American claim, opposes European establishments upon any part of this continent. He had his eye especially at this time upon the Emperor of the French, whose colonizing policy for France was well known, and who, Mr. Buchanan was well informed, was exercising, through his minister, great influence over Miramon. It was morally certain that if our Congress did not give the President the means necessary either to uphold the constitutional government of Juarez, or to compel the government of Miramon to do justice to our citizens, he would be involved in the necessity for counteracting the designs of Louis Napoleon. If this would be an interference with the internal affairs of a foreign nation, contrary to our long avowed policy, was not this an exceptional case? Mexico was our neighbor, with whom our social, commercial and political relations were very close. She had no settled government. Without the friendly aid of some external power, she could have no government that could preserve her internal peace, or fulfill her treaty obligations. She was, as Mr. Buchanan forcibly said, “a wreck upon the ocean, drifting about as she is impelled by different factions.” What power could more safely and appropriately undertake to assist her in establishing a settled government than the great neighboring Republic of the United States, whose people and rulers could have no desire to see her depart from the principles of constitutional and republican institutions? And if the United States had wrongs of their own citizens for which to seek redress and indemnification from the Mexican nation, was that a reason for refusing to do whatever might appropriately be done towards assisting any government which the Mexican people might be disposed to support and acknowledge, to acquire the position and authority of a legitimate representative of the nation? It seemed to President Buchanan that there were but two alternatives: either to march a force into Mexico which would be sufficient to enable the constitutional government to reach the capital and extend its power over the whole republic, or to let things drift in uncertainty until Louis Napoleon should interfere. If the United States would act in concert with the constitutional government, the President believed that their consent and co-operation could be obtained. If the United States did nothing, the French would enter the country and the whole condition of affairs would become more complicated than they had ever been.

Accordingly, the President, in his message to Congress, of December 19th, 1859, recommended the passage of a law, authorizing him, under such conditions as Congress might deem expedient, to employ a sufficient military force to enter Mexico for the purpose of obtaining indemnity for the past and security for the future. After explaining the necessity and expediency of this step, and pointing out in what manner this force could aid the constitutional government of Juarez, he said that if this were not done, “it would not be surprising should some other nation undertake the task, and thus force us to interfere at last, under circumstances of increased difficulty, for the maintenance of our established policy.” The entire session of 1859-60 passed away without any notice being taken in Congress of this recommendation. The attention of that body was absorbed in discussions about slavery, and in shaping the politics of the next Presidential election. If the President’s recommendation about Mexico had been discussed, we might have been able to judge whether his political opponents were fearful that more territory would be acquired from Mexico, for the further extension of slavery. But in regard to any such result of the mode in which the President proposed to secure an indemnification of the claims of our citizens, it is to be observed that according to the terms of his recommendation, it would rest entirely with Congress to fix the preceding conditions of the intervention, and that if a treaty were to follow or precede, it would have to be ratified by the Senate.

The President again brought this subject before Congress by his annual message of December, 1860. Mr. Lincoln had now been elected President and the foreign relations of the country would in three months be in his hands. At this time, however, it had become still more necessary for the United States Government to determine, and to determine promptly, whether it would leave American citizens to the mercy of Miramon’s government, or whether it would do something to establish the constitutional government of Juarez. Again the President repeated the warning that foreign powers would interfere if this matter were to be much longer neglected, although at that moment informal and verbal assurances had been given by some of the European diplomatists in Mexico that such interference was not intended. Congress, however, spent the whole winter of 1860-61 in a dreary discussion of our internal affairs, without either making any effort to arrest the spread of secession by conciliatory measures, or doing anything to strengthen the hands of the President or his successor.

But it had been for some time apparent to Mr. Buchanan that our relations with Mexico could not be left in the condition in which they stood. Both to satisfy the long deferred claims of our citizens, and to prevent foreign interference with the internal affairs of Mexico, he had instructed Mr. McLane to make a treaty with the Constitutional government. On the 14th of December, 1859, a “Treaty of Transit and Commerce” was signed between the Mexican Republic and the United States, and also a “Convention to enforce treaty stipulations, and to maintain order and security in the territory of the Republics of Mexico and the United States.” Great advantages of trade, transit and commerce were secured by these arrangements. The United States was to pay $4,000,000 for the surrender of certain Mexican duties, two millions to be paid down, and two millions to be reserved and distributed to the American claimants who could prove their injuries. With the two millions to be placed in the hands of the constitutional government, it was expected that it would be able to expel the usurping government from the capital and establish itself over the whole territory of the republic. All acquisition of further Mexican territory was thus avoided. If this treaty had been approved by the Senate of the United States, the empire of Maximilian would never have been heard of. The American negotiator, Mr. McLane, in his despatch to the Secretary of State, dated on the day this treaty and convention were signed at Vera Cruz, expressed his apprehension that if they were not ratified, further anarchy would prevail in Mexico, until it should be ended by interference from some other quarter. The President submitted the treaty and the convention to the Senate on the 24th of January, 1860. They were neither of them approved. Mexico was left to the interference of Louis Napoleon; the establishment of an empire, under Maximilian, a prince of the House of Hapsburg, followed, for the embarrassment of President Lincoln’s administration while we were in the throes of our civil war, and the claims of American citizens were to all appearance indefinitely postponed.

The relations of the United States with Spain at the commencement of Mr. Buchanan’s administration, and the manner in which he dealt with them, have been described by him as follows:

Our relations with Spain were in a very unsatisfactory condition on his accession to power. Our flag had been insulted, and numerous injuries had been inflicted on the persons and property of American citizens by Spanish officials acting under the direct control of the Captain General of Cuba. These gave rise to many but unavailing reclamations for redress and indemnity against the Spanish government. Our successive ministers at Madrid had for years ably presented and enforced these claims, but all without effect. Their efforts were continually baffled on different pretexts. There was a class of these claims called the “Cuban claims,” of a nature so plainly just that they could not be gainsayed. In these more than one hundred of our citizens were directly interested. In 1844 duties were illegally exacted from their vessels at different custom houses in Cuba, and they appealed to the Government to have these duties refunded. Their amount could be easily ascertained by the Cuban officials themselves, who were in possession of all the necessary documents. The validity of these claims was eventually recognized by Spain, but not until after a delay of ten years. The amount due was fixed, according to her own statement, with which the claimants were satisfied, at the sum of $128,635.54. Just at the moment when the claimants were expecting to receive this amount without further delay, the Spanish government proposed to pay, not the whole, but only one-third of it, and this provided we should accept it in full satisfaction of the entire claim. They added that this offer was made, not in strict justice, but as a special favor.

Under these circumstances, the time had arrived when the President deemed it his duty to employ strong and vigorous remonstrances to bring all our claims against Spain to a satisfactory conclusion. In this he succeeded in a manner gratifying to himself, and it is believed to all the claimants, but unfortunately not to the Senate of the United States. A convention was concluded at Madrid on the 5th March, 1860, establishing a joint commission for the final adjudication and payment of all the claims of the respective parties. By this the validity and amount of the Cuban claims were expressly admitted, and their speedy payment was placed beyond question. The convention was transmitted to the Senate for their constitutional action on the 3d May, 1860, but on the 27th June they determined, greatly to the surprise of the President, and the disappointment of the claimants, that they would “not advise and consent” to its ratification.

The reason for this decision, because made in executive session, cannot be positively known. This, as stated and believed at the time, was because the convention had authorized the Spanish government to present its Amistad claim, like any other claim, before the Board of Commissioners for decision. This claim, it will be recollected, was for the payment to the Spanish owners of the value of certain slaves, for which the Spanish government held the United States to be responsible under the treaty with Spain of the 27th October, 1795. Such was the evidence in its favor, that three Presidents of the United States had recommended to Congress to make an appropriation for its payment, and a bill for this purpose had passed the Senate. The validity of the claim, it is proper to observe, was not recognized by the convention. In this respect it was placed on the same footing with all the other claims of the parties, with the exception of the Cuban claims. All the Spanish government obtained for it was simply a hearing before the Board, and this could not be denied with any show of impartiality. Besides, it is quite certain that no convention could have been concluded without such a provision.

It was most probably the extreme views of the Senate at the time against slavery, and their reluctance to recognize it even so far as to permit a foreign claimant, although under the sanction of a treaty, to raise a question before the Board which might involve its existence, that caused the rejection of the convention. Under the impulse of such sentiments, the claims of our fellow-citizens have been postponed if not finally defeated. Indeed, the Cuban claimants, learning that the objections in the Senate arose from the Amistad claim, made a formal offer to remove the difficulty by deducting its amount from the sum due to them, but this of course could not be accepted.[44]

Footnote 44:

Buchanan’s Defence, pp. 258-260; written and published in 1865-’66.

The following account of an expedition which President Buchanan found it necessary to send to Paraguay, is also taken from his Defence of his Administration:

The hostile attitude of the government of Paraguay toward the United States early commanded the attention of the President. That government had, upon frivolous and even insulting pretexts, refused to ratify the treaty of friendship, commerce and navigation, concluded with it on the 4th March, 1853, as amended by the Senate, though this only in mere matters of form. It had seized and appropriated the property of American citizens residing in Paraguay, in a violent and arbitrary manner; and finally, by order of President Lopez, it had fired upon the United States steamer Water Witch (1st February, 1855), under Commander Thomas J. Page of the navy, and killed the sailor at the helm, whilst she was peacefully employed in surveying the Parana river, to ascertain its fitness for steam navigation. The honor, as well as the interests of the country, demanded satisfaction.

The President brought the subject to the notice of Congress in his first annual message (8th December, 1857). In this he informed them that he would make a demand for redress on the government of Paraguay, in a firm but conciliatory manner, but at the same time observed, that “this will the more probably be granted, if the Executive shall have authority to use other means in the event of a refusal. This is accordingly recommended.” Congress responded favorably to this recommendation. On the 2d June, 1858,[45] they passed a joint resolution authorizing the President “to adopt such measures, and use such force as, in his judgment, may be necessary and advisable, in the event of a refusal of just satisfaction by the government of Paraguay, in connection with the attack on the United States steamer Water Witch, and with other matters referred to in the annual message.”[46] They also made an appropriation to defray the expenses of a commissioner to Paraguay, should he deem it proper to appoint one, “for the adjustment of difficulties” with that republic.

Footnote 45:

U. S. Statutes at Large, vol. xi, p. 370.

Footnote 46:

U. S. Statutes at Large, vol. xi, p. 319.

Paraguay is situated far in the interior of South America, and its capital, the city of Asuncion, on the left bank of the river Paraguay, is more than a thousand miles from the mouth of the La Plata.

The stern policy of Dr. Francia, formerly the Dictator of Paraguay, had been to exclude all the rest of the world from his dominions, and in this he had succeeded by the most severe and arbitrary measures. His successor, President Lopez, found it necessary, in some degree, to relax this jealous policy; but, animated by the same spirit, he imposed harsh restrictions in his intercourse with foreigners. Protected by his remote and secluded position, he but little apprehended that a navy from our far distant country could ascend the La Plata, the Parana, and the Paraguay, and reach his capital. This was doubtless the reason why he had ventured to place us at defiance. Under these circumstances, the President deemed it advisable to send with our commissioner to Paraguay, Hon. James B. Bowlin, a naval force sufficient to exact justice should negotiation fail.[47] This consisted of nineteen armed vessels, great and small, carrying two hundred guns and twenty-five hundred sailors and marines, all under the command of the veteran and gallant Shubrick. Soon after the arrival of the expedition at Montevideo, Commissioner Bowlin and Commodore Shubrick proceeded (30th December, 1858) to ascend the rivers to Asuncion in the steamer Fulton, accompanied by the Water Witch. Meanwhile the remaining vessels rendezvoused in the Parana, near Rosario, a position from which they could act promptly, in case of need.

Footnote 47:

Message, 19th Dec. 1859.

The commissioner arrived at Asuncion on the 25th January, 1859, and left it on the 10th February. Within this brief period he had ably and successfully accomplished all the objects of his mission. In addition to ample apologies, he obtained from President Lopez the payment of $10,000 for the family of the seaman (Chaney) who had been killed in the attack on the Water Witch, and also concluded satisfactory treaties of indemnity and of navigation and commerce with the Paraguayan government.[48] Thus the President was enabled to announce to Congress, in his annual message (December, 1859), that “all our difficulties with Paraguay had been satisfactorily adjusted.”

Footnote 48:

United States Pamphlet Laws, 1859-60, p. 119, appendix.

Even in this brief summary it would be unjust to withhold from Secretary Toucey a commendation for the economy and efficiency he displayed in fitting out this expedition.[49] It is a remarkable fact in our history, that its entire expenses were defrayed out of the ordinary appropriations for the naval service. Not a dollar was appropriated by Congress for this purpose, unless we may except the sum of $289,000 for the purchase of seven small steamers of light draft, worth more than their cost, and which were afterwards usefully employed in the ordinary naval service.

Footnote 49:

Report of Secretary Toucey, 2d Dec., 1859; Sen. Doc., 1859-60, vol. iii, p. 1137.

It may be remarked that the President, in his message already referred to, justly observes, “that the appearance of so large a force, fitted out in such a prompt manner, in the far distant waters of the La Plata, and the admirable conduct of the officers and men employed in it, have had a happy effect in favor of our country throughout all that remote portion of the world.”

The relations between the United States and China had been governed for twelve years by the treaty made in 1844, by Mr. Caleb Cushing, under the instructions of Mr. Webster as Secretary of State. This treaty had provided for its own amendment at the expiration of twelve years from its date, and it devolved on Mr. Buchanan’s administration to institute the negotiations for this purpose, His own account of these negotiations, although greatly condensed, is all that need be here given:

The same success attended our negotiations with China.[50] The treaty of July, 1844, with that empire, had provided for its own revision and amendment at the expiration of twelve years from its date, should experience render this necessary. Changes in its provisions had now become indispensable for the security and extension of our commerce. Besides, our merchants had just claims against the Chinese government, for injuries sustained in violation of the treaty. To effect these changes, and to obtain indemnity for these injuries, the Hon. William B. Reed was sent as minister to China. His position proved to be one of great delicacy. England and France were engaged in war against China, and urged the United States to become a party to it. They alleged that it had been undertaken to accomplish objects in which we had a common interest with themselves. This was the fact; but the President did not believe that our grievances, although serious, would justify a resort to hostilities. Whilst Mr. Reed was, therefore, directed to preserve a strict neutrality between the belligerents, he was instructed to coöperate cordially with the ministers of England and France in all peaceful measures to secure by treaty those just concessions to commerce which the civilized nations of the world had a right to expect from China. The Russian government, also, pursued the same line of policy.

Footnote 50:

Message, 8th December, 1857, p. 14.

The difficulty, then, was to obtain for our country, whilst remaining at peace, the same commercial advantages which England and France might acquire by war. This task our minister performed with tact, ability and success, by the conclusion of the treaty of Tientsin of the 18th June, 1858, and the two supplemental conventions of Shanghae of the 8th November following.[51] These have placed our commercial relations with China on the same satisfactory footing with those of England and France, and have resulted in the actual payment of the full amount of all the just claims of our citizens, leaving a surplus to the credit of the Treasury. This object has been accomplished, whilst our friendly relations with the Chinese government were never for a moment interrupted, but on the contrary have been greatly strengthened.

Footnote 51:

United States Pamphlet Laws, 1861-’62, p. 177, appendix.

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XI. 1858-1860

COMPLIMENTARY GIFT FROM PRINCE ALBERT TO MR. BUCHANAN—VISIT OF THE PRINCE OF WALES—CORRESPONDENCE WITH THE QUEEN—MINOR INCIDENTS OF THE ADMINISTRATION—TRAITS OF CHARACTER—LETTERS TO MISS LANE—MARRIAGE OF A YOUNG FRIEND.

There are good reasons for believing that the regard which was always expressed by the members of the royal family of England for Mr. Buchanan and his niece was something more than a dictate of policy towards the great nation that he had represented at their court. One token of this regard, which came after he had been made President, was certainly intended as a personal reminder of the pleasant intercourse which he had with the queen and her husband, and of the liking for him which their eldest daughter had often and artlessly manifested. When the Princess Royal was married to the crown prince of Prussia in 1858, her father sent, not to the President of the United States, but to Mr. Buchanan, a copy of the medal struck in honor of the marriage, accompanied by this note:

[PRINCE ALBERT TO MR. BUCHANAN.]

BUCKINGHAM PALACE, Feb. 16, 1858.

MY DEAR MR. BUCHANAN:—

The belief that your recollection of the time passed by you in England will have made you feel an interest in the late happy marriage of our eldest daughter, induces me to send for your acceptance a medal struck in commemoration of that event. You will, I think, be able easily to recognize the Princess Royal’s features; the likeness of Prince Frederick William is also very good.

Trusting that your health continues unimpaired, notwithstanding the manifold duties of your high and responsible office, in which hope the queen joins with me, I remain, ever, my dear Mr. Buchanan, yours truly,

ALBERT.

[MR. BUCHANAN TO PRINCE ALBERT.]

WASHINGTON CITY, March 13, 1858.

SIR:—

I have had the honor to receive from Lord Napier your very kind note of the 13th ultimo, with the medal struck in commemoration of the marriage of the Princess Royal with Prince Frederick William. Whilst in England I had upon one or two occasions the privilege of meeting and conversing with the Princess Royal, which caused me to form a very high estimate of the excellence of her character, and to feel a deep interest in her prosperity and happiness. May her destiny prove fortunate, and her married life be crowned by a kind Providence with all the blessings which it is the lot of humanity to enjoy.

With my most respectful regards to the queen. I remain truly yours,

JAMES BUCHANAN.

When the President in June, 1860, learned that the Prince of Wales would visit Canada, he hastened to write to the queen, and to extend a national invitation to the Prince to come to Washington. The following are the letters which passed between the President and the queen:

[THE PRESIDENT TO QUEEN VICTORIA.]

WASHINGTON CITY, June 4, 1860.

TO HER MAJESTY QUEEN VICTORIA:—

I have learned from the public journals that the Prince of Wales is about to visit your Majesty’s North American dominions. Should it be the intention of His Royal Highness to extend his visit to the United States, I need not say how happy I shall be to give him a cordial welcome to Washington. You may be well assured that everywhere in this country he will be greeted by the American people in such a manner as cannot fail to prove gratifying to your Majesty. In this they will manifest their deep sense of your domestic virtues, as well as the conviction of your merits as a wise, patriotic, and constitutional sovereign.

Your Majesty’s most obedient servant, JAMES BUCHANAN.

