XXII. 1861—January, February, and March
THE “PEACE CONVENTION”—FORT SUMTER—THE STAR OF THE WEST FIRED UPON IN CHARLESTON HARBOR—ANDERSON’S TEMPORARY TRUCE—THE HARBOR OF PENSACOLA AND FORT PICKENS—THE COMMUNICATIONS BETWEEN EX-PRESIDENT TYLER AND PRESIDENT BUCHANAN.
The vote of the Senate on the 16th of January, by which Mr. Crittenden’s resolution was defeated by the tactics of the Republicans, aided by six of the Southern Senators, made it apparent that some extraordinary interposition could alone save the Union. For such interposition there was still time, if it could be promptly exerted, and Congress could be induced to listen to it. It came from the State of Virginia, and as Mr. Buchanan has given a succinct and accurate account of this movement, which resulted in the assembling at Washington of the body called “The Peace Convention,” I transcribe it into these pages:
These great and powerful commonwealths [the border States] still remained faithful to the Union. They had hitherto stood aloof from secession, and had manifested an earnest desire not only to remain in the Union themselves, but to exert their powerful influence to bring back the seceding sisters. Virginia had ever ranked as chief among the Southern States, and had exercised great influence over their counsels. She had now taken the lead in the grand design to save the Union, and it became the duty of the President to render her all the aid in his power in a cause so holy. Every reflecting man foresaw that if the present movement of Virginia should fail to impress upon Congress and the country the necessity for adopting a peaceful compromise, like that proposed by Mr. Crittenden, there was imminent danger that all the border slave States would follow the cotton States, which had already adopted ordinances of secession, and unite with them in an attempt to break up the Union. Indeed, as has been already seen, the Virginia legislature had declared that, in case of failure, such a dissolution was “inevitable.”
The Peace Convention met on the 4th February.[109] It was composed of one hundred and thirty-three commissioners, representing twenty-one States. A bare inspection of the list will convince all inquirers of the great respectability and just influence of its members. Among them there were many venerable and distinguished citizens from the border States, earnestly intent upon restoring and saving the Union. Their great object was to prevail upon their associates from the North to unite with them in such recommendations to Congress as would prevent their own States from seceding, and enable them to bring back the cotton States which had already seceded. It will be recollected that on the 4th February, when the Peace Convention assembled, six of the cotton States, South Carolina, Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia, Louisiana, and Florida, had already adopted ordinances of secession; and that but four days thereafter (8th February) deputies from these States had adopted and published at Montgomery, Alabama, a Provisional Constitution for the so-called Confederate States. The Union was then crumbling to pieces. One month only of the session of Congress remained. Within this brief period it was necessary that the Convention should recommend amendments to the Constitution in sufficient time to enable both Houses to act upon them before their final adjournment. It was also essential to success that these amendments should be sustained by a decided majority of the commissioners both from the Northern and the border States. It was, however, soon discovered that the same malign influence which had caused every Republican member of Congress to oppose the Crittenden Compromise, would probably defeat the patriotic purpose for which the Convention had assembled.
Footnote 109:
Cong. Globe, 1860-61, p. 125.
On Wednesday, the 6th February, a resolution was adopted,[110] on motion of Mr. Guthrie, of Kentucky, to refer the resolutions of the General Assembly of Virginia, and all other kindred subjects, to a committee to consist of one commissioner from each State, to be selected by the respective State delegations; and to prevent delay they were instructed to report on or before the Friday following (the 8th), “what they may deem right, necessary, and proper to restore harmony and preserve the Union.”
Footnote 110:
Official Journal of the Convention, pp. 9 and 10.
This committee, instead of reporting on the day appointed, did not report until Friday, the 15th February,[111] and thus a precious week was lost......
Footnote 111:
Ibid., p. 42.