[QUEEN VICTORIA TO THE PRESIDENT.]

BUCKINGHAM PALACE, June 22, 1860.

MY GOOD FRIEND:—

I have been much gratified at the feelings which prompted you to write to me inviting the Prince of Wales to come to Washington. He intends to return from Canada through the United States, and it will give him great pleasure to have an opportunity of testifying to you in person that those feelings are fully reciprocated by him. He will thus be able at the same time to mark the respect which he entertains for the Chief Magistrate of a great and friendly state and kindred nation.

The Prince will drop all royal state on leaving my dominions, and travel under the name of Lord Renfrew, as he has done when travelling on the continent of Europe.

The Prince Consort wishes to be kindly remembered to you.

I remain ever your good friend, VICTORIA RA.

The Prince arrived in Washington early in October, 1860, and he and the principal persons in his suite became the guests of the President at the White House, where they remained until the 6th of that month. During this visit there was an excursion to Mount Vernon, to afford the Prince an opportunity to see the tomb of Washington. The Prince and his suite, accompanied by a considerable number of invited guests, were taken to Mount Vernon on the revenue cutter, Harriet Lane, a vessel of the revenue service, which had been named for the President’s niece by the Secretary of the Treasury. The President and Miss Lane were of the party. The incidents of the visit are well known, but there is an anecdote connected with it which should be repeated here, because it illustrates Mr. Buchanan’s scrupulous care in regard to public money. The Secretary of the Treasury had given liberal orders for a supply of refreshments to be put on board the cutter. When the President heard that the bills for this and other expenses of the excursion were about to be audited and paid at the Treasury, he directed them to be sent to him. They were not paid at the Treasury, but the whole expense was defrayed by a private arrangement between the President and Mr. Cobb, the Secretary.[52]

Footnote 52:

I believe these bills were paid by Mr. Cobb, from his own private means. The whole affair was gotten up by him, and the President and Miss Lane went as invited guests. It is proper to say here that the entertainment of the Prince and his suite at the White House entailed a good deal of expense, for extra servants and other things, and that Congress was never asked to defray any part of it. Mr. Buchanan would never hear of any suggestion that the extraordinary charges of his position should fall upon any fund but his salary and his private income.

[THE PRESIDENT TO QUEEN VICTORIA.]

WASHINGTON, October 6, 1860.

TO HER MAJESTY, QUEEN VICTORIA:—

When I had the honor of addressing your Majesty in June last, I confidently predicted a cordial welcome for the Prince of Wales throughout this country, should he pay us a visit on his return from Canada to England. What was then prophecy has now become history. He has been everywhere received with enthusiasm, and this is attributed not only to the very high regard entertained for your Majesty, but also to his own noble and manly bearing. He has passed through a trying ordeal for a person of his years, and his conduct throughout has been such as became his age and station. Dignified, frank and affable, he has conciliated wherever he has been the kindness and respect of a sensitive and discriminating people.

His visit thus far, has been all your Majesty could have desired, and I have no doubt it will so continue to the end.

The Prince left us for Richmond this morning with the Duke of Newcastle and the other members of his wisely selected suite. I should gladly have prolonged his visit had this been possible consistently with previous engagements. In our domestic circle he won all hearts. His free and ingenuous intercourse with myself evinced both a kind heart and good understanding. I shall ever cherish the warmest wishes for his welfare.

The visit of the Prince to the tomb of Washington and the simple but solemn ceremonies at this consecrated spot will become a historical event and cannot fail to exert a happy influence on the kindred people of the two countries.

With my respectful regards for the Prince Consort,

I remain your Majesty’s friend and obedient servant, JAMES BUCHANAN.

[SIR HENRY HOLLAND TO THE PRESIDENT.]

BROOK STREET, LONDON, November 2, 1860.

MY DEAR MR. PRESIDENT:—

In writing to you thus soon after my return to England, my first and foremost object is, to thank you once again, which I do very warmly, for all your kindness during my last visit at Washington. In the course of a life somewhat checquered with various incidents, in various places, I know not that I ever enjoyed five days so much;—including under this expression both the time of the royal visit, and that which I afterwards passed with you alone. The Executive Mansion is lost to me for the future, if even I ever return to America; but you I trust will preserve to me hereafter the regard and friendship which it is pleasant to me to possess.

The letter you entrusted to my care was in the hands of the queen exactly fourteen days after I had received it from you. It will give you pleasure, I know, to learn (which I presume you will afterwards do in some way from the queen herself), how very much she was gratified by it. Both Lord Palmerston and Lord John Russell have expressly and strongly mentioned this to me.

All England, as far as I can see and hear, is delighted with the reception of the Prince in the United States. It has produced a strong impression here;—reciprocated I hope and believe in America.

The squadron which brings him home has not yet been heard of; but as they have now been twelve or thirteen days at sea, the arrival can not be long delayed. Probably to-day may bring some intelligence. I shall be impatient to see again the several members of the Prince’s suite, and to hear their detail of all that followed after our parting at Washington. They will all, I am persuaded, come back with the same strong sentiment they had at that time regarding their reception in the United States.

You will see that the European continent is still laboring under the same strange political complications;—enlivened, if I may so phrase it, by an occasional battle, but obscured by a dark haze over the future. Lord Palmerston tells me that he believes it will all end rightly, and I am willing to believe him, though I do not see my way towards this result. Many games are evidently at this moment played underhand—not like the open and frank bowling of the ten-pin courts. Our excellent ally, Louis Napoleon, comes under this suspicion, while some suspect that he, between Church and State affairs, is under as much perplexity as his neighbors. It seems even doubtful whether the compulsory concession of the Emperor of Austria will satisfy Hungary, or leave him free for the contingencies of an Italian campaign. If a general war can be avoided, it is the utmost the most sanguine dare hope for. For the present the great interest is concentrated on the spot where the King of Naples still makes a show of resistance to the King of Sardinia and Garibaldi,—a matter that a few days must decide. Then comes the question of the Pope and Rome,—a still more complex and delicate affair, with interests rooted all over Europe.

In England we are happy and prosperous, despite our indifferent harvest,—better, however, than at one time expected. But we shall be fed out of your abundance, if need there be.

The telegraphic news from China seems good as far as it goes, but we shall need the details to know its full import. Lord Palmerston tells me that the last despatches led them to believe that the Emperor of China was very desirous, or at least not unwilling, that his army should be defeated, to rescue himself from the hands of a war party at Pekin, which overruled him in his own wishes. Chinese rumors are very apocryphal documents.

I must not intrude further upon your time, by what, after all, is little more than may be drawn from the newspapers of the day. In bidding you farewell, my dear Mr. President, I have but again to repeat the expressions of acknowledgment for kindnesses received, and of cordial regard and respect, with which I remain,

Ever yours most faithfully, H. HOLLAND.

[QUEEN VICTORIA TO THE PRESIDENT.]

WINDSOR CASTLE, November 19, 1860.

MY GOOD FRIEND:—

Your letter of the 6th ultimo has afforded me the greatest pleasure, containing, as it does, such kind expressions with regard to my son, and assuring me that the character and object of his visit to you and to the United States have been fully appreciated, and that his demeanor and the feelings evinced by him have secured to him your esteem and the general good will of your countrymen.

I purposely delayed the answer to your letter until I should be able to couple it with the announcement of the Prince of Wales’s safe return to his home. Contrary winds and stress of weather have much retarded his arrival, but we have been fully compensated for the anxiety which this long delay has naturally caused us, by finding him in such excellent health and spirits, and so delighted with all that he has seen and experienced in his travels.

He cannot sufficiently praise the great cordiality with which he has been everywhere greeted in your country, and the friendly manner in which you received him; and whilst, as a mother, I am grateful for the kindness shown him, I feel impelled to express, at the same time, how deeply I have been touched by the many demonstrations of affection personally toward myself, which his presence has called forth.

I fully reciprocate towards your nation the feelings thus made apparent, and look upon them as forming an important link to cement two nations of kindred origin and character, whose mutual esteem and friendship must always have so material an influence upon their respective development and prosperity.

The interesting and touching scene at the grave of General Washington, to which you allude, may be fitly taken as the type of our present feeling, and I trust of our future relations.

The Prince Consort, who heartily joins in the expressions contained in this letter, wishes to be kindly remembered to you, as we both wish to be to Miss Lane.

Believe me always your good friend, VICTORIA R.

It is noteworthy that this graceful and cordial letter was written on the eve of that great convulsion which was so soon to put in imminent peril the perpetuity of this Union and the very existence of our Government. To the feelings of the queen and her husband towards this country, secured by President Buchanan’s wise and well-timed reception of the Prince of Wales, and the demonstrations everywhere made towards him in this country, the queen’s subjects and the people of the United States owe it, that in the dark and dangerous hour of our civil war, the many irritating causes of alienation were not allowed by the sovereign of England to disrupt the bonds of peace or the neutrality of her government between the warring sections of this Republic. When we look back to the state of feeling that at one time existed in England towards our Government, and remember how many British statesmen of great consequence made serious mistakes, it is but simple historical justice to impute to the queen and her husband a moderating and restraining influence; and if that influence had been wanting, there can be no rational doubt that there would have been a recognition of the Confederate States, not merely as a belligerent and a de facto power, but as a permanent and established government, and possibly as an ally of Great Britain.

[FROM B. MORAN.]

LONDON, June 29th, 1860.

MY DEAR SIR:—

The publication of your invitation to the Prince of Wales to become your guest has caused a great deal of happiness in England, and the newspapers generally speak highly of the act. I send, herewith, an editorial from the Morning Chronicle of to-day, in which there are some deserved and well-expressed compliments. The British people have more respect for you than for any President since Washington, and I have never seen a personal attack on you in any English journal. Whenever you are spoken of, it is in a tone of regard, and never in a carping spirit.

We are almost run down with visitors from home. From forty to seventy are here daily, and I have to see them all. I have my hands full. This is comfort to me, for I would be unhappy without employment.

...... I hope you will not take offence when I say that I hope the Baltimore Convention have nominated you, notwithstanding your declinature to be a candidate. And if such be the case, you will be elected triumphantly. We are anxiously waiting for news on this point.

With best regards to yourself and Miss Lane, I am

Ever faithfully yours, B. MORAN.[53]

Footnote 53:

Mr. Moran was one of the secretaries of the American legation under Mr. Dallas.

Both with reference to this visit of the Prince of Wales, and to some other incidents of the administration, and to certain traits of Mr. Buchanan’s character, I insert here an extract from Mr. J. Buchanan Henry’s communication to me, before I proceed to the trying period of “secession,” which is to occupy a large part of the remaining pages of this volume.

As private secretary, I had to be in my office, a room on the southwest corner of the second story adjoining that of the President, whenever he was there, which was from eight in the morning until luncheon at one o’clock, and from that time until five, when, with rare exceptions, he took an hour’s walk. I doubt whether Mr. Buchanan used his coach and horses a dozen times a year, except during the summer when he was at the “Soldier’s Home;” then he drove in to the executive mansion in the morning and out in the evening. He greatly preferred the exercise of walking, with its exchange of kindly personal greetings with friends. On returning from this daily exercise he dined with the members of his household. It was not then etiquette for the President to accept dinner or other invitations, for the wise reason, I believe, that any discrimination would have been impossible without giving offence, and universal acceptance would have been impossible. Once a week Mr. Buchanan caused some of the Cabinet members and their wives to be invited to dinner “en famille” and as there was but little ceremony and all were agreeable guests, with common and identical interests for the most part, I remember that these were most pleasant little entertainments. During the winter, or properly during the session of Congress, there was what might be called a State dinner, once a week, an entertainment of a much more formal and formidable character, in the large dining-room, capable of seating about forty persons. The first of these dinners was, I think, given to the Justices of the Supreme Court, the next to the Diplomatic Corps, then to the members of the Senate, and the House of Representatives, including each member in his turn, according to official seniority, except in a very few cases where individuals had by discourtesy or offence rendered such an invitation improper. Miss Lane and I attended to the details of these social matters, including dinner and party attending, making visits, etc., for the President. Among the most troublesome of these duties was the proper assigning of precedence to the guests at these so-called state dinners; a delicate task in these Washington entertainments, as any neglect would pretty surely give offence. Miss Lane, from natural aptitude and tact and the experience she had in London whilst her uncle was minister there, managed these details very cleverly. I had the difficult and worrying task at these dinners, in the short time between the arrival of the forty odd guests in the drawing-room and the procession into the great dining-room, of ascertaining the name of each gentleman and telling him what lady he was to take in, and probably introducing the parties to each other. It was sometimes a very mauvaise quart d’heure of expectation for me; as I was pretty sure to find at the last moment, when the President was leading the procession to the table, that some male guest, perhaps not accustomed to such matters, had strayed away from his intended partner, leaving the lady standing alone and much embarrassed. I had then to give them a fresh start.

As private secretary I was charged with the expenditure of the library fund, the payment of the steward, messengers, and also of the expenditures of the household which were paid out of the President’s private purse. I might here mention that these latter expenditures generally exceeded the President’s salary in the winter months, because President Buchanan enjoyed entertaining and entertained liberally from inclination. In summer the social entertaining being much less, and the President being at the Soldier’s Home, a modest but pretty stone cottage on the hills near Washington, the expenses were much less. Taking the year through, the salary of $25,000 was nearly sufficient to pay the actual expenses of the executive mansion, but nothing beyond that, or to allow the President to save any part of it; but on the contrary, I think he had to draw upon his private means to a considerable extent.

My first duty was to organize the private secretary’s office. I had a set of books or records carefully prepared, in which could be briefly entered the date of receipt of any letter or communication addressed to the President, the name of the writer—subject-matter condensed to the utmost—dates and substance of answer, if any, to what department referred, and date of such reference. If the letter contained a recommendation for appointment to office, these records indicated the office, the name of the applicant and by whom recommended. Such communications as the President ought to see I folded and briefed and took them to him every morning at eight o’clock and received his instructions as to the answer I should make, and in some instances he would answer them himself, if of a purely personal nature. Either he or I would then endorse upon all letters “Respectfully referred to the Secretary of State,” War, or otherwise, according as the communication in subject matter related to the business of that department; and once a day I would enclose them, as they accumulated, in large envelopes, with printed addresses, and despatch them by the messenger to the several departments. By this system I could recall any letter or communication of any kind by reference to the entries on my books, whenever the President desired them for action. This was the routine of the Executive Office.

It will hardly be credited that this simple and natural course of business gave the pretext at a later day, and I can scarcely suppress my indignation as I think of it, for that infamous “mare’s nest,” discovered by Covode of Pennsylvania, a member of the House of Representatives, and for the investigation of which he obtained a committee with full powers. The letters of General Patterson and others to which it related, were simply referred to the Secretary of the Navy according to the ordinary and proper routine of business in the Executive Office, as I have above described, and were endorsed exactly as thousands of others had been either by the President or by me, and such endorsement had therefore no signification whatever. It was a cruel and malicious pretence to infer that the Secretary of the Navy would attach any importance whatever to the mere act of reference by the President himself because a multitude of such papers were similarly endorsed either by him or by me every day.

There would have been no room to keep such a mass of papers in the White House, and they would have been out of place there, as they related to the business of the several cabinet officers, and yet upon this miserable basis was the “Covode investigation” erected, and the first attempt ever made to soil a spotless public life, extending over more than forty years in every exalted station of our Government, as member of the legislature of Pennsylvania, many years member of the House of Representatives, Senator of the United States, twice diplomatic representative of the nation at the two principal courts of Europe, Secretary of State of the United States, and finally President of the Republic. The meagre partisan fruits of the investigation when made, and the refusal, to its credit be it said, of a bitterly hostile opposition in the House to propose even a censure, clearly showed its baseless character.

The committee, with well simulated delicacy, never summoned me to appear and testify, but sent for my clerk, and after examining him were glad, it seems, to drop it. I dwell upon this matter, because in a long career of public service it is the only attempt ever made to impeach Mr. Buchanan’s public or private integrity. He himself felt it very bitterly, and I think it will be admitted that he administered a wholesome and deserved rebuke to the House in his special message of protest. Although the result demonstrated that there was not the most gossamer pretext for the charge made by Covode, I think Mr. Buchanan’s friends can be well pleased at its having been made, and its futility exposed, as it leads to the fair conclusion for history, that Mr. Buchanan was invulnerable to any assaults upon the honor of his public or private life. Surely this is much to be able to say of a public servant, and a nation capable of breeding many such public men can justly congratulate itself.

Another feature of Mr. Buchanan’s public life I will refer to, which possibly may not now be esteemed a great virtue. I mean his dislike of nepotism. Not unnaturally, there were members of our family who would have been very glad to have obtained civil or other appointments during his administration. But such was Mr. Buchanan’s freely expressed repugnance to using his public authority for the advantage of his relatives, that I am not aware that any of them even made application to him for office of any kind. Public policy clearly indicates the propriety and desirability of the President’s private secretary being, if possible, a blood relation, upon the ground that the honor and interests of the President and his high office can be most safely entrusted to one having an interest in his good name and fame, and therefore more guarded against temptation of any kind. I therefore do not consider the selection of myself, or my cousin Mr. James Buchanan, who followed me, as any exception to what I have stated. To such an extent did I know that my uncle disliked the appointing of relatives to office, that I never dared to tell him of my desire to be appointed to the paymaster corps of the navy, a position which from my nomadic tastes I had long coveted, and I concluded to save myself the mortification of a refusal. I could exercise no influence with him for myself. As an instance of this, I will mention that when the Hon. John Cadwalader, late Judge of United States Circuit Court of Eastern Pennsylvania, was appointed to that judgeship by Mr. Buchanan, he tendered me the clerkship of his court, a permanent and honorable position, and one that I should have been willing to accept. Judge Cadwalader had been my legal preceptor, and for years my warm personal friend, so that the proffered position would have been in every way agreeable and proper. Although I was then residing in New York as a private citizen, I consulted Mr. Buchanan as to its acceptance by me, and on finding that he entertained serious reasonable objections to my doing so, I declined the compliment. The President said the public might justly infer that there had been some previous understanding between him and the new judge, and that however erroneous such a conclusion would be, it would be natural. Inasmuch, therefore, as my acceptance might work injury, both to the President and his excellent appointee, I quickly made my decision. These little events, unknown to the public, will serve to illustrate the delicate sense of right and the very appearance of right, which so strongly marked his public service.

Among the minor but interesting incidents of the administration, I may mention the receipt of the first message by the new ocean telegraph from the British sovereign, and the President’s reply to it. As the cable became silent almost immediately after, the public were for a long time in doubt whether any message had really been transmitted over the wonderful wire under the sea. I well remember the reception of the message, and I had it and the draft of the President’s reply in my possession for years afterwards as a curiosity.

You doubtless know all about the visit of the Prince of Wales to President Buchanan, and the pleasant social incidents following in its train. The Duke of Newcastle, Lord St. Germains and Sir Henry Holland—the latter an old friend of the President’s—in the Prince’s suite, were also guests at the White House. I was then residing in New York, and was sent for by my uncle to my old quarters in Washington, to assist in entertaining these distinguished persons, who, though entertained at the private expense of Mr. Buchanan, were nevertheless looked upon, and properly so, as the guests of the nation.

Probably among the most interesting, and I may say touching, incidents of this visit, was a trip made by the royal guest and suite, in company with the President, to Mount Vernon. I well remember the whole party—the tall, venerable form of the President, the youthful Prince, and the other guests representing the highest social order in Great Britain, standing bare-headed in front of the tomb of Washington. It was a most impressive and singular spectacle, and I have often thought it would make a very striking subject for a large historical painting. The Prince planted a small tree near the tomb in commemoration of his visit, but I have never learned whether it grew. Many interesting incidents occurred in this visit, but I shall not repeat them. I will only say that I never saw a more agreeable or unrestrained intercourse of a social character—for the visit had no political significance whatever, and the Queen and the Prince subsequently expressed their appreciation of the President’s hospitality, the former in an autograph letter, and the latter both by letter and the presentation of a three-quarter length portrait, painted by one of Britain’s greatest artists. The value of this was enhanced by the delicacy which marked its presentation after Mr. Buchanan had retired to private life as a simple citizen. These letters and portrait are now in the possession of my cousin, and also the autograph letter of the Prince Consort to Mr. Buchanan on the occasion of the marriage of the Princess Royal, in which he uses some pleasant expressions of a personal character, and referring back to Mr. Buchanan’s residence in London as minister. I think the era of good feeling between America and England, and especially the enduring friendship of the Queen herself for the United States, so decidedly shown by her during our terrible war, may be traced as one of the happy results of the visit of the Prince of Wales to the President. The kindly feelings of these two great nations towards each other, a rapprochement, now so marked, had, I think, its beginning at that period.

Another trait of Mr. Buchanan I must not omit alluding to. He made it an invariable rule, as President, to accept no gifts or presents of any value, even from the most intimate friends, and it was part of my duty to return them at once, with a kind but emphatic declination, telling the donor that the President had made it a rule, not to be broken, that he could accept no gifts; and I was directed, at the same time, to express his thanks for the friendly intentions in all cases where it seemed probable that it was not a bold effort to purchase favor, and from purely selfish motives. A number of costly gifts were thus returned.

After a personal intercourse with Mr. Buchanan from my boyhood, more or less intimate, and therefore having had an opportunity to judge, I can conscientiously say that I never knew a man of purer private life, or one actuated by nobler or more upright motives. He was, to us around him, an object of unbroken respect and reverence. I can truly aver that I never heard him express an ignoble sentiment, or do an act that could diminish that respect and reverence. He was strong willed, rather austere, and somewhat exacting to those around him, but always and in all things the Christian gentleman. This was the impression made upon me as a youth, and now, as I look back from later life, I see no cause to change or modify my estimate of his character. His only fault, if fault it be, was a too great readiness to forgive and conciliate those who had been his enemies, regarding it as a triumph for his principles and a vindication of his motives. And yet this has been at times attributed to him as a weakness.

Mr. Buchanan had an extraordinary memory, and could repeat verbatim much of the classic authors of his college days, and I remember he often put me to shame, when I was yet in the midst of my books, by questions that I failed to answer to my satisfaction. He was also a remarkably fluent and agreeable conversationalist—a rare and valuable gift—and it was one of my greatest pleasures to listen to him, when in congenial company, relating anecdotes of his great contemporaries in public life at home, and incidents occurring during his missions in St. Petersburgh and later in London. This quality made him a most agreeable companion among men, and an especial favorite with the fair sex, whose friendship in turn he appreciated and enjoyed to the end of his life. The correctness of his own private life, and his association with only the nobler of the other sex, resulted in his never entertaining or expressing cynical views of them, so common in men’s later years.

I do not know if you have any account of Mr. Buchanan’s personal appearance or dress. The best likeness of him is a miniature portrait on ivory, by Brown of Philadelphia, now in the possession of his brother, the Rev. Dr. Buchanan. I have an oil photograph painted in 1857, which is excellent; also a bust in marble by a Boston sculptor, which is good. My cousin has a half-length portrait, painted by Eicholtz about the year 1833. His figure and general appearance whilst President is very accurately represented in a full-length engraving by Buttre of New York. On the whole, I think it is the best average representation of him extant. Healy executed a portrait of Mr. Buchanan at the White House, but he was an impatient sitter, and I do not think it was very successful.

Mr. Buchanan, in his sketch of the four last months of his administration, gives a short account of a remarkable naval expedition ordered by him to Paraguay, to settle certain difficulties with that republic. This naval demonstration on a considerable scale was entirely successful, and resulted in a permanent peace with that country ever since. It had, however, this most uncommon feature to distinguish it, that it cost the United States not one dollar beyond the usual small annual appropriation for the navy. I sometimes wonder whether any other such expedition of its size and importance, in this or any other country, can show such an example of economy, honesty and efficiency and success combined, as did this.

[TO MISS LANE, IN NEW YORK.]

WASHINGTON, May 20th, 1858.

MY DEAR HARRIET:—

Learning that you were about to purchase furniture in New York [for the White House], I requested Doctor Blake to furnish me a statement of the balance of the appropriation unexpended. This balance is $8,369.02. In making your purchases, therefore, I wish you to consider that this sum must answer our purpose until the end of my term. I wish you, therefore, not to expend the whole of it, but to leave enough to meet all contingencies up till 4th March, 1861. Any sum which may be expended above the appropriation I shall most certainly pay out of my own pocket. I shall never ask Congress for the deficiency.

Who should make his appearance this morning but Mr. Keitt.[54] After talking about other matters for some time, he said he was married. I expressed strong doubts upon the subject, when he insisted that he was actually and bona fide married. The lady is Miss Sparks, whom he has been so long addressing.

With my kind regards to Mr. and Mrs. R., I remain, etc.

Footnote 54:

Of South Carolina. Pronounced Kitt.

[TO MISS LANE, IN PHILADELPHIA.]

October 15th, 1858.

We have not yet heard from you since you left us. I hope you arrived safely in Philadelphia, and did not contract a hoarseness in talking on the way. We get along very nicely since your absence and will give a big dinner on Thursday next. I have not seen any of your lady friends since your departure, and can therefore give you no news.

Well! we have met the enemy in Pennsylvania and we are theirs. This I have anticipated for three months, and was not taken by surprise, except as to the extent of our defeat. I am astonished at myself for bearing it with so much philosophy.

The conspirators against poor Jones have at length succeeded in hunting him down. Ever since my election the hounds have been in pursuit of him. I now deeply regret—but I shall say no more. With the blessing of Providence, I shall endeavor to raise him up and place him in some position where they can not reach him.

Judge Black, General Anderson of Tennessee, Mr. Brenner, and Mr. Van Dyke dined with me yesterday, and we had a merry time of it, laughing, among other things, over our crushing defeat. It is so great that it is almost absurd.

We will present a record of success at the meeting of Congress which has rarely been equalled. We have hitherto succeeded in all our undertakings.

Poor bleeding Kansas is quiet, and is behaving herself in an orderly manner; but her wrongs have melted the hearts of the sympathetic Pennsylvanians, or rather Philadelphians. In the interior of the State the tariff was the damaging question, and in defeating Jones, the iron interest have prostrated a man who could render them more service than all the Republican Representatives from Pennsylvania. He will be a loss to the whole country in the House of Representatives.

I have heard nothing of the good and excellent Robert since you left us. He is a man among a thousand. I wish I could say so much for his brother.

It is growing late and I must retire. I sleep much better now, but not near so well as at the Soldiers’ Home.

May 13th, 1859.

I send you an oration received from Hon. William Porcher Miles,[55] and franked by him to yourself. A precious recognition!......

I wrote a long letter to Mrs. Roosevelt, ten days ago, and left it on my table open. It marvellously disappeared, and I had neither courage nor time to copy it from memory. I know not what has become of it, but it contains nothing which might not be published in the New York Herald. My respect and admiration for Mrs. Roosevelt, to be sure, appear in the letter; but this is well known and does me honor. It is possible that in clearing my own table I may have by mistake torn this letter up with other manuscripts; but I can not believe it.

I have but little news. Mr. Magraw came to us on Saturday last and still remains, much to my gratification. We get along very comfortably and quietly. Miss Hetty is very busy. Washington, they say, is extremely dull. I called yesterday at Mr. Thompson’s, just before dinner. The lady was not at home. She had gone to a travelling circus and show in company with Mrs. Gwin, her sister and Miss Lucy. I made no remark to Mr. Thompson on receiving the information, except that you would certainly have been of the party had you been in Washington.

I met Mrs. Conrad and her daughters on the street the other day and walked with them some distance. She does not appear to have seen much of Lord Lyons. I think he keeps himself very much to himself. Count Sartiges has been here several times. I shall miss him more than I would any of the foreign ministers.

Footnote 55:

Of South Carolina.

May 14th, 1859.

I send you the enclosed letter from Mr. ——, of New York. It speaks for itself. He seems to be a warm-hearted German, and I would advise you to address him a few lines. In acknowledging the compliment, I have said I would send his letter to you at Judge Roosevelt’s. You have been hailed as “The Great Mother of the Indians,” and it must gratify you to learn that your adopted countrymen desire to perpetuate your name by giving it to their children.

Two of the Secretaries and myself were to have visited Baltimore to-day to select a site for the Federal Courts; but we agreed to postpone our visit until Monday to enable them to attend a dinner given by Lord Lyons to-day to the members of the cabinet. It is quite probable we shall be accompanied on Monday by Mrs. Thompson, Mrs. Gwin and other ladies.

What means the ominous conjunction between Mr. Van Buren and Mr. Douglas at the —— Hotel. I do not, however, consider it ominous at all, though others do.

Sir William ought to have been very careful in obeying his instructions, especially after his former experience in South America. The British government are not at all pleased with him. We know this from Lord Lyons.

Here I was called away after ten at night, to hear the music of the Knights Templars. It was, I think, excellent; though I am, as you know, no great judge. Good-night! My affectionate regards to Mrs. Roosevelt and my respectful compliments to the Judge.

Mr. Thompson and myself intend to set out for Chapel Hill on Monday, 10th instant. I think Mr. Magraw will accompany us. They are making great preparations to receive us. I hope you are enjoying yourself. Stay as long as it affords you pleasure. We are getting along very well. Miss Hetty is very busy in having things put in order for the summer.

May 18th, 1859.

I return Lady Ouseley’s letter. When you write please to remember me to her in the very kindest terms. I should be sorry indeed to think I should never meet her again.

The conduct of Sir William has been most decidedly disapproved by Lord Malmesbury. Of this we have the official evidence. I am truly sorry he did not obey his instructions. But of this say nothing to Mrs. Roosevelt.

Our two successful diplomatists, Messrs. Reed and Bowden, with their ladies, are to dine with me to-day en famille. Mr. Cobb now dines here regularly.

I never laughed as much on any one day as on Monday last at Baltimore and on the way.

Remember me always most affectionately to Mrs. Roosevelt, and very kindly to the Judge.

June 10th, 1859.

I have received your favor of yesterday. We returned to Washington on Tuesday morning last from our visit to North Carolina. On Wednesday morning Miss Hetty left for Wheatland with my full and entire approbation, and I wish to say to you emphatically, that you need not return home on my account. I shall be rejoiced to see you whenever you may think proper to return; but I get along both comfortably and happily in the absence both of Miss Hetty and yourself.

I am sorry to find that your excursion to West Point on the Harriet Lane, has been made the subject of newspaper criticism on yourself. This is most ungallant and ungentlemanly. The practice, however, of employing national vessels on pleasure excursions, to gratify any class of people, is a fair subject of public criticism. You know how much I condemned your former trip on the same vessel, and I did not expect you would fall into a second error. The thing, however, is past and gone, and let it pass. After a fair time shall have elapsed, it is my purpose to cause general orders to be issued by the Treasury and Navy Departments to put a stop to the practice.

I am truly rejoiced to learn that James Henry is succeeding in his practice.

I have not the least idea of paying the price you mention for a cane. Let it pass for the present. I will get Mr. Baker to attend to it.

Washington has been very quiet but very agreeable since you left. I dined yesterday with Mrs. Thompson. Mrs. Gwin and her sister and Mr. Cobb were the only persons present out of the family. We had a merry time of it. The same party are to dine with Mrs. Gwin on Tuesday next.

It was with the utmost reluctance I removed Mr. ——, though his removal was inevitable. His brother —— has done him much injury. I have known him long, and can say with truth that I know not a more unprincipled man in the United States. I wished to avoid the publication of Mr. Holt’s report, but Mr. —— and his brother made this impossible. The trio are now all together in happy communion, I mean ——, ——, and ——, the last the most contemptible of the set.

I have just had long and interesting letters from Jones and Preston. They are both pleased, and both get along well. The former evidently stands well with the Austrian government, and gives us valuable information.

I remain, yours affectionately, etc.

BEDFORD SPRINGS, August 22, 1860.

I have only time to write a line before Mr. Wagner, the messenger of Mr. Thompson, leaves. I am well, and the water is producing its usual good effect. The company is reduced very much, though what remains is agreeable and respectable. My visits from the neighborhood are numerous.

Give my love to Lily. If things proceed as from appearances we might anticipate she will soon be on the diplomatic corps, but I yet entertain doubts whether she will stand fire at the decisive moment.

Many inquiries have been made about you here, and regrets expressed that you did not accompany me. In haste, yours affectionately,

[FROM MISS MACALESTER.]

GLENGARRY, TORRISDALE, Oct. 8, 1860.

MY DEAR MR. BUCHANAN:—

You have always evinced such a kind and anxious interest in regard to my matrimonial arrangements, that I feel it a duty, as well as a pleasure, to relieve your solicitude on the subject, by assuring you that I at last really am engaged. I consider you entirely responsible for this result, my dear Mr. Buchanan, for you so terrified me last spring and summer by your forebodings, and made me so fully realize my almost hopeless condition and approaching superannuation, that I determined to trifle no longer with time. I think, therefore, I may fairly claim your kind wishes and congratulations upon my escape from the prospect of a dreary spinsterhood, and in due season I shall also claim your fulfillment of a promise made long ago, and frequently repeated since, to be present at my wedding when that incomprehensible event takes place. En attendant, believe me always, my dear Mr. Buchanan,

With truest love yours, LILY L. MACALESTER.

[TO MISS MACALESTER.[56]]

WASHINGTON, October 10, 1860.

MY DEAR LILY:—

I have received your favor of the 10th, announcing your engagement, and most sincerely and ardently do I hope that your marriage may prove auspicious and secure your future happiness and prosperity. I need not assure you that I feel all the interest which devoted friendship can inspire in your permanent welfare.

I had thought that “the prospect of a dreary spinsterhood” would not have impelled you into an engagement, without saying a word to your superannuated bachelor friend, but when young ladies have determined to marry they will go ahead.

May you enjoy all the blessings in your matrimonial state which I ardently desire, and you so richly deserve. Always your friend,

JAMES BUCHANAN.

Footnote 56:

This lady, daughter of Charles Macalester, Esq., of Philadelphia, married Mr. Berghmans, Secretary of the Belgian Legation in Washington. He died about ten years since.

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XII. 1860—March and June

THE SO-CALLED “COVODE INVESTIGATION.”

Reference has been made by Mr. Henry, in a part of his communication quoted in the last chapter, to a proceeding in the House of Representatives, which has been called the “Covode Investigation.” It is proper that a detailed account of this occurrence should be here given.

Among the lower, or rather the lowest, political tactics, inculpation of a retiring administration has often been resorted to for promoting the success of the opposite party, and it seems not infrequently to have been the calculation that the effect produced would be in proportion to the grossness of the imputations. Mr. Buchanan could not hope to escape calumny. None of his predecessors, not even the most illustrious of them all, not even Washington himself, had escaped it. Scarcely any of them, however, had been made the object of this kind of attack, by a method so base and by means so foul, as those to which President Buchanan was now to be subjected. Before any of the troubles of secession arrived, before either of the political parties had made its nomination for the next Presidential election, it was determined that an assault should be made upon him that would render him and his administration odious to the people of the country.

It is certainly unavoidable, perhaps it is well, that free governments should be administered by parties. In a vigilant, jealous and active opposition, there is great security against the misuse of power by those who hold it. But the freedom of opposition, like the freedom of the press, can easily degenerate into licentiousness; and the greater the latitude allowed by the political maxims or habits of a people, the greater will be the danger of abuse of that right of criticism and inculpation which is essential to liberty, to purity, and to the public interests. Happily, there are some restraints upon the exercise of this right, imposed by the forms of procedure which our Constitution has prescribed when the conduct of the executive branch of the Government is to be called in question by the House of Representatives. When these restraints are violated, as they were violated against President Buchanan, there is but one judgment for history to pronounce. Those who institute a proceeding that is out of the limits of their constitutional function, for the purpose of exciting hatred of one who fills for the time a coördinate and independent department of the Government, and who conduct such a proceeding in secret, leave upon the records of the country a condemnation of themselves; and it is some evidence of the progress which a people are making in freeing their partisan warfare from such abuses, if we are able to say, as probably we can say, that such a proceeding would not be tolerated at the present day by any portion of the people of this country, as that which was begun and prosecuted against President Buchanan in the spring and summer of 1860.

The House of Representatives was at this time under the control of a majority held by the opponents of the administration. If they had reason to believe that the President had been guilty of an exercise, or of any attempt at an exercise, of improper influence over legislation, or that he or any of his subordinate executive officers had defeated, or attempted to defeat, the execution of any law, or that he had failed or refused to execute any law, their course was plain. In regard to the President, it was their duty to make a specific charge, to investigate it openly, and to impeach him before the Senate, if the evidence afforded reasonable ground to believe that the charge could be substantiated. In regard to his subordinates, their power to investigate was somewhat broader, because, as a legislative body, the House of Representatives might have occasion to remedy by legislation any future wrongs of the same kind. But over the President, they had no authority of investigation or inquiry, excepting as the impeaching body to which the Constitution had committed the duty of accusation. By no constitutional propriety, by no precedent and no principle, could an accusation of official misconduct on the part of the President be brought within the jurisdiction of the House, excepting by the initiation of a proceeding looking to his impeachment. Any proceeding, aside from the impeaching process, could have no object and no effect but to propagate calumny, without opportunity for exculpation and defence; and from the beginning to the end of this extraordinary persecution every step was marked by the design with which it was originated.