The amendments reported by a majority of the committee, through Mr. Guthrie, their chairman, were substantially the same with the Crittenden Compromise; but on motion of Mr. Johnson, of Maryland, the general terms of the first and by far the most important section were restricted to the present Territories of the United States.[112] On motion of Mr. Franklin, of Pennsylvania, this section was further amended, but not materially changed, by the adoption of the substitute offered by him. Nearly in this form it was afterwards adopted by the Convention.[113] The following is a copy: “In all the present Territory of the United States north of the parallel of thirty-six degrees and thirty minutes of north latitude, involuntary servitude, except in punishment of crime, is prohibited. In all the present Territory south of that line, the status of persons held to involuntary service or labor, as it now exists, shall not be changed; nor shall any law be passed by Congress or the Territorial legislature to hinder or prevent the taking of such persons from any of the States of this Union to said Territory, nor to impair the rights arising from said relation; but the same shall be subject to judicial cognizance in the Federal courts, according to the course of the common law. When any Territory north or south of said line, within such boundary as Congress may prescribe, shall contain a population equal to that required for a member of Congress, it shall, if its form of government be republican, be admitted into the Union on an equal footing with the original States, with or without involuntary servitude, as the Constitution of such State may provide.”
Footnote 112:
Ibid., p. 21.
Footnote 113:
Ibid., p. 70.
Mr. Baldwin, of Connecticut, and Mr. Seddon, of Virginia, on opposite extremes, made minority reports, which they proposed to substitute for that of the majority. Mr. Baldwin’s report was a recommendation “to the several States to unite with Kentucky in her application to Congress to call a convention for proposing amendments to the Constitution of the United States, to be submitted to the legislatures of the several States, or to conventions therein, for ratification, as the one or the other mode of ratification may be proposed by Congress, in accordance with the provisions in the fifth article of the Constitution.”[114]
Footnote 114:
Official Journal, pp. 24 and 25.
Of the two modes prescribed by the Constitution for its own amendment, this was the least eligible at the existing crisis, because by far the most dilatory. Instead of calling upon Congress, then in session and which could act immediately, to propose specific amendments to the legislatures of the several States, it adopted the circuitous mode of requesting these legislatures, in the first instance, to apply to Congress to call a convention. Even should two-thirds of them respond in the affirmative to this request, the process would necessarily occasion a delay of years in attaining the object, when days were all-important. This would entirely defeat the patriotic purpose of the Peace Convention. It was called to obtain, if possible, a direct vote of two-thirds of both Houses before the end of the session in favor of such amendments as it might recommend. Could such a vote be obtained, it was confidently expected by the friends of the Union that its moral influence would, for the present, satisfy the border States; would arrest the tide beginning to rise among their people in favor of secession, and might enable them to exercise an effective influence in reclaiming the States which had already seceded. Affairs were then so urgent that long before the State legislatures could possibly ask Congress to call a convention as required by Mr. Baldwin’s proposition, the cause of the Union might be hopeless. It was, therefore, rejected.
This proposition of Mr. Baldwin, evasive and dilatory as it was, nevertheless received the votes of eight of the twenty-one States.[115] These consisted of the whole of the New England States, except Rhode Island, and of Illinois, Iowa and New York, all being free States. This was an evil omen.
Footnote 115:
Ibid., p. 63.
The first amendment reported by Mr. Seddon differed from that of the majority, inasmuch as it embraced not only the present but all future Territories.[116] This was rejected.[117] His second amendment, which, however, was never voted upon by the Convention, went so far as distinctly to recognize the right of secession.
Footnote 116:
Official Journal, pp. 26, 27 and 28.
Footnote 117:
Ibid., p. 28.
It cannot be denied that there was in the convention an extreme Southern rights element, headed by Mr. Seddon. This manifested itself throughout its proceedings. These show how naturally extremes meet. On more than one important occasion, we find the vote of Virginia and North Carolina, though given in each case by a bare majority of their commissioners, side by side with the vote of Massachusetts and Vermont. It would be too tedious to trace the proceedings of the Convention from the report of the committee made by Mr. Guthrie until its final adjournment. It is sufficient to say that more than ten days were consumed in discussion and in voting upon various propositions offered by individual commissioners. The final vote was not reached until Tuesday, the 26th February, when it was taken on the first and vitally important section, as amended.[118]
Footnote 118:
Ibid., p. 70.