It began by the introduction of a resolution, offered in the House by Mr. Covode, a member from Pennsylvania, on the 5th March, 1860; and to make way for its introduction, he moved and obtained a suspension of the rules. This was of course by previous concert. The Speaker, after the reading of the resolution, ruled that it was not debatable. Attempts were made by different members to point out the absence from the resolution of any specific or tangible charge, or to extract from the mover some declaration that he had been informed or believed that the President had been guilty of some official misconduct, within the generality and vagueness of the inquiry that he proposed to have made. All these efforts were put down by the Speaker and by clamorous cries of “order.” It became evident that the resolution was to pass, as a foregone conclusion, without a moment’s consideration of its character or its terms. Under the operation of “the previous question,” it was adopted, and the mover was afterwards placed by the Speaker at the head of the committee which he called for. Thus, so far as there was any accuser, that accuser was made the principal judge who was to try the accusation; and by the terms of the resolution, all the accusation that was made was wrapped in the following vague and indefinite language:

Resolved, That a committee of five members be appointed by the Speaker, for the purpose, first, of investigating whether the President of the United States, or any officer of the Government, has, by money, patronage, or other improper means, sought to influence the action of Congress, or any committee thereof, for or against the passage of any law appertaining to the rights of any State or Territory; and, second, also to inquire into and investigate whether any officer or officers of the Government have, by combination or otherwise, prevented or defeated, or attempted to prevent or defeat, the execution of any law or laws now upon the statute book, and whether the President has failed or refused to compel the execution of any law thereof.

The committee, under the mover of the resolution as chairman, proceeded to make, with closed doors, a general investigation into every thing that any enemy of the President could bring to them. Never, in the history of parliamentary proceedings, since they ceased to be made the instruments of mere partisan malice, had there been such a violation of constitutional principles and of every maxim of justice. A secret inquisition into the conduct of a President of the United States, not conducted in the forms or with the safeguards of the impeachment process, without one specific accusation, was a proceeding unknown alike to the Constitution and to the practice, the habits and the instincts, of the people of the United States. The President was left to learn what he could of the doings of this committee from what they permitted to leak into the public prints, or from other sources. More concerned for the safety of his successors in the great office which he held than for his own reputation, but not unmindful of the duty which he owed to himself, he transmitted to the House, on the 28th of March, the following message, embracing a dignified and energetic protest against this unexampled proceeding:

TO THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES:—

After a delay which has afforded me ample time for reflection, and after much and careful deliberation, I find myself constrained by an imperious sense of duty, as a coördinate branch of the Federal Government, to protest against the first two clauses of the first resolution adopted by the House of Representatives on the 5th instant, and published in the Congressional Globe on the succeeding day. These clauses are in the following words: “Resolved, That a committee of five members be appointed by the Speaker, for the purpose, 1st, of investigating whether the President of the United States, or any other officer of the Government, has, by money, patronage, or other improper means, sought to influence the action of Congress, or any committee thereof, for or against the passage of any law appertaining to the rights of any State or Territory; and 2d, also to inquire into and investigate whether any officer or officers of the Government have, by combination or otherwise, prevented or defeated, or attempted to prevent or defeat, the execution of any law or laws now upon the statute book, and whether the President has failed or refused to compel the execution of any law thereof.”

I confine myself exclusively to these two branches of the resolution, because the portions of it which follow relate to alleged abuses in post offices, navy yards, public buildings, and other public works of the United States. In such cases inquiries are highly proper in themselves, and belong equally to the Senate and the House as incident to their legislative duties, and being necessary to enable them to discover and to provide the appropriate legislative remedies for any abuses which may be ascertained. Although the terms of the latter portion of the resolution are extremely vague and general, yet my sole purpose in adverting to them at present is to mark the broad line of distinction between the accusatory and the remedial clauses of this resolution. The House of Representatives possess no power under the Constitution over the first or accusatory portion of the resolution, except as an impeaching body; whilst over the last, in common with the Senate, their authority as a legislative body is fully and cheerfully admitted.

It is solely in reference to the first or impeaching power that I propose to make a few observations. Except in this single case, the Constitution has invested the House of Representatives with no power, no jurisdiction, no supremacy whatever over the President. In all other respects he is quite as independent of them as they are of him. As a coördinate branch of the Government he is their equal. Indeed, he is the only direct representative on earth of the people of all and each of the sovereign States. To them, and to them alone, is he responsible whilst acting within the sphere of his constitutional duty, and not in any manner to the House of Representatives. The people have thought proper to invest him with the most honorable, responsible, and dignified office in the world, and the individual, however unworthy, now holding this exalted position, will take care, so far as in him lies, that their rights and prerogatives shall never be violated in his person, but shall pass to his successors unimpaired by the adoption of a dangerous precedent. He will defend them to the last extremity against any unconstitutional attempt, come from what quarter it may, to abridge the constitutional rights of the Executive, and render him subservient to any human power except themselves.

The people have not confined the President to the exercise of executive duties. They have also conferred upon him a large measure of legislative discretion. No bill can become a law without his approval, as representing the people of the United States, unless it shall pass after his veto by a majority of two-thirds of both Houses. In his legislative capacity he might, in common with the Senate and the House, institute an inquiry to ascertain any facts which ought to influence his judgment in approving or vetoing any bill. This participation in the performance of legislative duties between the coördinate branches of the Government ought to inspire the conduct of all of them, in their relations toward each other, with mutual forbearance and respect. At least each has a right to demand justice from the other. The cause of complaint is, that the constitutional rights and immunities of the Executive have been violated in the person of the President.

The trial of an impeachment of the President before the Senate on charges preferred and prosecuted against him by the House of Representatives, would be an imposing spectacle for the world. In the result, not only his removal from the Presidential office would be involved, but, what is of infinitely greater importance to himself, his character, both in the eyes of the present and of future generations, might possibly be tarnished. The disgrace cast upon him would in some degree be reflected upon the character of the American people who elected him. Hence the precautions adopted by the Constitution to secure a fair trial. On such a trial it declares that “the Chief Justice shall preside.” This was doubtless because the framers of the Constitution believed it to be possible that the Vice-President might be biassed by the fact that “in case of the removal of the President from office,” “the same shall devolve on the Vice-President.”

The preliminary proceedings in the House in the case of charges which may involve impeachment, have been well and wisely settled by long practice upon principles of equal justice both to the accused and to the people. The precedent established in the case of Judge Peck, of Missouri, in 1831, after a careful review of all former precedents, will, I venture to predict, stand the test of time. In that case, Luke Edward Lawless, the accuser, presented a petition to the House, in which he set forth minutely and specifically his causes of complaint. He prayed “that the conduct and proceedings in this behalf of said Judge Peck may be inquired into by your honorable body, and such decision made thereon as to your wisdom and justice shall seem proper.” This petition was referred to the Judiciary Committee; such has ever been deemed the appropriate committee to make similar investigations. It is a standing committee, supposed to be appointed without reference to any special case, and at all times is presumed to be composed of the most eminent lawyers in the House from different portions of the Union, whose acquaintance with judicial proceedings, and whose habits of investigation, qualify them peculiarly for the task. No tribunal, from their position and character, could in the nature of things be more impartial. In the case of Judge Peck, the witnesses were selected by the committee itself, with a view to ascertain the truth of the charge. They were cross-examined by him, and everything was conducted in such a manner as to afford him no reasonable cause of complaint. In view of this precedent, and, what is of far greater importance, in view of the Constitution and the principles of eternal justice, in what manner has the President of the United States been treated by the House of Representatives? Mr. John Covode, a Representative from Pennsylvania, is the accuser of the President. Instead of following the wise precedents of former times, and especially that in the case of Judge Peck, and referring the accusation to the Committee on the Judiciary, the House have made my accuser one of my judges.

To make the accuser the judge is a violation of the principles of universal justice, and is condemned by the practice of all civilized nations. Every free-man must revolt at such a spectacle. I am to appear before Mr. Covode, either personally or by a substitute, to cross-examine the witnesses which he may produce before himself to sustain his own accusations against me, and perhaps even this poor boon may be denied to the President.

And what is the nature of the investigation which his resolution proposes to institute? It is as vague and general as the English language affords words in which to make it. The committee is to inquire, not into any specific charge or charges, but whether the President has, “by money, patronage, or other improper means, sought to influence,” not the action of any individual member or members of Congress, but “the action” of the entire body “of Congress” itself, “or any committee thereof.” The President might have had some glimmering of the nature of the offence to be investigated, had his accuser pointed to the act or acts of Congress which he sought to pass or to defeat by the employment of “money, patronage, or other improper means.” But the accusation is bounded by no such limits. It extends to the whole circle of legislation; to interference “for or against the passage of any law appertaining to the rights of any State or Territory.” And what law does not appertain to the rights of some State or Territory? And what law or laws has the President failed to execute? These might easily have been pointed out had any such existed.

Had Mr. Lawless asked an inquiry to be made by the House whether Judge Peck, in general terms, had not violated his judicial duties, without the specification of any particular act, I do not believe there would have been a single vote in that body in favor of the inquiry. Since the time of the Star Chamber and of general warrants, there has been no such proceeding in England.

The House of Representatives, the high impeaching power of the country, without consenting to hear a word of explanation, have indorsed this accusation against the President, and made it their own act. They even refused to permit a member to inquire of the President’s accuser what were the specific charges against him. Thus, in this preliminary accusation of “high crimes and misdemeanors” against a coordinate branch of the Government, under the impeaching power, the House refused to hear a single suggestion even in regard to the correct mode of proceeding, but, without a moment’s delay, passed the accusatory resolutions under the pressure of the previous question. In the institution of a prosecution for any offence against the most humble citizen—and I claim for myself no greater rights than he enjoys—the Constitution of the United States, and of the several States, require that he shall be informed, in the very beginning, of the nature and cause of the accusation against him, in order to enable him to prepare for his defence. There are other principles which I might enumerate, not less sacred, presenting an impenetrable shield to protect every citizen falsely charged with a criminal offence. These have been violated in the prosecution instituted by the House of Representatives against the executive branch of the Government. Shall the President alone be deprived of the protection of these great principles, which prevail in every land where a ray of liberty penetrates the gloom of despotism? Shall the Executive alone be deprived of rights which all his fellow-citizens enjoy? The whole proceeding against him justifies the fears of those wise and great men who, before the Constitution was adopted by the States, apprehended that the tendency of the Government was to the aggrandizement of the legislative at the expense of the executive and judicial departments.

I again declare emphatically that I make this protest for no reason personal to myself; and I do it with perfect respect for the House of Representatives, in which I had the honor of serving as a member for five successive terms. I have lived long in this goodly land, and have enjoyed all the offices and honors which my country could bestow. Amid all the political storms through which I have passed, the present is the first attempt which has ever been made, to my knowledge, to assail my personal or official integrity; and this as the time is approaching when I shall voluntarily retire from the service of my country. I feel proudly conscious that there is no public act of my life which will not bear the strictest scrutiny. I defy all investigation. Nothing but the basest perjury can sully my good name. I do not fear even this, because I cherish an humble confidence that the Gracious Being who has hitherto defended and protected me against the shafts of falsehood and malice will not desert me now, when I have become “old and gray-headed.” I can declare, before God and my country, that no human being (with an exception scarcely worthy of notice) has, at any period of my life, dared to approach me with a corrupt or dishonorable proposition; and, until recent developments, it had never entered into my imagination that any person, even in the storm of exasperated political excitement, would charge me, in the most remote degree, with having made such a proposition to any human being. I may now, however, exclaim, in the language of complaint employed by my first and greatest predecessor, that I have been abused “in such exaggerated and indecent terms as could scarcely be applied to a Nero, to a notorious defaulter, or even to a common pickpocket.”

I do, therefore, for the reasons stated, and in the name of the people of the several States, solemnly protest against these proceedings of the House of Representatives, because they are in violation of the rights of the coördinate executive branch of the Government, and subversive of its constitutional independence; because they are calculated to foster a band of interested parasites and informers, ever ready, for their own advantage, to swear before ex parte committees to pretended private conversations between the President and themselves, incapable, from their nature, of being disproved, thus furnishing material for harassing him, degrading him in the eyes of the country, and eventually, should he be a weak or a timid man, rendering him subservient to improper influences, in order to avoid such persecutions and annoyances; because they tend to destroy that harmonious action for the common good which ought to be maintained, and which I sincerely desire to cherish between coördinate branches of the Government; and, finally, because, if unresisted, they would establish a precedent dangerous and embarrassing to all my successors, to whatever political party they might be attached.

JAMES BUCHANAN.

WASHINGTON, March 28, 1860.

This message was referred to the Committee on the Judiciary, a majority of whom, through their chairman, on the 9th of April, reported resolutions against its constitutional doctrines, which the House adopted on the 8th of June, by a party vote, and the proceedings of the Covode Committee went on until the 16th of that month. Mr. Train, of Massachusetts, one of the committee, then reported to the House a great mass of testimony which had been taken from all sorts of willing witnesses against the President, but without a single resolution accusing or censuring either him or any member of his cabinet. This was, in one sense, as he has himself said, “a triumphant result for the President.”[57] But the movers in this business had attained their object, in procuring and spreading before the country the means of traducing the President; means which rested for the most part on perjury, and for the residue were colored by personal or political hostility. It was impossible for Mr. Buchanan to allow this to pass without further notice. It is more than probable that the further notice which he took of it prevented a repetition of this kind of proceeding, when, on a future occasion, another President of the United States incurred the hostility of a dominant majority in the House of Representatives. On the 22d of June he sent to the House the following additional message:—

Footnote 57:

Buchanan’s Defence, p. 218.

“TO THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES:—

“In my message to the House of Representatives of the 28th March last, I solemnly protested against the creation of a committee, at the head of which was placed my accuser, for the purpose of investigating whether the President had, ‘by money, patronage or other improper means, sought to influence the action of Congress, or any committee thereof, for or against the passage of any law appertaining to the rights of any State or Territory.’ I protested against this because it was destitute of any specification; because it referred to no particular act to enable the President to prepare for his defence; because it deprived him of the constitutional guards, which, in common with every citizen of the United States, he possesses for his protection; and because it assailed his constitutional independence as a coördinate branch of the Government. There is an enlightened justice, as well as a beautiful symmetry, in every part of the Constitution. This is conspicuously manifested in regard to impeachments. The House of Representatives possesses ‘the sole power of impeachment;’ the Senate ‘the sole power to try all impeachments;’ and the impeachable offences are ‘treason, bribery, or other high crimes or misdemeanors.’ The practice of the House, from the earliest times, had been in accordance with its own dignity, the rights of the accused, and the demands of justice. At the commencement of each judicial investigation which might lead to an impeachment, specific charges were always preferred; the accused had an opportunity of cross-examining the witnesses, and he was placed in full possession of the precise nature of the offence which he had to meet. An impartial and elevated standing committee was charged with this investigation, upon which no member inspired with the ancient sense of honor and justice would have served, had he ever expressed an opinion against the accused. Until the present occasion, it was never deemed proper to transform the accuser into the judge, and to confer upon him the selection of his own committee.

“The charges made against me, in vague and general terms, were of such a false and atrocious character, that I did not entertain a moment’s apprehension for the result. They were abhorrent to every principle instilled into me from my youth, and every practice of my life, and I did not believe it possible that the man existed who would so basely perjure himself as to swear to the truth of any such accusations. In this conviction I am informed I have not been mistaken. In my former protest, therefore, I truly and emphatically declared that it was made for no reason personal to myself, but because the proceedings of the House were in violation of the rights of the coördinate executive branch of the Government, subversive of its constitutional independence, and, if unresisted, would establish a precedent dangerous and embarrassing to all my successors. Notwithstanding all this, if the committee had not transcended the authority conferred upon it by the resolution of the House of Representatives, broad and general as this was, I should have remained silent upon the subject. What I now charge is, that they have acted as though they possessed unlimited power, and, without any warrant whatever in the resolution under which they were appointed, have pursued a course not merely at war with the constitutional rights of the Executive, but tending to degrade the presidential office itself to such a degree as to render it unworthy of the acceptance of any man of honor or principle.

“The resolution of the House, so far as it is accusatory of the President, is confined to an inquiry whether he had used corrupt or improper means to influence the action of Congress or any of its committees on legislative measures pending before them. Nothing more, nothing less. I have not learned through the newspapers, or in any other mode, that the committee have touched the other accusatory branch of the resolution, charging the President with a violation of duty in failing to execute some law or laws. This branch of the resolution is therefore out of the question. By what authority, then, have the committee undertaken to investigate the course of the President in regard to the convention which framed the Lecompton constitution? By what authority have they undertaken to pry into our foreign relations, for the purpose of assailing him on account of the instructions given by the Secretary of State to our minister in Mexico, relative to the Tehuantepec route? By what authority have they inquired into the causes of removal from office, and this from the parties themselves removed, with a view to prejudice his character, notwithstanding this power of removal belongs exclusively to the President under the Constitution, was so decided by the first Congress in the year 1789, and has accordingly ever since been exercised? There is in the resolution no pretext of authority for the committee to investigate the question of the printing of the post-office blanks, nor is it to be supposed that the House, if asked, would have granted such an authority, because this question had been previously committed to two other committees—one in the Senate and the other in the House. Notwithstanding this absolute want of power, the committee rushed into this investigation in advance of all other subjects.

“The committee proceeded for months, from March 22d, 1860, to examine ex parte, and without any notice to myself, into every subject which could possibly affect my character. Interested and vindictive witnesses were summoned and examined before them; and the first and only information of their testimony which, in almost every instance, I received, was obtained from the publication of such portions of it as could injuriously affect myself, in the New York journals. It mattered not that these statements were, so far as I have learned, disproved by the most respectable witnesses who happened to be on the spot. The telegraph was silent respecting these contradictions. It was a secret committee in regard to all the testimony which could by possibility reflect on my character. The poison was left to produce its effect upon the public mind, whilst the antidote was carefully withheld.

“In their examinations the committee violated the most sacred and honorable confidences existing among men. Private correspondence, which a truly honorable man would never even entertain a distant thought of divulging, was dragged to light. Different persons in official and confidential relations with myself, and with whom it was supposed I might have held conversations, the revelation of which would do me injury, were examined. Even members of the Senate and members of my own cabinet, both my constitutional advisers, were called upon to testify, for the purpose of discovering something, if possible, to my discredit.

“The distribution of the patronage of the Government is by far the most disagreeable duty of the President. Applicants are so numerous, and their applications are pressed with such eagerness by their friends both in and out of Congress, that the selection of one for any desirable office gives offence to many. Disappointed applicants, removed officers, and those who for any cause, real or imaginary, had become hostile to the administration, presented themselves, or were invited by a summons to appear before the committee. These are the most dangerous witnesses. Even with the best intentions, they are so influenced by prejudice and disappointment, that they almost inevitably discolor truth. They swear to their own version of private conversations with the President without the possibility of contradiction. His lips are sealed and he is left at their mercy. He cannot, as a coördinate branch of the Government, appear before a committee of investigation to contradict the oaths of such witnesses. Every coward knows that he can employ insulting language against the President with impunity, and every false or prejudiced witness can attempt to swear away his character before such a committee without the fear of contradiction.

“Thus for months, whilst doing my best at one end of the avenue to perform my high and responsible duties to the country, has there been a committee of the House of Representatives in session at the other end of the avenue, spreading a drag-net, without the shadow of authority from the House, over the whole Union, to catch any disappointed man willing to malign my character, and all this in secret conclave. The lion’s mouth at Venice, into which secret denunciations were dropped, is an apt illustration of the Covode committee. The Star Chamber, tyrannical and odious as it was, never proceeded in such a manner. For centuries there has been nothing like it in any civilized country, except the revolutionary tribunal of France, in the days of Robespierre. Now, I undertake to state and to prove that should the proceedings of the committee be sanctioned by the House, and become a precedent for future times, the balance of the Constitution will be entirely upset, and there will no longer remain the three coördinate and independent branches of the Government—legislative, executive, and judicial. The worst fears of the patriots and statesmen who framed the Constitution in regard to the usurpations of the legislative on the executive and judicial branches will then be realized. In the language of Mr. Madison, speaking on this very subject, in the forty-eighth number of the Federalist: ‘In a representative republic, where the executive magistracy is carefully limited both in the extent and duration of its power, and where the legislative power is exercised by an assembly which is inspired by a supposed influence over the people, with an intrepid confidence in its own strength, which is sufficiently numerous to feel all the passions which actuate a multitude, yet not so numerous as to be incapable of pursuing the objects of its passions by means which reason prescribes, it is against the enterprising ambition of this department that the people ought to indulge all their jealousy and exhaust all their precautions.’ And in the expressive and pointed language of Mr. Jefferson, when speaking of the tendency of the legislative branch of Government to usurp the rights of the weaker branches: ‘The concentrating these in the same hands is precisely the definition of despotic government. It will be no alleviation that these powers will be exercised by a plurality of hands, and not by a single one. One hundred and seventy-three despots would surely be as oppressive as one. Let those who doubt it turn their eyes on the Republic of Venice. As little will it avail us that they are chosen by ourselves. An elective despotism was not the government we fought for, but one which should not only be founded on free principles, but in which the powers of government should be so divided and balanced among several bodies of magistracy, as that no one could transcend their legal limits without being effectually checked and controlled by the others.”

“Should the proceedings of the Covode committee become a precedent, both the letter and spirit of the Constitution will be violated. One of the three massive columns on which the whole superstructure rests will be broken down. Instead of the Executive being a coördinate, it will become a subordinate branch of the Government. The presidential office will be dragged into the dust. The House of Representatives will then have rendered the Executive almost necessarily subservient to its wishes, instead of being independent. How is it possible that two powers in the State can be coördinate and independent of each other, if the one claims and exercises the power to reprove and to censure all the official acts and all the private conversations of the other, and this upon ex parte testimony before a secret inquisitorial committee—in short, to assume a general censorship over the others? The idea is as absurd in public as it would be in private life. Should the President attempt to assert and maintain his own independence, future Covode committees may dragoon him into submission by collecting the hosts of disappointed office-hunters, removed officers, and those who desire to live upon the public treasury, which must follow in the wake of every administration, and they, in secret conclave, will swear away his reputation. Under such circumstances, he must be a very bold man should he not surrender at discretion and consent to exercise his authority according to the will of those invested with this terrific power. The sovereign people of the several States have elected him to the highest and most honorable office in the world. He is their only direct representative in the Government. By their Constitution they have made him commander-in-chief of their army and navy. He represents them in their intercourse with foreign nations. Clothed with their dignity and authority, he occupies a proud position before all nations, civilized and savage. With the consent of the Senate, he appoints all the important officers of the Government. He exercises the veto power, and to that extent controls the legislation of Congress. For the performance of these high duties he is responsible to the people of the several States, and not in any degree to the House of Representatives.

“Shall he surrender these high powers, conferred upon him as the representative of the American people, for their benefit, to the House, to be exercised under their overshadowing influence and control! Shall he alone of all the citizens of the United States be denied a fair trial? Shall he alone not be ‘informed of the nature and cause of the accusation’ against him? Shall he alone not ‘be confronted with the witnesses’ against him? Shall the House of Representatives, usurping the powers of the Senate, proceed to try the President through the agency of a secret committee of the body where it is impossible he can make any defence, and then, without affording him an opportunity of being heard, pronounce a judgment of censure against him? The very same rule might be applied, for the very same reason, to every judge of every court in the United States. From what part of the Constitution is this terrible inquisitorial power derived? No such express power exists. From which of the enumerated powers can it be inferred? It is true the House cannot pronounce the formal judgment against him of ‘removal from office,’ but they can, by their judgment of censure, asperse his reputation, and thus, to the extent of their influence, render the office contemptible. An example is at hand of the reckless manner in which this power of censure can be employed in high party times. The House, on a recent occasion, have attempted to degrade the President by adopting the resolution of Mr. John Sherman, declaring that he, in conjunction with the Secretary of the Navy, “by receiving and considering the party relations of bidders for contracts, and the effect of awarding contracts upon pending elections, have set an example dangerous to the public safety, and deserving the reproof of this House.”

It will scarcely be credited that the sole pretext for this vote of censure was the simple fact that in disposing of the numerous letters of every imaginable character which I daily receive, I had, in the usual course of business, referred a letter from Colonel Patterson, of Philadelphia, in relation to a contract, to the attention of the Secretary of the Navy, the head of the appropriate department, without expressing or intimating any opinion whatever on the subject; and to make the matter, if possible, still plainer, the Secretary had informed the committee that “the President did not in any manner interfere in this case, nor has he in any other case of contract since I have been in the department.” The absence of all proof to sustain this attempt to degrade the President, whilst it manifests the venom of the shaft aimed at him, has destroyed the vigor of the bow.

To return, after this digression. Should the House, by the institution of Covode committees, votes of censure, and other devices to harass the President, reduce him to subservience to their will, and render him their creature, then the well-balanced Government which our fathers framed will be annihilated. This conflict has already been commenced in earnest by the House against the Executive. A bad precedent rarely if ever dies. It will, I fear, be pursued in the time of my successors, no matter what may be their political character. Should secret committees be appointed with unlimited authority to range over all the words and actions, and, if possible, the very thoughts of the President, with a view to discover something in his past life prejudicial to his character, from parasites and informers, this would be an ordeal which scarcely any mere man since the fall could endure. It would be to subject him to a reign of terror from which the stoutest and purest hearts might shrink. I have passed triumphantly through this ordeal. My vindication is complete. The committee have reported no resolution looking to an impeachment against me, no resolution of censure, not even a resolution pointing out any abuses in any of the executive departments of the Government to be corrected by legislation. This is the highest commendation which could be bestowed on the heads of these departments. The sovereign people of the States will, however, I trust, save my successors, whoever they may be, from any such ordeal. They are frank, bold, and honest. They detest delators and informers. I therefore, in the name and as the representative of this great people, and standing upon the ramparts of the Constitution which they “have ordained and established,” do solemnly protest against these unprecedented and unconstitutional proceedings.

There was still another committee raised by the House on the 6th March last, on motion of Mr. Heard, to which I had not the slightest objection. The resolution creating it was confined to specific charges, which I have ever since been ready and willing to meet. I have at all times invited and defied fair investigation upon constitutional principles. I have received no notice that this committee have ever proceeded to the investigation.

Why should the House of Representatives desire to encroach on the other departments of the Government? Their rightful powers are ample for every legitimate purpose. They are the impeaching body. In their legislative capacity it is their most wise and wholesome prerogative to institute rigid examinations into the manner in which all departments of the Government are conducted, with a view to reform abuses, to promote economy, and to improve every branch of the administration. Should they find reason to believe, in the course of their examinations, that any grave offence had been committed by the President or any officer of the Government, rendering it proper, in their judgment, to resort to impeachment, their course would be plain. They would then transfer the question from their legislative to their accusatory jurisdiction, and take care that in all the preliminary judicial proceedings, preparatory to the vote of articles of impeachment, the accused should enjoy the benefit of cross-examining the witnesses, and all the other safeguards with which the Constitution surrounds every American citizen.

If, in a legislative investigation, it should appear that the public interest required the removal of any officer of the Government, no President has ever existed who, after giving him a fair hearing, would hesitate to apply the remedy. This I take to be the ancient and well-established practice. An adherence to it will best promote the harmony and the dignity of the intercourse between the coördinate branches of the Government, and render us all more respectable both in the eyes of our own countrymen and of foreign nations.

JAMES BUCHANAN.

WASHINGTON, June 22, 1860.

This last message was referred to a select committee, with instructions to report at the next session. But no report was ever made, and legislative action on the doings of the “Covode Committee” thus came to an end. But in the country the materials for calumniating the President continued to be used as they were originally designed to be. It will be interesting to know something more of the feelings of Mr. Buchanan on the subject, as expressed in a private letter to the editor and proprietor of a great New York journal.

[TO JAMES GORDON BENNETT, ESQ.]

(Private and Confidential.) WASHINGTON, June 18th, 1860.

MR DEAR SIR:—

I thought I never should have occasion to appeal to you on any public subject, and I knew if I did, I could not swerve you from your independent course. I therefore now only ask you as a personal friend to take the trouble of examining yourself the proceedings of the Covode Committee and the reports of the majority and minority, and then to do me what you may deem to be justice. That committee were engaged in secret conclave for nearly three months in examining every man, ex parte, who, from disappointment or personal malignity, would cast a shade upon the character of the Executive. If this dragooning can exist, the Presidential office would be unworthy of the acceptance of a gentleman.

In performing my duty, I have endeavored to be not only pure but unsuspected. I have never had any concern in awarding contracts, but have left them to be given by the heads of the appropriate departments. I have ever detested all jobs, and no man, at any period of my life, has ever approached me on such a subject. The testimony of —— contains nothing but falsehoods, whether for or against me, for he has sworn all round.

I shall send a message to the House in a few days on the violation of the Constitution involved in the vote of censure and in the appointment and proceedings of the Covode Committee. I am glad to perceive from the Herald that you agree with me on the Constitutional question. I shall endeavor to send you a copy in advance.

With my kindest regards to Mrs. Bennett, I remain, very respectfully,

Your friend, JAMES BUCHANAN.

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Chapter XIII

SUMMARY OF THE SLAVERY QUESTIONS FROM 1787 TO 1860—THE ANTI-SLAVERY AGITATION IN THE NORTH—GROWTH AND POLITICAL TRIUMPH OF THE REPUBLICAN PARTY—FATAL DIVISIONS AMONG THE DEMOCRATS—MR. BUCHANAN DECLINES TO BE REGARDED AS A CANDIDATE FOR A SECOND ELECTION.

As the reader is now approaching the period when, for the first time in our political history, a President of the United States was elected by the votes of the free States alone, a retrospective view of those events which preceded and contributed to that result is necessary to a correct understanding of the great national schism of 1860-61.

The beginning of the year 1860 found the people of the United States in the enjoyment of as great a measure of prosperity as they had ever known. It was to close with a condition of feeling between the two sections of the Union entirely fatal to its peace and threatening to its perpetuity. In the future of our country there will come a time when our posterity will ask, why should there ever have been any “North” or any “South,” in the sense in which those divisions have been marked in so long a period of our national history. When the inquirer learns that from the time of the formation and establishment of the Constitution of the United States, the existence of slavery in certain States was nearly the sole cause of the sectional antagonism typified by those terms, he will have to trace, through various settlements, the successive adjustments of questions which related to this one dangerous and irritating subject.

This portion of our national history is divided into distinct stages, at each of which some thing intended to be definite and final was reached. It is also filled by the disastrous influence of causes which unsettled what had once been determined as a series of compacts between the sections; causes which continued to operate until the year that witnessed the beginning of a great catastrophe.

The Constitution of the United States, so far as it related in any way to the condition of slavery, was the result of agreements and adjustments between the Northern and the Southern States, which have been called “compromises.” It is not material to the present purpose to consider either the moral justification for these arrangements, or whether there was an equality or an inequality as between the two sections, in what they respectively gained or conceded. Both sections gained the Union of the whole country under a system of government better adapted to secure its welfare and happiness than it had known before; and what this system promised was abundantly fulfilled. The precise equivalent which the Southern States received, by the settlement made in the formation of the Constitution, was the recognition of slavery as a condition of portions of their population by a right exclusively dependent upon their own local law, and exclusively under their own control as a right of property; and to this right of property was annexed a stipulation that the master might follow his slave from the State whence he had escaped into any other State, and require him to be given up, even if the law of that other State did not recognize the condition of servitude. One other concession was made by the Northern States: that although the slaves of the Southern States were regarded as property, they should be so far considered as persons as to be reckoned in a certain ratio in fixing the basis of representation in the popular branch of Congress, and by consequence in fixing the electoral vote of the State in the choice of a President of the United States. The special equivalent which the Northern States received for these concessions was in the establishment of what is called “the commercial power,” or the power of Congress to regulate for the whole country the trade with foreign nations and between the States; a power which it was foreseen was to be one of vast importance, which was one of the chief objects for which the new Union was to be formed, and which proved in the event to be all, and more than all, that had been anticipated for it. Viewed in the light of mutual stipulations, these so-called “compromises” between the two sections were laid at the basis of the Constitution, forming a settlement fixed in the supreme law of the land, and therefore determinate and final.

Contemporaneously with the formation of the Constitution, and before its adoption, the Congress of the Confederation was engaged in framing an ordinance for the government of the Northwestern Territory, a region of country north and west of the Ohio, which Virginia and other States had ceded to the United States during the war of the revolution. From this region the ordinance excluded slavery by an agreement made in that Congress between the Northern and the Southern States. The Constitution did not take notice of this Northwestern Territory by its specific designation, but it was made to embrace a provision empowering the new Congress “to make all needful rules and regulations respecting the territory and all other property of the United States,” and also a provision for the admission into the Union of new States, to be formed out of any territory belonging to the United States. For a long period after the adoption of the Constitution, these two provisions, taken together, were regarded as establishing a plenary power of legislation over the internal condition of any territory that might in any way become the property of the United States, while it remained subject to the exclusive jurisdiction of Congress, and down to the time when its inhabitants were to be permitted to form themselves into a State that was to be admitted into the Union upon an equality with all the other States. Under this process, between the years 1792 and 1820, nine new States were admitted into the Union; five of them with slavery and four of them without it. Of these, three were formed out of parts of the Northwestern Territory, and they therefore derived their character as free States from the admitted force of the ordinance of 1787; while the others were not within the scope of that ordinance, but derived their character from the legislative authority of Congress under the Constitution.

It was not until the year 1820 that this recognized practice of admitting a State into the Union as a free or as a slave State, according to the character of its early settlement, and the legislation which governed the Territorial condition, incurred any serious danger of interruption. But in that year, Missouri, which was a part of the territory ceded in 1803 by France to the United States under the name of Louisiana, was in a condition to seek admission into the Union. Slavery had existed there from the first settlement of the country, and when it became necessary to authorize the free inhabitants to form a State constitution, preparatory to admission into the Union, it was certain that, if left to themselves, they would not abolish a domestic relation that had long existed among them, and in which no inconsiderable part of their wealth was involved. It was proposed to require them to abolish it, as a condition precedent to the admission of the State into the Union. On this so-called “Missouri Restriction,” a violent sectional struggle ensued in Congress, which ended in what has since been known as the “Missouri Compromise.” This was embodied in the organic act, passed on the 6th of March, 1820, which authorized the people of the then Territory of Missouri to form a State constitution and government. The compromise consisted, on the one hand, in the omission of the proposed restriction as a condition of admission into the Union, and, on the other hand, in a guarantee of perpetual freedom throughout all the remainder of the Louisiana territory lying north of the parallel of 36° 30´. This was accompanied, however, by a proviso, which saved the right to reclaim any person escaping into that region, from whom labor or service was lawfully claimed in any State or Territory of the United States. The parallel of 36° 30´ was adopted as the line north of which slavery or involuntary servitude might not be permitted to exist as an institution or condition recognized by the local law, because it was assumed as a practical fact that north of that line the slavery of the African race could not, from the nature of the climate, be profitably introduced, whilst it was equally assumed that in those portions of the Louisiana purchase south of that line, the habits of the contiguous States, and the character of the climate would induce a settlement by persons accustomed to hold and depend upon that species of labor in the cultivation of the soil, and in the wants of domestic life. The principle of the Missouri Compromise, therefore, as a final settlement made between the two sections of the Union in respect to the whole of the Louisiana purchase, was that north of the parallel of 36° 30´, slavery could never be introduced, but that south of that line, slavery might be established according to the will of the free inhabitants. Regarded in the light of a division of this vast territory, this compromise secured to the North quite as much as, if not more than, it secured to the South. Regarded in the light of a settlement of a dangerous and exciting controversy, on which the whole Union could repose, the Missouri Compromise disposed of the future character of all the territory then belonging to the United States, not including the Northwestern Territory, the character of which was fixed by the ordinance of 1787. For a quarter of a century afterward, the two sections of North and South rested in peace upon the settlement of 1820, so far as discussion of the subject of slavery in the halls of Congress could be induced by the application of new States to be admitted into the Union. But in 1845, when Texas, a foreign, an independent, and a slave State, was annexed to the Union, the subject of an increase in the number of slave States came again into discussion, in which angry sectional feeling was carried to a dangerous point. Texas was finally admitted into the Union as a slaveholding State, with a right to divide herself into four new States, with or without slavery; but one of the express conditions of the annexation was a recognition of the Missouri Compromise line, so that north of that line no new State could be framed out of any portion of Texas unless slavery should be excluded from it. The wisdom and policy of the Missouri Compromise were thus again recognized, and it remained undisturbed for a period of thirty-four years from the time of its enactment, as a covenant of peace between the North and the South.