This section, on which all the rest depended, was negatived by a vote of eight States to eleven. Those which voted in its favor were Delaware, Kentucky, Maryland, New Jersey, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island and Tennessee. And those in the negative were Connecticut, Illinois, Iowa, Maine, Massachusetts, Missouri, New York, North Carolina, New Hampshire, Vermont and Virginia. It is but justice to say that Messrs. Ruffin and Morehead, of North Carolina, and Messrs. Rives and Summers, of Virginia, two of the five commissioners from each of these States, declared their dissent from the vote of their respective States. So, also, did Messrs. Bronson, Corning, Dodge, Wool and Granger, five of the eleven New York commissioners, dissent from the vote of their State. On the other hand, Messrs. Meredith and Wilmot, two of the seven commissioners from Pennsylvania, dissented from the majority in voting in favor of the section. Thus would the Convention have terminated but for the interposition of Illinois. Immediately after the section had been negatived, the commissioners from that State made a motion to reconsider the vote, and this prevailed. The Convention afterwards adjourned until the next morning. When they reassembled (February 27), the first section was adopted, but only by a majority of nine to eight States, nine being less than a majority of the States represented. This change was effected by a change of the vote of Illinois from the negative to the affirmative, by Missouri withholding her vote, and by a tie in the New York commissioners, on account of the absence of one of their number, rendering it impossible for the State to vote. Still, Virginia and North Carolina, in the one extreme, and Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Vermont, in the other, persisted in voting in the negative. From the nature of this vote, it was manifestly impossible that two-thirds of both Houses of Congress should act favorably on the amendment, even if the delay had not already rendered such action impracticable before the close of the session.
It would be useless to refer to the voting on the remaining sections of the amendment, which were carried by small majorities.[119] The Convention, on the same day, through Mr. Tyler, their president, communicated to the Senate and House of Representatives the amendment they had adopted, embracing all the sections, with a request that it might be submitted by Congress, under the Constitution, to the several State legislatures. In the Senate this was immediately referred to a select committee, on motion of Mr. Crittenden. The committee, on the next day (28th Feb.),[120] reported a joint resolution (No. 70) proposing it as an amendment to the Constitution, but he was never able to bring the Senate to a direct vote upon it.[121] Failing in this, he made a motion to substitute the amendment of the Peace Convention for his own.[122] This he prefaced by declaring that he looked upon the result of the deliberations of that body “as affording the best opportunity for a general concurrence among the States, and among the people.” He, therefore, “had determined to take it in preference to his own proposition, and had so stated to many of the members of the Convention.” He further said that he had “examined the propositions offered by that Convention; they contain, in my judgment, every material provision that is contained in the resolution called the Crittenden Resolution.” He also had adopted this course “out of deference to that great body of men selected on the resolution of Virginia, and invited by Virginia herself. The body having met, and being composed of such men, and a majority of that Convention concurring in these resolutions, I think they come to us with a sanction entitling them to consideration.” Mr. Crittenden’s reasons failed to convince the Senate, and his motion was rejected by a large majority (28 to 7).[123] Then next in succession came the memorable vote on Mr. Crittenden’s own resolution, and it was in its turn defeated, as we have already stated, by a majority of 20 against 19.
Footnote 119:
Senate Journal, pp. 332, 333.
Footnote 120:
Ibid., p. 437.
Footnote 121:
Ibid., p. 384.
Footnote 122:
Cong. Globe, 1860-’61, p. 1404.
Footnote 123:
Senate Journal, p. 386.
We cannot take leave of this venerable patriot, who so wisely appreciated the existing danger, without paying a just tribute to the vigor and perseverance of his repeated efforts to ward off from his country the direful calamity of disunion and civil war. Well did he merit the almost unanimous vote of the Virginia Convention, on the 11th March, tendering him the thanks of the people of Virginia for “his recent able, zealous, and patriotic efforts in the Senate in the United States, to bring about a just and honorable adjustment of our national difficulties.”[124] This vote, we may remark, was far from being complimentary to the conduct of a majority of their own commissioners (Messrs. Tyler, Brockenbrough, and Seddon) in the Peace Convention.
Footnote 124:
National Intelligencer, March 14, 1861.
In the House of Representatives, the amendment proposed by the Convention was treated with still less respect than it had been by the Senate.[125] The Speaker was refused leave even to present it.[126] Every effort made for this purpose was successfully resisted by leading Republican members. The consequence is that a copy of it does not even appear in the Journal.
Footnote 125:
Cong. Globe, pp. 1331, 1332, 1333.
Footnote 126:
House Journal, pp. 446, 448, 449.
Although the amendment was somewhat less favorable to the South, and ought, therefore, to have been more acceptable to the North than the Crittenden amendment, yet, like this, it encountered the opposition of every Republican member in both Houses of Congress. Nevertheless, it presented a basis of compromise which, had it been conceded by the North, might and probably would, have been accepted by the people of the border States, in preference to the fearful alternative of their secession from the Union.