The war between the United States and Mexico, which was terminated by the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, in 1848, resulted in the acquisition by the United States of a vast region of country which was not embraced by the Missouri Compromise. At the time of this acquisition, Mr. Buchanan earnestly advocated the extension of the line of 36° 30´ through the whole of this new territory to the Pacific Ocean, as the best mode of adjustment.

It is not necessary in this historical sketch to dwell on the advantages or disadvantages of this plan. All that needs to be said about it here is, that it commended itself to Mr. Buchanan as a plan more acceptable to the people of both sections of the Union than any other that could be devised. It was defeated by the proposal of the so-called “Wilmot Proviso,” which aimed to exclude slavery from all possible introduction into any part of this newly acquired territory, without regard to the principle of division which was the characteristic of the Missouri Compromise, and without recognizing any claim of the slaveholding States to an equal enjoyment of the common territory of the Union, in the manner in which they asserted that claim. The Southern claim was that of a right to emigrate into any Territory of the United States, with slaves, as part of the property of the emigrant, just as a Northern man could emigrate into such a Territory with whatever personal property he chose to take with him. When, therefore, the admission of California as a State, and the organization of Territorial governments for the other provinces of Mexico that had been ceded to the United States came before Congress, they came accompanied by a great sectional excitement, that was partly due to the anti-slavery agitation that had been going on in the North, and partly to the struggle for an increase of the political power of the free States on the one side, and of the slave States on the other, according as the future character of these new acquisitions might be determined.

Having now reached the year 1850, the reader stands at a period at which the character of freedom had been long impressed upon the whole of the Northwestern Territories; at which the character of the whole region of the Louisiana purchase had been for thirty years determined by the principle of the Missouri Compromise; and at which, what remained to be done was to adjust, by a final settlement, the future character of the territory acquired from Mexico, and to act upon any other questions concerning slavery that demanded and admitted legislation by Congress. There were two such questions that did not relate to the newly acquired territory. One of these concerned the toleration of the domestic slave trade in the District of Columbia, the abolition of which was loudly demanded by the North. The other related to a Southern demand of a more efficient law for the extradition of fugitives from service.

The Thirty-first Congress, assembled in December, 1849, was the one which enacted the series of measures known as the “Compromise of 1850,” and which settled all the slavery questions that remained for adjustment. In respect to the territory that had been acquired from Mexico, there was danger for a time that all harmony of action would be frustrated by the so-called “Wilmot Proviso,” which aimed to impose as a fundamental condition of any legislation respecting any part of that territory, a perpetual exclusion of slavery. Mr. Buchanan was out of public office at this time, but his influence was exerted in his own State, with success, to prevent the passage by her legislature of instructing resolutions in favor of that proviso. This led the way for its rejection by Congress. On the 4th of February, 1850, resolutions favoring the proviso were laid upon the table of the House of Representatives in Congress, by the vote of 105 to 75. This important vote was followed in the Senate by five measures, designed by Mr. Clay and supported by Mr. Webster and Mr. Calhoun, which, after a long discussion, became laws in September, 1850, with the general concurrence of both the Whig and the Democratic parties. The first of these Acts consisted of a new and more efficient law for the extradition of fugitives from service, to take the place of the old law of February 12th, 1793, which bore the signature of Washington. By reason of a decision of the Supreme Court, made in 1842, which had determined that Congress could not constitutionally require State magistrates to perform a duty which the Court declared to be one pertaining exclusively to the Federal power, the law of 1793 had become almost inoperative. Although the decision of the Court left the States at liberty to allow their magistrates to act in such cases, many of the Northern States had passed laws to prohibit them from rendering any official aid to the claimant of a fugitive from service. It had become necessary, therefore, for Congress to provide officers of Federal appointment to execute an express mandate of the Federal Constitution. This was the purpose of the new law of 1850.

The second of these “compromise measures” was an Act for the immediate admission of California into the Union, as a free State, embracing its whole territory, both south and north of the line of the Missouri Compromise. The third and fourth measures were Acts for the establishment of Territorial governments in New Mexico and Utah, which secured to them respectively the right of admission as States into the Union, “with or without slavery as their respective constitutions might require.” The Act relating to New Mexico declared that “no citizen of the United States shall be deprived of his life, liberty or property in said Territory, except by the judgment of his peers and the laws of the land;” thus making, from abundant caution, a provision of the Federal Constitution obligatory upon the Territorial legislature. Thus these two Acts, along with the Missouri Compromise, comprehended all the territory belonging to the United States, whether derived from Mexico or from France; there was no territory remaining for the Wilmot Proviso to act upon, and consequently the agitation of that proviso was excluded from the halls of Congress. Moreover, the Act for establishing the Territory of New Mexico withdrew from the jurisdiction of a slave State all that portion of Texas which lay north of the parallel of 36° 30´, by including it within the boundary of New Mexico. The fifth of the compromise measures of 1850 was a law abolishing the domestic slave trade within the District of Columbia.

It is not singular that a final settlement, which disposed of all the slavery questions on which Congress could in any way act, should have been acceptable to the people of the whole Union, excepting the extremists of the two sections. The abolitionists of the North denounced it, because it admitted of the possible and theoretical establishment of slavery in New Mexico, notwithstanding the patent fact that neither the soil nor the climate of that region could ever make it a profitable form of labor, and because it recognized and provided for the execution of that provision of the Constitution which required the extradition of fugitives from service. The extreme men of the South disliked the settlement, because it admitted the great and rich State of California as a free State. But when the Presidential election of 1852 approached, the general approval of this settlement was made manifest. The national convention of the Whig party nominated as its candidate for the Presidency General Scott, who was supposed to be somewhat closely affiliated, both personally and politically, with public men who opposed and continued to denounce the compromise. But in their “platform” the Whigs pledged themselves to maintain it as a binding settlement, and to discountenance all attempts in or out of Congress to disturb it. The Democratic national convention not only made equally emphatic declarations of their purpose to maintain this settlement inviolate, but by nominating a candidate who could not be suspected of any lukewarmness on this, the great political question of the time, they secured a majority of the electoral votes of both free and slave States that was almost unprecedented. General Pierce received 254 electoral votes out of 296, or 105 votes more than were necessary to a choice. All the free States, excepting Massachusetts and Vermont, and all the slave States, excepting Kentucky and Tennessee, gave him their electoral votes. Never did a party come into power with greater strength, and never was there a more distinct political issue than that which placed General Pierce at the head of the Government. The people at large distrusted the soundness of the Whig candidate and his friends upon the compromise of 1850, and being determined to maintain that settlement as final, and to have no more agitation of slavery questions in Congress, they entrusted the destinies of the country to the Democratic party.

But as not infrequently happens, the Democrats were in a majority so large that it became unwieldy; and before the administration of General Pierce had closed, a step was taken that was to lead to the most serious consequences. This step was the repeal of the Missouri Compromise. The settlement, or “compromise” of 1850, made by the consentaneous action of the North and the South, rested, as on a corner stone, upon the inviolable character of the settlement of 1820, known as the Missouri Compromise. To preserve that earlier compromise intact, was to preserve the later one; for if the settlement made in 1820 in regard to all the territory derived from France should be renounced, the door would be open for the renunciation of the settlement made in 1850 respecting New Mexico and Utah. Sweep away the compact which dedicated the whole Louisiana territory north of 36° 30´ to perpetual freedom, and which gave to the South whatever parts of it below that line might be adapted to slave labor, and all Territories everywhere would be subject to a new contention over the dogma that slavery did or that it did not go into every Territory by virtue of a right derived from the Constitution of the United States. There was no security for the peace and harmony of the country, but to act upon the principle that the settlement of 1850 rested for its foundation upon the inviolable character and perpetual duration of the settlement of 1820.

But in all free countries governed by political parties, and especially at times when the party in power is in an extraordinary majority, there are always men who feel that they are wiser than others, and who are apt to couple their own aims as statesmen, looking to the highest honors of their country, with new plans for the management of public affairs. Such a man was the late Stephen A. Douglas, a Senator in Congress from the State of Illinois from 1847 until his death, in 1861; a distinguished leader of the Democratic party, who had been several times a candidate for the nomination by his party to the Presidency. This very able man, who had a considerable body of friends attached to him from his energetic and somewhat imperious qualities, had been a strenuous supporter of the Compromise of 1850, and had rendered very efficient service in the adoption of that settlement. He seems to have been somewhat suddenly led, in 1854, to the adoption of the idea that it would be wise to repeal the Missouri Compromise, and that in its place might be substituted a doctrine that the people of a Territory have the same right and ought to have the same sovereign power, while in the Territorial condition, to shape their domestic institutions in their own way, as the people of a State. He does not appear to have had the foresight to see that the practical application of this doctrine would lead, in the circumstances of the country, to a sectional struggle for the possession and political dominion of a Territory, between slaveholders and non-slaveholders, without the superintending and controlling authority of Congress to prevent such a conflict by determining the character of the Territory one way or the other. As he could not remove the Missouri settlement without attacking the constitutional power of Congress to legislate as it might see fit on the condition of a Territory, he boldly determined to make that attack, and to put in the place of the authority of Congress the doctrine of “popular sovereignty” as a substitute for Congressional legislation on the relations of master and slave. When this ill-advised legislation, which tended in the most direct manner to concentrate into political organization the Northern dislike of slavery, received the sanction of the President, General Pierce, on the 30th of May, 1854, Mr. Buchanan was out of the country. He never approved of it, and had he been at home, it is quite certain that it would have encountered his strenuous opposition.

Turning now aside from the history of these successive settlements, and the modes in which they were unsettled, in order to appreciate the condition of feeling between the two sections of the Union at the time when the election of Mr. Lincoln to the Presidency was effected exclusively by the electoral votes of the free States, the reader should learn something of the history of the anti-slavery agitation in the North; something of the effort to extend the political power of the slave States as a barrier against anticipated encroachments upon Southern rights; and something of the causes which led to the assertion of the supposed right of State secession from the Union, as a remedy against dangers apprehended to be in store for the people of the South.

By the universal admission of all persons, whatever were their sentiments or feelings concerning slavery, the Constitution of the United States conferred no power upon Congress to act on it in any State of the Union. This was as much acknowledged by the early abolitionists as by all other men. They regarded the Constitution as a “pro-slavery” instrument. They admitted that the supreme law of the land recognized and to a certain extent upheld the principle that slaves were property; and they therefore sought for a justification of their attacks upon the Constitution in what they denominated the “higher law,” which meant that when the individual citizen believes that the moral law is in conflict with the law of the land, the latter cannot rightfully bind his conscience or restrain his conduct. Proclaiming it to be sinful to live in a political confederacy which tolerated slavery anywhere within its limits, they began by denouncing the Constitution as a “league with death and a covenant with hell;” and it was not long before this doctrine of the higher law was preached from pulpits and disseminated by numerous publications in the New England States. The dates of the organized anti-slavery societies are important to be observed, because of the spontaneous movement in Virginia towards the removal of slavery which shortly preceded them. The New England Anti-slavery Society was organized in Boston, on the 30th of January, 1832; the New York Society in October, 1833; and the National Society at Philadelphia in December, 1833. Affiliated local societies of the same kind sprang up at once in many towns and villages of the North. At the time when these organizations were first gathered, and for a long period thereafter, there was no pending question upon the subject of the extension of slavery into Territories of the United States. The country had been reposing since 1820 upon the Missouri settlement; it was not until 1845 that any addition of slave territory was threatened; and at the moment when the first anti-slavery society was organized in Boston, Virginia was on the verge of emancipating her slaves. Accordingly, the nature, purposes and methods of the Northern anti-slavery agitation between the year 1832 and the annexation of Texas in 1845, and thence to the year 1860, form a most important subject of political study.

The founders of the Northern anti-slavery societies, while taking their stand in opposition to the Constitution, had yet, in all that they asked Congress to do, to address themselves to a public body every member of which had taken an oath to support that instrument. In their own communities, those who carried on the agitation could appeal to the emotional natures of men, women and children upon the wrongs and the sin of slavery, and fill them with hatred of the slaveholder, without discriminating between questions on which the citizens of a non-slaveholding State could and those on which they could not legitimately act. A great moral force of abhorrence of slavery could thus be, and in fact was, in process of time accumulated. This force expended itself in two ways; first, in supplying to the managers of the agitation the means of sending into the Southern States, pamphlets, newspapers and pictorial representations setting forth the wrongs and cruelties of slavery. For this purpose, the mails of the United States had, by the year 1835, been so much used for the circulation in the South of matter which was there regarded as incendiary and calculated to promote servile insurrections, that President Jackson deemed it to be his duty to propose legislation to arrest such abuses of the post office. Congress did not adopt his recommendation, and the abuse remained unchecked.[58] Another mode in which the anti-slavery agitation expended itself was in petitions to Congress. During the session of 1835-6, and for several of the following years, Congress was flooded with what were called “abolition petitions.” On some of them Congress could legitimately act: such as those which prayed for the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia, and in the forts, arsenals, and dock-yards of the United States situated in slaveholding States. On others, which petitioned for a dissolution of the Union on account of the existence of slavery in some of the States, or for action on the subject of slavery in general, Congress of course could do nothing. A question arose whether such petitions could be received at all, which led to a very memorable and a very excited discussion of the right of petition. Not only was a large part of the time of Congress taken up with these topics, but the opposing representatives of the two sections were guilty of excesses in crimination and recrimination, which foreshadowed the formation of two geographical parties, one Northern and the other Southern, having nothing but slavery as the cause of their division.

Footnote 58:

See the message of President Jackson, December 3, 1835. It is not intended in the text to express any opinion whether the abuse could or could not have been restrained in the way proposed. The fact that the President of the United States deemed it his duty to make this recommendation attests the character of the abuse which he sought to remedy.

One of the questions to which those who are to come after us will seek for an answer, will be, what was the justification for this anti-slavery agitation, begun in 1832 and continued for a period of about ten years, during which there was no special effort on the part of the South to extend the area of slavery? What, again, was the unquestionable effect of this agitation in producing a revulsion of feeling on the whole subject of slavery among the slaveholders themselves? Was the time propitious for the accomplishment of any good? Were the mode, the method, and the spirit of the agitation such as men would resort to, who had a just and comprehensive sense of the limitations upon human responsibility?

The time was most unfortunate. The Southern conscience did not then need to be quickened or enlightened on the inherent wrong of African slavery; nor did it need to be told that the system was one that inflicted many evils upon society. Plans of emancipation, which the Southerners themselves were far better fitted to form than any one who was a stranger to their social condition, had already begun to be considered by enlightened men in more than one of the older Southern States. All that could be done by others who were beyond their limits, to aid them in any aspect of the subject, was limited by just such restraints as apply to any evil existing in a community to which it is confined, and on which strangers can offer nothing but the most considerate and temperate discussion of remedies originating among those who have the burthen to bear. The grand error of our early abolitionists was that they would not observe the limitations of human duty. They were either citizens or residents of non-slaveholding States. Foreigners, in respect to this matter, to the States in which slavery existed, they carried on their discussions, publications and organizations in communities whose public opinion could have but an extremely narrow and subordinate right to act on the subject at all. They either disregarded the fact that the Constitution of the United States could never have been established if it had not recognized the exclusive right of each Southern State to govern the relation of master and slave—nay, that the foreign slave trade without that Constitution could not have been ended when it was, if at all—or else they denounced the Constitution as an emanation from the bottomless pit. Grant that the relation of servitude was a moral wrong, that the idea that man can hold property in man was repugnant to the law of nature or the law of God; grant that the political system of the Union, as our fathers made it, ought to have been reformed by their descendants;—were there no moral restraints resting upon those who enjoyed the advantages and blessings of a Union which had been purchased by certain concessions to the slaveholder? Did not the Constitution itself provide for regular and peaceful changes which the progress of society and the growing philanthropy of the age might find to be necessary to the fuller practical development of the great truths of liberty? Was there no way to deal with slavery but to attack the slaveholder as a sinner, stained with the deepest of crimes against God and his fellow-men? Was there nothing to be done to aid him in ridding himself of the burthen of his sin, by discussing with him the economical problems of his situation? Was it necessary for strangers to demand instant and unqualified manumission, regardless of what was to follow? Was it necessary to assail the Constitution as an unholy covenant with sin, and, rejecting its restraints, to disregard the wisdom that takes human nature as it is, that is careful not to provoke reaction, that looks before and after, and shapes its measures with a rational forecast of their adaptation to the end?

Whilst it is not to be denied that our “Abolitionists” were men of a certain kind of courage developed into rashness, of unbounded zeal, of singular energy, of persistent consistency with their own principles of action, and of that fanatical force which is derived from the incessant contemplation of one idea to the exclusion of all others, it must nevertheless be said that they were not statesmen. There was no one among them of whom it can be said that he acted with a statesmanlike comprehension of the difficulties of this great subject, or with a statesman’s regard for the limitations on individual conduct. Their situation was very different from that of the public or private men in England, who gallantly led the early crusade against the slave trade, or of those who afterwards brought about emancipation in the British colonies. Whatever Parliament thought fit to do in regard to slavery under the British flag or in the British dominions, it had ample power to do, and what Parliament might be made to do, was for the nation to determine. An English statesman or philanthropist had, in either character, no constitutional restraints to consider. He had to deal with both moral and economical questions, and he could deal freely with either. He could use argument, persuasion, invective, or denunciation, and he could not be told by the Jamaica slaveholder, you have entered into a solemn public compact with me which secures to me the exclusive cognizance of this domestic relation, and by that compact you purchased the very existence of the general government under which we both live. But a citizen of the United States, or a foreigner, taking his stand in a free State, stirring up popular hatred of the slaveholder, sending into the Southern States publications which were there regarded as incendiary, persuading legislative bodies in the North to act against one of the express conditions of the Federal Union, and renouncing all Christian fellowship with Southern churches, surely violated the spirit and in some respects the letter of the Constitution. He provoked a sudden revulsion of feeling in the South, and brought about a state of opinion which aimed to maintain slavery by texts of scripture, by the examples of other nations, by the teachings of Christ and his apostles, by the assumed relations of races, by the supposed laws of public economy, and the alleged requirements of a southern clime. He promoted, by an effect as inevitable as the nature of man, a purpose to defend slavery through an increase of its political power, to which a multiplication of slave States would make a large addition. He thus sowed the wind, and, left to another generation to reap the whirlwind.