However urgent were the reasons for the adoption by Congress of the Crittenden Compromise, or the propositions submitted to it by the Peace Convention, the question now recurs whether the President in the meantime did his duty and his whole duty, in keeping a vigilant eye upon the proceedings in South Carolina and other Southern States. To answer this question, it is necessary to go back to the point of time at which the first commissioners from South Carolina left Washington without having obtained from the President a promise to withdraw Major Anderson’s force from the harbor of Charleston, or any stipulation not to send him reinforcements. This point of time is the 2d day of January, 1861, the day on which the commissioners dated their reply to the President’s letter of December 31st; a reply couched in terms so disrespectful and arrogant that by the unanimous advice of the cabinet it was returned to them as a paper unfit to be received. “From that time forward,” says Mr. Buchanan, “all friendly political and personal intercourse finally ceased between the revolutionary Senators and the President, and he was severely attacked by them in the Senate, and especially by Mr. Jefferson Davis. Indeed, their intercourse had been of the coldest character ever since the President’s anti-secession message at the commencement of the session of Congress.”[127]
Footnote 127:
Letter of October 28, 1862, in the controversy with General Scott, published in the National Intelligencer of November 1, 1862. As a specimen of the intercourse between the President and the secession Senators, after the messages of December 3d and January 8th, take the following notes:—
[JOHN SLIDELL TO PRESIDENT BUCHANAN.]
WASHINGTON, January 27, 1861.
MY DEAR SIR:—
I have seen in the Star, and heard from other parties, that Major Beauregard, who had been ordered to West Point as Superintendent of the Military Academy, and had entered on the discharge of his duties there, had been relieved from his command. May I take the liberty of asking you if this has been done with your approbation? Very respectfully, yours,
JOHN SLIDELL.
[PRESIDENT BUCHANAN TO JOHN SLIDELL.]
WASHINGTON, January 29, 1861.
MY DEAR SIR:—
With every sentiment of personal friendship and regard, I am obliged to say, in answer to your note of Sunday, that I have full confidence in the Secretary of War; and his acts, in the line of his duty, are my own acts, for which I am responsible.
Yours, very respectfully, JAMES BUCHANAN.
The first event occurring at this time in the Executive Department, which it is important to notice here, was an application made by General Scott to the President, on Sunday, the 30th of December, by the following note:
December 30, 1860.
Lieutenant General Scott begs the President of the United States to pardon the irregularity of this communication. It is Sunday, the weather is bad, and General Scott is not well enough to go to church. But matters of the highest national importance seem to forbid a moment’s delay, and, if misled by zeal, he hopes for the President’s forgiveness.
Will the President permit General Scott, without reference to the War Department, and otherwise as secretly as possible, to send two hundred and fifty recruits, from New York harbor, to reinforce Fort Sumter, together with some extra muskets or rifles, ammunition, and subsistence stores?
It is hoped that a sloop-of-war and cutter may be ordered for the same purpose as early as to-morrow.
General Scott will wait upon the President at any moment he may be called for.
The President’s most obedient servant, WINFIELD SCOTT.
General Scott was evidently not aware, when he wrote this note, that the late Secretary of War, Floyd, was out of office. The President, having substituted Mr. Holt in his place as Secretary ad interim, was under no necessity whatever to act without the knowledge of that Department. He proceeded therefore to act promptly and in the usual manner upon the General’s recommendation. He received the General’s note on the evening of Sunday, the 30th of December. On the morning of Monday, the 31st, he gave instructions to the War and Navy Departments; the orders were issued on that day; and in the evening General Scott called upon the President and informed him that the Secretaries had issued the orders and that they were in his (the General’s) possession. The orders were that the sloop-of-war Brooklyn, with troops, military stores, and provisions, was to sail forthwith from Fortress Monroe to Fort Sumter. It could not be true, therefore, as was afterwards asserted by General Scott, that “the South Carolina commissioners had already been many days in Washington and no movement of defence (on the part of the United States) was permitted.” The commissioners arrived in Washington on the 27th of December. On the 30th they received the President’s answer. General Scott’s request was made to the President on the 30th, and on the 31st the orders for the Brooklyn to sail were in his hands. The commissioners’ insolent reply to the President was not delivered to him until the 2d of January. The Brooklyn was already under orders, but the orders were not despatched from Washington on the 31st for a reason that will presently appear.
It is now to be stated how a mercantile steamer, The Star of the West, came to be substituted for the Brooklyn, and to sail on this expedition. And here General Scott’s memory was utterly at fault in 1862. He then publicly stated that the President refused to allow any attempt to be made to reinforce Fort Sumter, because he was holding negotiations with the South Carolina commissioners; and that “afterwards Secretary Holt and myself [General Scott] endeavored, in vain, to obtain a ship-of-war for the purpose, and were finally obliged to employ the passenger steamer Star of the West.” It is most extraordinary that the General should have made this misstatement. The Star of the West was substituted for the Brooklyn by his own advice. “At the interview already referred to,” says Mr. Buchanan, “between the General and myself, on the evening of Monday, the 31st of December, I suggested to him that, although I had not received the South Carolina commissioners in their official capacity, but merely as private gentlemen, yet it might be considered as an improper act to send the Brooklyn with reinforcements to Fort Sumter until I had received an answer from them to my letter of the preceding day; that the delay could not continue more than forty-eight hours. He promptly concurred in this suggestion as gentlemanly and proper, and the orders were not transmitted to the Brooklyn on that evening. My anticipations were correct, for on the morning [afternoon] of the 2d of January I received their insolent note, and sent it back to them. In the meantime, however, the General had become convinced, on the representations of a gentleman whom I forbear to name, that the better plan, as the Secretaries of War and the Navy informed me, to secure secrecy and success, and reach the fort, would be to send a fast side-wheel steamer from New York with the reinforcement. Accordingly, the Star of the West was selected for this duty. The substitution of this steamer for the Brooklyn, which would have been able to defend herself in case of attack, was reluctantly yielded by me to the high military judgment of General Scott.”[128]
Footnote 128:
Letter from Mr. Buchanan to the National Intelligencer, October 28, 1862.
In consequence of this change, a short time had to elapse before the Star of the West, then at New York, could take on board the reinforcements. She sailed from New York on the 5th of January. On that day General Scott sent a despatch to his son-in-law, Colonel Scott, to countermand her departure, but it was not received until after she had gone to sea. The countermand was given for two reasons: first, because a despatch received by Mr. Holt on that day from Major Anderson stated in effect that he felt secure in his position; and secondly, and more emphatically, because on the same evening information reached the War Department that a heavy battery had been erected among the sand hills, at the entrance of Charleston harbor, capable of destroying any unarmed vessel that might attempt to enter.[129] Satisfied that there was no present necessity for sending reinforcements, and that when sent they ought to go in a vessel of war, the Government, with General Scott’s full concurrence,[130] after learning that the countermand had not reached the Star of the West before she sailed, took steps to overtake her. The following memorandum now lies before me:
Footnote 129:
See a statement published by Mr. Holt in the _National Intelligencer_, dated March 5, 1861.
Footnote 130:
When General Scott wrote and published, in 1862, his criticisms on Mr. Buchanan’s course, he said that the Star of the West, “but for the hesitation of the master, might, as is generally believed, have delivered at the fort the men and subsistence on board.” He had forgotten that he had sent his own order to the commander of the troops on board that vessel, which would inform him that the Brooklyn was coming to aid and succor him, and that in case he could not land at Fort Sumter, he was to turn back and land his troops at Fort Monroe and discharge the ship! With what propriety then could the General blame the master of the ship for not making an attempt which the General knew he could not make without the support of the Brooklyn?
MEMORANDUM FOR THE INFORMATION OF THE HON. SECRETARY OF WAR.
A despatch was forwarded, night of January 7, through the agency of the Navy Department, to the officer commanding recruits on board the steamship Star of the West, in almost exactly these words:
“This communication will be handed you by the Commander of the United States Steamer sloop-of-war Brooklyn.
“The object of his mission is twofold. First, to afford aid and succor in case your ship be shattered or injured; second, to convey this order of recall, in case you cannot land at Fort Sumter, to Fort Monroe, Hampton Roads, there to await further orders.
“In case of your return to Hampton Roads, send a telegraphic message here at once from Norfolk.
”WINFIELD SCOTT.