These assertions must not be left unsupported by proof, and the proof is at hand. In all periods of our history, prior to the civil war, Virginia exercised great influence over the whole slaveholding region. I have said that she was on the verge of emancipation when the first anti-slavery society was organized in the North; and although half a century has since elapsed, there are those living who, like myself, can recollect that she was so. But to others the fact must be attested by proof. It may be asserted as positively as anything in history that, in the year 1832, there was nowhere in the world a more enlightened sense of the wrong and the evil of slavery, than there was among the public men and the people of Virginia. The movement against it was spontaneous. It reached the general assembly by petitions which evinced that the policy and justice of emancipation had taken a strong hold on the convictions of portions of the people of the State, whom no external influence had then reached, and who, therefore, had free scope. Any Virginian could place himself at the head of this movement without incurring hostility or jealousy, and it was a grandson of Jefferson, Mr. Jefferson Randolph, by whom the leading part in it was assumed.

Mr. Randolph represented in the assembly the county of Albemarle, which was one of the largest slaveholding counties of the State. He brought forward a bill to accomplish a gradual emancipation. It was debated with the freedom of men who, undisturbed by external pressure, were dealing with a matter of purely domestic concern. No member of the house defended slavery, for the day had not come when Southern men were to learn that it was a blessing, because those who knew nothing of its burthens told them that it was a curse. There could be nothing said anywhere, there had been nothing said out of Virginia, stronger and truer, in depicting the evils of slavery, than was said in that discussion by Virginia gentlemen, debating in their own legislature a matter that concerned themselves and their people. But finding that the house was not prepared for immediate action on so momentous a subject, Mr. Randolph did not press his bill to a vote. A resolution, however, was adopted, by a vote of 65 to 58, which shows what was the condition of the public sentiment of Virginia at that moment. It declared, as the sense of the house, “that they were profoundly sensible of the great evils arising from the condition of the colored population of the commonwealth, and were induced by policy, as well as humanity, to attempt the immediate removal of the free negroes; but that further action for the removal of the slaves should await a more definite development of public opinion.”

Mr. Randolph was again elected by his constituents, upon this special question. But in the mean time came suddenly the intelligence of what was doing at the North. It came in an alarming aspect for the peace and security of the whole South; since it could not be possible that strangers should combine together to assail the slaveholder as a sinner and to demand his instant admission of his guilt, without arousing fears of the most dangerous consequences for the safety of Southern homes, as well as intense indignation against such an unwarrantable interference. From that time forth, emancipation, whether immediate or gradual, could not be considered in Virginia or anywhere else in the South. Public attention became instantly fixed upon the means of resisting this external and unjustifiable intermeddling with a matter that did not concern those who intermeddled. A sudden revulsion of public sentiment in Virginia was followed by a similar revulsion wherever Southern men had begun to consider for themselves what could be done for the amelioration of the condition of the colored race and for ultimate emancipation. As the Northern agitation went on, increasing in bitterness and gathering new forces, Southern statesmen cast about for new devices to strengthen the political power of their section in the Federal Government. These devices are to be traced to the anti-slavery agitation in the North as their exciting cause, as distinctly as anything whatever in the history of sectional feeling can be traced back from an effect to a cause which has produced it.

But this was not the whole of the evil produced by the anti-slavery agitation. It prevented all consideration by the higher class of Northern statesmen of any method of action by which the people of the free States could aid their Southern brethren in removing slavery; and it presented to Northern politicians of the inferior order a local field for cultivating popularity, as the excitement went on increasing in violence and swept into its vortex the voters whose local support was found to be useful. That there was a line of action on which any Northern statesman could have entered, consistently with all the obligations flowing from the letter and the spirit of the Federal Constitution, is perfectly plain.

While it was impracticable for the people of the North to act directly upon slavery in any State through the Federal Government, it was not impracticable for that Government to follow, with cautious steps, in auxiliary measures to aid what it could not initiate. There were States which were becoming ripe for changes in the condition of their colored population. Of course such changes could be proposed, considered and acted upon only in each of those States, as a measure that concerned its own domestic condition. But there were many ways in which the Federal Government, without transcending its constitutional powers, could incidentally assist any State in what the State had of itself determined to do. The line which separated what the Federal power could legitimately and properly do from what was prohibited to it by every political and moral consideration, was not difficult to be discovered. For example, if the State of Virginia had in 1832-33 adopted any system for colonizing her negroes, what was there to prevent the Federal Government from granting a portion of the public lands for such a purpose? If the subject of prospective emancipation had been approached in this manner, without the disturbance produced by the anti-slavery societies of the North, who can doubt that experiments of the utmost consequence could have been tried, and tried successfully, in a country possessing an almost boundless public domain? But the sudden irruption of those societies into the field, their disregard of all prudential and all constitutional restraints, their fierce denunciations of the slaveholder, their demand for instant and unqualified manumission, at once converted a question which should have remained a matter for joint and friendly coöperation of the two sections, into a struggle for political supremacy of one section over the other in the councils of the Federal Government. All measures and tendencies in the South, which might have opened the way for subsidiary aid on the part of the Federal power, were at once arrested; and it became a study with Southern statesmen how they were to raise new barriers for the defence of slavery, by increasing the political power of their section within the Union. The old barriers had become, in their eyes, but a feeble defence against those who proclaimed that the Union itself was an accursed thing, and that if immediate emancipation of the slaves was not adopted, the Union ought to be broken up.

While it is true that the doctrines of the abolitionists were at first regarded by the great body of the Northern people as the ravings of fanatics, insomuch that they were sometimes subjected to popular violence, they were nevertheless making progress. Year after year the agitation was carried on in the same spirit, and year after year the excitement on the whole subject of slavery continued to grow until it reached a fresh impulse in the proposed annexation of Texas. It should in justice be remembered that the effort at that period to enlarge the area of slavery was an effort on the part of the South, dictated by a desire to remain in the Union, and not to accept the issue of an inherent incompatibility of a political union between slaveholding and non-slaveholding States. It was not at this period that the Southern States embraced, or were much disposed to embrace, the doctrine of “secession.” The views of the nature of the Union, maintained by their most distinguished and powerful statesman, Mr. Calhoun, in 1830-33, led logically to the deduction that every State has, by the terms of the Federal compact, a right to quit the Union when, in its own judgment, it deems that step necessary. But no considerable body of persons in the South, out of his own State, accepted his premises or followed them to their conclusion, until long after he was in his grave; nor did he himself propose secession as a remedy against what he and the whole South regarded as the unwarrantable aggressions of the Northern abolitionists. He aimed to strengthen the political power of his section within the Union, and his whole course in regard to the acquisition of Texas shows his conviction that if that country were not brought under our dominion, there would be an exposed frontier, from which England and the American abolitionists would operate against slavery in the Southern section of the United States. The previous history of the Union shows very plainly that prior to the commencement of the Northern anti-slavery agitation, the political equilibrium between the two sections had not been seriously disturbed.

At the period which I am now considering, the public men of the North who acted an important part in national affairs, and who belonged, as Mr. Buchanan unquestionably did belong, to the higher class of statesmen, had to act with a wise circumspection on this subject of slavery. There was nothing that such a man could do, if he regarded his public duty with an American statesman’s sense of public obligation, but to stand aloof from and to discountenance what was wrong in the doings of the anti-slavery agitators. In this course of conduct he had often to discriminate between conflicting claims of constitutional rights that unquestionably belonged to every citizen of the United States, and acts which no citizen had a right to do, or which it was in the highest and plainest sense inexpedient to allow him to do. In these conflicts, right and wrong became at times so mixed and intricate, that it required a resolute and clear intellect to separate them, and a lofty courage in meeting obloquy and misrepresentation. It was an easy matter, in the exciting period of those slavery questions, to impute to a Northern man of either of the great political parties of the time, a base truckling to the South for his own ambitious purposes. After ages must disregard the ephemeral vituperation of politics, and must judge the statesmen of the past by the situation in which they stood, by the soundness of their opinions, by their fidelity to every unquestionable right, by the correctness of their policy, and by the purity of their characters and their aims. There has been a passionate disposition in our day to judge the public men of the North, who had to act in great and peculiar crises of the sectional conflict, and who did not give themselves up to a purely sectional spirit, by a standard that was inapplicable to their situation, because it was unjust, illogical and inconsistent with the highest ideas of public duty in the administration of such a Government as ours.

The anti-slavery agitation, begun in the North at the time and carried on in the mode I have described, is to be deplored, because of the certainty that sudden emancipation, which was alone considered or cared for by the abolitionists, must be fraught with great evils.

In whatever way sudden, universal and unqualified emancipation was to be enforced, if it was to happen the negro could not be prepared for freedom. He must take his freedom without one single aid from the white man to fit him to receive it. Wise and thoughtful statesmen saw this—the abolitionist did not see it. Men who had passed their lives in the business of legislation and government, knew full well, not only that the fundamental political bond of the Union forbade interference by the people of the free States with the domestic institutions of the slave States, but that emancipation without any training for freedom could not be a blessing. Men who had passed their lives in an emotional agitation for instant freedom did not see or did not care for the inevitable fact, that freedom for which no preparation had been made could not be a boon. When the emancipation came, it came as an act of force applied in a civil war and in the settlements which the war was claimed to have entailed as necessities. No preparatory legislation, no helpful training in morality and virtue, no education, no discipline of the human being for his new condition, had prepared the negro to be a freeman. While, therefore, it may be and probably is true, that the whites of our Southern States have reason to rejoice, and do rejoice, in the change which they deprecated and against which they struggled, it is not true that the colored race have the same reason for thankfulness. The Christianity and the philanthropy of this age have before them a task that is far more serious, more weighty and more difficult, than it would have been if the emancipation had been a regulated process, even if its final consummation had been postponed for generations. To this day, after twenty years of freedom, the church, the press, society and benevolence have to encounter such questions as these:—Whether the negro is by nature vicious, intractable, thriftless—the women incurably unchaste, the men incurably dishonest; whether the vices and the failings that are so deplorable, and apparently so remediless, are to be attributed to centuries of slavery, or are taints inherent in the blood. Who can doubt that all such questions could have been satisfactorily answered, if the Christianity of the South had been left to its own time and mode of answering them, and without any external force but the force of kindly respectful coöperation and forbearing Christian fellowship.

It is a cause for exultation that slavery no longer exists in the broad domain of this Republic—that our theory and our practice are now in complete accord. But it is no cause for national pride that we did not accomplish this result without the cost of a million of precious lives and untold millions of money.

The repeal of the Missouri Compromise during the administration of President Pierce (May, 1854), followed, as it was three years afterwards, by a decision of the Supreme Court of the United States, that Congress could not constitutionally prohibit slavery in a Territory of the States, gave a vast impetus to the tendencies which were already bringing about a consolidation of most of the elements of the anti-slavery feeling of the North into a single political party. When Mr. Buchanan became the nominee of the Democratic party for the Presidency, although the repeal of the Missouri Compromise had already taken place, the decision of the Supreme Court in the celebrated case of “Dred Scott” had not occurred,[59] and consequently the Republican party, for this and other reasons, had not acquired sufficient force to enable it to elect its candidate, General Fremont. But during the administration of Mr. Buchanan, the scenes which occurred in Kansas and which were direct consequences of the repeal of the Missouri Compromise, with the added excitement which followed the announcement by a majority of the judges of the Supreme Court of doctrines which the people of the North would not accept, there was a field for sectional political action, such as the Union had never before known. So that when the Republican party, in the spring of 1860, assembled its delegates in convention at Chicago, for the nomination of its candidates for the Presidency and the Vice Presidency, adopted a “platform” on which no Southern man of any prominence could place himself, and selected Northern candidates for both offices, it was plain that the time had come when there was to be a trial of political strength between the two sections of the Union.

Footnote 59:

This case was decided in March, 1857, just after Mr. Buchanan’s inauguration.

The “Chicago platform,” on which Mr. Lincoln was nominated and elected as the candidate of the Republican party, while repudiating with great precision the idea that Congress could in any way act upon slavery in the States, contained the following resolution on the subject of slavery in the Territories of the United States:

“That the normal condition of all the territory of the United States is that of freedom; that as our republican fathers, when they had abolished slavery in all our national territory, ordained that 'no person should be deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process of law,' it becomes our duty, by legislation, whenever such legislation is necessary, to maintain this provision of the Constitution against all attempts to violate it; and we deny the authority of Congress, of a Territorial legislature, or of any individuals, to give legal existence to slavery in any Territory of the United States.”

On the motives that dictated the assertion of this doctrine, I have no speculations to offer, for I am not dealing with motives. That it was a new political doctrine, and that it was a new departure in the legislation of Congress on this subject of slavery in Territories cannot be doubted. It rejected entirely the principle on which Congress had acted for many years, for there had been acts of Congress which had given legal existence to slavery in a Territory, and acts of Congress which had prohibited it. It rejected the principle of the Missouri Compromise, which had sanctioned an agreed division of the Territories into those where slavery might not and those where it might be allowed. It rejected all claim of right on the part of the Southern slaveholder to take his slave property into a Territory and have it there recognized as property while the Territorial condition remained. It was a reading of the Constitution diametrically opposed to the Southern reading. The political men who framed this “platform” doubtless considered that the time had come for a direct antagonism between the North and the South on this subject, so that it might be decided by the votes of the people in a Presidential election, whether the Southern claim for recognition of slave property in any Territory of the United States, wherever situated, was to prevail or be rejected. That such antagonism was the consequence and the purpose of this declaration of a new principle of action on this subject will be denied by no one.

It is equally certain that a political party could not come into the field in a contest for the Presidency upon such a declaration, without drawing into the discussion the whole subject of slavery as a domestic institution, or a condition of society, both in States and Territories. The intention was to draw a well defined line between the relations of Congress to slavery in the States and the relations of Congress to slavery in the Territories. Yet in the excitements of a Presidential canvass, the Republican party of necessity gathered into its folds those who had been for years regardless of that distinction, and who assailed slavery in the regions which were under the legislative power of Congress for the purpose of assailing it everywhere. The campaign literature, the speeches, the discussions, which dwelt on “the irrepressible conflict” between slavery and freedom, and which proclaimed the issue to be whether the United States would sooner or later become a slaveholding nation or a free-labor nation—whether the Northern States were to remain free or to become slave States—set forth with great distinctness in the writings and the harangues, could have no other effect than to array the two sections of the Union in a bitter hostility, while in the South there were those who believed, or affected to believe, that the people of the North, if successful in electing a President upon this basis, would put forth all their efforts to destroy slavery everywhere, as an institution incompatible with the continued existence of freedom in the North. All this hazard might, however, have been encountered and parried if the Democratic party had been in a condition to nominate a suitable candidate upon a “platform” fit to be opposed to that of the Republicans, and capable of commending itself alike to Northern and Southern voters. But when this party assembled in convention at Charleston, on the 23d of April, 1860, it was in no condition to do any good to the Union or to itself. If Mr. Buchanan had been a younger man, and had been disposed to be a second time a candidate for the Presidency, he might have united his party upon a basis of action in regard to this dangerous matter of slavery in the Territories, that would have commanded the support of a sufficient number of States, Northern as well as Southern, to have elected him. But he was averse to any longer continuance in public life, and he was well aware how much Mr. Douglas had done which had tended to divide the Northern and the Southern wings of his party. On the 14th of April, 1860, he sent to Charleston the following letter, which put an end to the idea, so far as it may have been entertained, of his being regarded as a candidate for the nomination by the Democratic National Convention.

[MR. BUCHANAN TO HON. ARNOLD PLUMER.]

WASHINGTON CITY, April 14, 1860.

MY DEAR SIR:—

I address you not only as a delegate from Pennsylvania to the Charleston Democratic National Convention, but as an old and valued friend. Whilst trusting that no member of that body will propose my name as a candidate for reëlection, yet, lest this might possibly prove to be the case, I require you, then, immediately to inform the Convention, as an act of justice to myself, that in no contingency can I ever again consent to become a candidate for the Presidency. My purpose to this effect was clearly indicated both in accepting the Cincinnati nomination, and afterwards in my inaugural address, and has since been repeated on various occasions, both public and private. In this determination neither my judgment nor my inclination has ever for a moment wavered. Deeply grateful to the great Democratic party of the country, on whose continued ascendancy, as I verily believe, the prosperity and perpetuity of our Confederate Republic depend, and praying Heaven that the Convention may select as their candidate an able, sound and conservative Democrat, in whose support we can all cordially unite.—I remain, very respectfully, your friend,

JAMES BUCHANAN.

It is not at all difficult to see what Mr. Buchanan would have recommended if he had been asked to shape the action of his party. It is well known that he held it to be both right and expedient to recognize the claim of Southern emigrants into the Territories to an equal participation in the common domain of the Union, so far as to have their property in slaves admitted during the continuance of the Territorial condition. But he would have qualified this claim of right by the application of the principle of the Missouri Compromise; that is, by admitting it in Territories south of the line of 36° 30´, and by excluding it in Territories north of that line. This had been the former practice of Congress, and there could be no good reason now for not expecting the people of the North to make this concession to the South, excepting that Mr. Douglas had indoctrinated a portion of the Northern Democrats with his panacea of “popular sovereignty,” which was just as unacceptable to the South as the principles of the “Chicago platform.”

Accordingly, when the Democratic Convention assembled at Charleston, it soon found itself in an inextricable confusion of opinions as to the nature and extent of the powers of a Territorial legislature, and as to the authority and duties of Congress, under the Constitution of the United States, over slavery in the Territories. While it was in the power of this Democratic Convention to antagonize the Republican party with a platform, simple, reasonable and just to all sections, on which the votes of all sections could be asked, it became divided into a Northern and a Southern faction, and wholly lost the opportunity of appealing to a national spirit of harmony and good-will. The Northern faction, inspired by Mr. Douglas, insisted on the adoption of his principle of “popular sovereignty,” which ignored the Southern claim of a property right protected by the Constitution. The Southern faction insisted on the recognition of that right, in a way that ignored the governing authority of both Congress and Territorial legislature.

Without some compromise, there could be no common platform and no common candidate. After many ineffectual attempts to agree upon a platform, and after some secessions of Southern delegates, fifty ballotings for a candidate were carried on until the 3d of May. The highest number of votes received at any time by Mr. Douglas was 152½, 202 being necessary to a nomination. The other votes were scattered among different Northern and Southern men. The convention then adjourned, to meet at Baltimore on the 18th of June, with a recommendation that the party in the several States fill up all vacancies in their respective delegations.[60] The result was that when assembled at Baltimore, a dispute about the delegations entitled to seats ended in a disruption of the convention into two bodies, the one distinctly Northern, the other distinctly Southern. The Northern Democratic Convention nominated Mr. Douglas as its candidate, of course upon his platform of “popular sovereignty.” The Southern Democratic Convention nominated Mr. Breckinridge as its candidate, upon a platform of coequal rights of all the States in all the Territories. Thus perished every hope of uniting the Democratic party upon a political basis that would antagonize the Republican platform in a sensible manner, and afford a reasonable chance of preventing a sectional political triumph of the North over the South, or of the free over the slave States.[61]

Footnote 60:

It appears from the following letter, written by General Dix to Mr. Buchanan, after the Charleston Convention had adjourned, that the course of the New York delegation in that body was not acceptable to their constituents:

NEW YORK, May 9, 1860.

MY DEAR SIR:—

The course of the New York delegation at Charleston has caused great dissatisfaction here, and earnest efforts will be made before the meeting at Baltimore to induce a change of action on the part of the majority. Mr. Douglas is not the choice of the Democracy of this State; and if he were, we think it most unreasonable to attempt to force on the States which must elect the Democratic candidate (if he can be elected), a man they do not want. We hope for the best, but not without the deepest concern.

I took the liberty of sending to you the address of the Democratic General Committee of this city, published about three weeks ago. It takes substantially the ground of the majority report from the Committee on Resolutions at Charleston, and we think the New York delegation should have supported them. I believe this is the general feeling in this State. It certainly is in this city and the southern counties. I have thought it right to say this to you, and to express the hope that the New York delegation will go to Baltimore prepared to sustain a candidate who will be acceptable to our Southern friends. At all events, no effort will be spared to bring about such a result.

I am, dear sir, sincerely yours, JOHN A. DIX.

Footnote 61:

It should be said that the convention, when assembled at Baltimore, became divided into two conventions, in consequence of the withdrawal of the delegations of some of the most southern of the Southern States, after they found that the friends of Mr. Douglas were determined to thrust him upon them as the candidate. It has been said that this was done to prevent any nomination, and thereby to prepare the way for a dissolution of the Union. It is more reasonable to believe that it was done to prevent the nomination of a particular candidate. But if these delegates had remained, Mr. Douglas could not have been nominated, and a compromise candidate might have been selected, so as to preserve the unity and strength of the party. For this reason, the withdrawal was rash and unwise, for it brought into the field a distinctly Southern Democratic candidate, with a distinctly Southern platform. Mr. Douglas obtained the electoral vote of no Southern, and Mr. Breckinridge obtained the electoral vote of no Northern State.

Mr. Buchanan, after the two factions of the Democratic party had made their nominations, pursued the course which became him as an outgoing President. As a citizen, he had to choose between Mr. Breckinridge and Mr. Douglas. The former represented more nearly the political principles of Mr. Buchanan than any other candidate whom he could support, and it was to Mr. Breckinridge that he gave all the support which it was proper for him to give to any one. But his views of the whole situation are apparent in the following letter, written in July, 1860:—

[MR. BUCHANAN TO C. COMSTOCK.]

WASHINGTON, July 5, 1860.

DEAR SIR:—

I have received yours of the 3d inst., and although I do not write letters on the subject to which it refers, I have determined to address you a few lines.

The equality of the States in the Territories is a truly Democratic doctrine which must eventually prevail. This is all for which I have ever contended. The Supreme Court of the United States,—a coördinate branch of the Government, to which the decision of this question constitutionally belongs, have affirmed this equality, and have placed property in slaves upon the same footing with all other property. Without self-degradation, the Southern States cannot abandon this equality, and hence they are now all in a flame. Non-intervention on the part of Congress with slavery in the Territories, unless accompanied by non-intervention on the part of the Territorial legislatures, amounts to nothing more in effect than to transfer the Wilmot Proviso from Congress to these legislatures. Whilst the South cannot surrender their rights as coequal States in the confederacy, what injury can it possibly do to the Northern States to yield this great Democratic principle? If they should not do this, then we will have the Democratic party divided, South and North, just as the Methodist Church has been divided, and another link binding the Union together will be broken. No person can fairly contend that either assemblage at Baltimore, at the time the nominations were made, was a Democratic National Convention; hence every Democrat is free to choose between the two candidates. These are, in brief, my sentiments. I regret that they so widely differ from your own. You have taken your own course, which you had a perfect right to do, and you will, I know, extend a similar privilege to myself.

Yours very respectfully, JAMES BUCHANAN.

The sole part that was taken by President Buchanan, in any public manner, in the election of 1860, was in a speech which he made from the portico of the White House, on the evening of July 9th, when a great crowd assembled in front of the mansion and called him out. In the course of his remarks, he said:

I have ever been the friend of regular nominations. I have never struck a political ticket in my life. Now, was there anything done at Baltimore to bind the political conscience of any sound Democrat, or to prevent him from supporting Breckinridge or Lane? [“No! no!”] I was contemporary with the abandonment of the old Congressional convention or caucus. This occurred a long time ago; very few, if any, of you remember it. Under the old Congressional convention system, no person was admitted to a seat except the Democratic members of the Senate and House of Representatives. This rule rendered it absolutely certain that the nominee, whoever he might be, would be sustained at the election by the Democratic States of the Union. By this means it was rendered impossible that those States which could not give an electoral vote for the candidate when nominated, should control the nomination and dictate to the Democratic States who should be their nominee.

This system was abandoned—whether wisely or not, I shall express no opinion. The National Convention was substituted in its stead. All the States, whether Democratic or not, were equally to send delegates to this convention according to the number of their Senators and Representatives in Congress.

A difficulty at once arose which never could have arisen under the Congressional convention system. If a bare majority of the National Convention thus composed could nominate a candidate, he might be nominated mainly by the anti-Democratic States against the will of a large majority of the Democratic States. Thus the nominating power would be separated from the electing power, which could not fail to be destructive to the strength and harmony of the Democratic party.

To obviate this serious difficulty in the organization of a National Convention, and at the same time to leave all the States their full vote, the two-thirds rule was adopted. It was believed that under this rule no candidate could ever be nominated without embracing within the two-thirds the votes of a decided majority of the Democratic States. This was the substitute adopted to retain, at least in a great degree, the power to the Democratic States which they would have lost by abandoning the Congressional convention system. This rule was a main pillar in the edifice of national conventions. Remove it and the whole must become a ruin. This sustaining pillar was broken to pieces at Baltimore by the convention which nominated Mr. Douglas. After this the body was no longer a national convention; and no Democrat, however devoted to regular nominations, was bound to give the nominee his support; he was left free to act according to the dictates of his own judgment and conscience. And here, in passing, I may observe that the wisdom of the two-thirds rule is justified by the events passing around us. Had it been faithfully observed, no candidate could have been nominated against the will and wishes of almost every certain Democratic State in the Union, against nearly all the Democratic Senators, and more than three-fourths of the Democratic Representatives in Congress. [Cheers.]

I purposely avoid entering upon any discussion respecting the exclusion from the convention of regularly elected delegates from different Democratic States. If the convention which nominated Mr. Douglas was not a regular Democratic convention, it must be confessed that Breckinridge is in the same condition in that respect. The convention that nominated him, although it was composed of nearly all the certain Democratic States, did not contain the two-thirds; and therefore every Democrat is at perfect liberty to vote as he thinks proper, without running counter to any regular nomination of the party. [Applause and cries of “three cheers for Breckinridge and Lane.”] Holding this position, I shall present some of the reasons why I prefer Mr. Breckinridge to Mr. Douglas. This I shall do without attempting to interfere with any individual Democrat or any State Democratic organization holding different opinions from myself. The main object of all good Democrats, whether belonging to the one or the other wing of our unfortunate division, is to defeat the election of the Republican candidates; and I shall never oppose any honest and honorable course calculated to accomplish this object.

To return to the point from which I have digressed, I am in favor of Mr. Breckinridge, because he sanctions and sustains the perfect equality of all the States within their common Territories, and the opinion of the Supreme Court of the United States, establishing this equality. The sovereign States of this Union are one vast partnership. The Territories were acquired by the common blood and common treasure of them all. Each State, and each citizen of each State, has the same right in the Territories as any other State and the citizens of any other State possess. Now what is sought for at present is, that a portion of these States should turn around to their sister States and say, “We are holier than you are, and while we will take our property to the Territories and have it protected there, you shall not place your property in the same position.” That is precisely what is contended for. What the Democratic party maintain, and what is the true principle of Democracy is, that all shall enjoy the same rights, and that all shall be subject to the same duties. Property—this Government was framed for the protection of life, liberty, and property. They are the objects for the protection of which all enlightened governments were established. But it is sought now to place the property of the citizen, under what is called the principle of squatter sovereignty, in the power of the Territorial legislature to confiscate it at their will and pleasure. That is the principle sought to be established at present; and there seems to be an entire mistake and misunderstanding among a portion of the public upon this subject. When was property ever submitted to the will of the majority? [“Never.”] If you hold property as an individual, you hold it independent of Congress or of the State legislature, or of the Territorial legislature—it is yours, and your Constitution was made to protect your private property against the assaults of legislative power. [Cheers.] Well, now, any set of principles which will deprive you of your property, is against the very essence of republican government, and to that extent makes you a slave; for the man who has power over your property to confiscate it, has power over your means of subsistence; and yet it is contended, that although the Constitution of the United States confers no such power—although no State legislature has any such power, yet a Territorial legislature, in the remote extremities of the country, can confiscate your property!

[A VOICE. “They can't do it; they ain't going to do it.”]

There is but one mode, and one alone, to abolish slavery in the Territories. That mode is pointed out in the Cincinnati platform, which has been as much misrepresented as anything I have ever known. That platform declares that a majority of the actual residents in a Territory, whenever their number is sufficient to entitle them to admission as a State, possess the power to “form a constitution with or without domestic slavery, to be admitted into the Union upon terms of perfect equality with the other States.” If there be squatter sovereignty in this resolution, I have never been able to perceive it. If there be any reference in it to a Territorial legislature, it has entirely escaped my notice. It presents the clear principle that, at the time the people form their constitution, they shall then decide whether they will have slavery or not. And yet it has been stated over and over again that, in accepting the nomination under that platform, I endorsed the doctrine of squatter sovereignty. I suppose you have all heard this repeated a thousand times.

[A VOICE. “We all knew it was a lie!”]

Well, I am glad you did.

How beautifully this plain principle of constitutional law corresponds with the best interests of the people! Under it, emigrants from the North and the South, from the East and the West proceed to the Territories. They carry with them that property which they suppose will best promote their material interests; they live together in peace and harmony. The question of slavery will become a foregone conclusion before they have inhabitants enough to enter the Union as a State. There will then be no “bleeding Kansas” in the Territories; they will all live together in peace and harmony, promoting the prosperity of the Territory and their own prosperity, until the time shall arrive when it becomes necessary to frame a constitution. Then the whole question will be decided to the general satisfaction. But, upon the opposite principle, what will you find in the Territories? Why, there will be strife and contention all the time. One Territorial legislature may establish slavery and another Territorial legislature may abolish it, and so the struggle will be continued throughout the Territorial existence. The people, instead of devoting their energies and industry to promote their own prosperity, will be in a state of constant strife and turmoil, just as we have witnessed in Kansas. Therefore, there is no possible principle that can be so injurious to the best interests of a Territory as what has been called squatter sovereignty.

Now, let me place the subject before you in another point of view. The people of the Southern States can never abandon this great principle of State equality in the Union without self-degradation. [“Never!”] Never without an acknowledgment that they are inferior in this respect to their sister States. Whilst it is vital to them to preserve their equality, the Northern States surrender nothing by admitting this principle. In doing this they only yield obedience to the Constitution of their country as expounded by the Supreme Court of the United States. While for the North it is comparatively a mere abstraction, with the South it is a question of co-equal State sovereignty in the Union.

If the decrees of the high tribunal established by the Constitution for the very purposes are to be set at naught and disregarded, it will tend to render all property of every description insecure. What, then, have the North to do? Merely to say that, as good citizens, they will yield obedience to the decision of the Supreme Court, and admit the right of a Southern man to take his property into the Territories, and hold it there just as a Northern man may do; and it is to me the most extraordinary thing in the world that this country should now be distracted and divided because certain persons at the North will not agree that their brethren at the South shall have the same rights in the Territories which they enjoy. What would I, as a Pennsylvanian, say or do, supposing anybody was to contend that the legislature of any Territory could outlaw iron or coal within the Territory? [Laughter and cheers.] The principle is precisely the same. The Supreme Court of the United States have decided,—what was known to us all to have been the existing state of affairs for fifty years,—that slaves are property. Admit that fact, and you admit everything. Then that property in the Territories must be protected precisely in the same manner with any other property. If it be not so protected in the Territories, the holders of it are degraded before the world.

We have been told that non-intervention on the part of Congress with slavery in the Territories is the true policy. Very well. I most cheerfully admit that Congress has no right to pass any law to establish, impair or abolish slavery in the Territories. Let this principle of non-intervention be extended to the Territorial legislatures, and let it be declared that they in like manner have no power to establish, impair or destroy slavery, and then the controversy is in effect ended. This is all that is required at present, and I verily believe all that will ever be required. Hands off by Congress and hands off by the Territorial legislature. [Loud applause.] With the Supreme Court of the United States I hold that neither Congress nor the Territorial legislature has any power to establish, impair or abolish slavery in the Territories. But if, in the face of this positive prohibition, the Territorial legislature should exercise the power of intervening, then this would be a mere transfer of the Wilmot proviso and the Buffalo platform from Congress, to be carried into execution in the Territories to the destruction of all property in slaves. [Renewed applause.]

An attempt of this kind, if made in Congress, would be resisted by able men on the floor of both houses, and probably defeated. Not so in a remote Territory. To every new Territory there will be a rush of free-soilers from the Northern States. They would elect the first Territorial legislature before the people of the South could arrive with their property, and this legislature would probably settle forever the question of slavery according to their own will.

And shall we for the sake of squatter sovereignty, which, from its nature, can only continue during the brief period of Territorial existence, incur the risk of dividing the great Democratic party of the country into two sectional parties, the one North and the other South? Shall this great party which has governed the country in peace and war, which has raised it from humble beginnings to be one of the most prosperous and powerful nations in the world—shall this party be broken up for such a cause? That is the question. The numerous, powerful, pious and respectable Methodist Church has been thus divided. The division was a severe shock to the Union. A similar division of the great Democratic party, should it continue, would rend asunder one of the most powerful links which binds the Union together.

I entertain no such fearful apprehensions. The present issue is transitory, and will speedily pass away. In the nature of things it cannot continue. There is but one possible contingency which can endanger the Union, and against this all Democrats, whether squatter sovereigns or popular sovereigns, will present a united resistance. Should the time ever arrive when Northern agitation and fanaticism shall proceed so far as to render the domestic firesides of the South insecure, then, and not till then, will the Union be in danger. A united Northern Democracy will present a wall of fire against such a catastrophe!

There are in our midst numerous persons who predict the dissolution of the great Democratic party, and others who contend that it has already been dissolved. The wish is father to the thought. It has been heretofore in great peril; but when divided for the moment, it has always closed up its ranks and become more powerful, even from defeat. It will never die whilst the Constitution and the Union survive. It will live to protect and defend both. It has its roots in the very vitals of the Constitution, and, like one of the ancient cedars of Lebanon, it will flourish to afford shelter and protection to that sacred instrument, and to shield it against every storm of faction. [Renewed applause.]

Now, friends and fellow-citizens, it is probable that this is the last political speech that I shall ever make. [A VOICE. “We hope not!”] It is now nearly forty years since I first came to Washington as a member of Congress, and I wish to say this night, that during that whole period I have received nothing but kindness and attention from your fathers and from yourselves. Washington was then comparatively a small town; now it has grown to be a great and beautiful city; and the first wish of my heart is that its citizens may enjoy uninterrupted health and prosperity. I thank you for the kind attention you have paid to me, and now bid you all a good-night. [Prolonged cheering.]

The observations contained in this chapter on the anti-slavery agitation have been made because that agitation and its consequences are great historical facts, necessary to be considered in a just appreciation of the conduct of any American statesman who acted an important part in national affairs during the quarter of a century that preceded the civil war. The detail of Mr. Buchanan’s course on this subject, down to the time when he became President, has been given, and need not be repeated.

He was one of the earliest of the public men of the North to discover and to point out the tendency of this agitation. That he denounced it boldly and sincerely cannot be denied, even by those who may not have held, or who do not now hold, the same opinions concerning the “abolitionists” and their measures. He endeavored, at an early period, to keep his own State of Pennsylvania free from the adoption of such dogmas as the “higher law,” and to have its people appreciate the mischiefs which the anti-slavery societies were producing in the South. It is easy to impute this course to his political relations to the Democratic party and to the dictates of his own ambition as one of its principal Northern leaders, who, in any future prospect of political honors beyond those which his own State could bestow, might have to look to Southern support. But is there no sensible, patriotic, sound and unselfish motive, no honest and well grounded conviction, discoverable in what he did and said? If his opinions about this agitation were substantially in accordance with those of wise and judicious men, who could not have been influenced by party spirit or personal objects, they may claim to have been sincere and just, as certainly as they may claim to have been courageously uttered.

It will not be doubted that when the abolition agitation began, there was at least one man in the North, who, from his deep and fervid interest in whatever concerned the rights of human nature and the welfare of the human race, from his generous love of liberty and his philanthropic tendencies, might be expected to welcome any rational mode of removing the reproach and the evil of slavery from the American name and the condition of American society. Such a man was that celebrated New England divine, William Ellery Channing. What his feelings were about the slavery that existed in our Southern States, all who know anything of his character and his writings know full well. His position as a clergyman and his relations to the moral and spiritual condition of the age, put out of the question the possibility of any political motive, other than that broad, high and comprehensive view of public policy which was above all the interests of party, and beyond all personal considerations. If such a man foresaw the dangerous tendencies of the abolition agitation, conducted in and from the North, and at the same time discovered that the evil of slavery ought to be and might be dealt with in a very different spirit and by far other means, it is rational to conclude that men in public life and in political positions might well place themselves in opposition to the spread of such principles and the adoption of such methods as those of the anti-slavery societies of the North. It was, in truth, the one thing which it was their duty, as statesmen, to do.[62]

Footnote 62:

Dr. Channing’s attention was first drawn to the Northern anti-slavery agitation in the year 183-, and there is nowhere on record a more remarkable prophecy than that which he then made of the effect of this agitation upon the people of the South. It is contained in a letter which he then wrote to Mr. Webster, and which has been public ever since the publication of Mr. Webster’s collected works.

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