“P. S.—Land your troops at Fort Monroe and discharge the ship.
“W. S.”
The Star of the West arrived off the harbor of Charleston on the 9th of January, and being fired upon as she was attempting to enter the harbor, by order of Governor Pickens, she returned without entering. It is, therefore, now necessary to go forward, and covering everything that was done or omitted by the President thereafter, in regard to Fort Sumter, to inquire into another charge made by General Scott in 1862, that the President was under the embarrassment of a truce or armistice, which continued for the remainder of the administration. It seems that late in the month of January, there was a project considered, between the General, Secretaries Holt and Toucey, and certain naval officers, with the knowledge of the President, for sending three or four small steamers belonging to the coast survey to the relief of Fort Sumter. General Scott, in 1862, declared that he had but little doubt this expedition would have been successful, but that it was “kept back by something like a truce or armistice, made here, embracing Charleston and Pensacola harbors, agreed upon by the late President and certain principal seceders of South Carolina, Florida, Louisiana, etc., and this truce lasted to the end of that administration.”
It is perhaps not remarkable that the history of this period of Mr. Buchanan’s administration should have been so widely misunderstood, when one considers the nature of the materials from which the history thus far written has been derived. General Scott, from his official position, knew that no truce or armistice whatever was entered into by the President with anybody, embracing the two harbors of Charleston and Pensacola; that in regard to Pensacola, there was a special arrangement, in no way connected with the state of things in Charleston; and that in regard to Charleston, there was only a temporary agreement between Major Anderson and Governor Pickens, that was terminable on a certain event, and that lasted but for a short time. To separate things entirely distinct in their nature, but which General Scott saw fit to blend together in making his imputations upon the President’s conduct, is now my imperative duty.
The only truce that was made in reference to Charleston was an actual truce of arms made between Governor Pickens and Major Anderson, on the 11th of January, 1861, without the President’s previous knowledge, and consequently it could not have been the result of any conference between the President and certain secessionists then in Washington or elsewhere. The Star of the West, sailing under the American flag, was fired upon and turned back on the 9th of January. This outrage required Major Anderson’s instant notice. If he had immediately opened fire from Fort Sumter upon the adjacent batteries which sent their shot across the bow of that vessel, he would have been justified by his position as an officer of the United States commanding a fort which existed for the protection of all vessels having a right to enter the harbor, and especially for the protection of all vessels bearing the flag of the United States. He was under no obligation whatever to recognize South Carolina as a power foreign to the United States; but if he had chosen, he might have considered the firing on this vessel as an act of war, which South Carolina had instituted against the United States. He took what he considered as the most prudent course that was open to him. He sent a flag of truce to the Governor, stating that he presumed the act was unauthorized, and therefore that he had not returned the fire, but demanding an official disavowal of the act within a reasonable time, otherwise he should consider it an act of war and should fire on any vessel within the reach of his guns which might attempt to enter or leave the harbor. It is quite evident that if he had adhered to this purpose, the civil war would then have commenced; for the attitude of South Carolina was that of a power claiming complete independence of the United States, and her preparations for driving the United States out of the harbor were prosecuting with great vigor. But the affair took an unexpected, although for the moment it may have been a fortunate turn. The Governor did not disavow, but justified, the act of firing on the Star of the West, and on the 11th of January he sent two members of his executive council to Major Anderson, with instructions to present to him “considerations of the gravest public character, and of the deepest interest to all who deprecate the improper waste of life, to induce the delivery of Fort Sumter to the constituted authorities of South Carolina, with a pledge on its part to account for such public property as may be in your charge.”
It is difficult now to look back upon those transactions, and to describe them with the coolness which history should preserve. Without the least consideration for the duty incumbent upon the President of the United States under his official oath, the “constituted authorities of South Carolina” assumed from the first a position which they calculated, not without reason, would be supported by the secession leaders of the other cotton States. Their attitude was that their secession ordinance had completely severed the State from all connection with the United States; that the latter power was an intruder in her dominions, holding fortifications which were a standing affront to the dignity and a peril to the safety of the State; that these fortifications must be surrendered to the paramount territorial sovereignty of the State; and that as to the property of the United States which they contained, the State would account for it. The alternative plainly presented was that war must ensue, if these demands were not complied with. It is almost impossible to understand how sane men could have imagined that the Executive Government of the United States could be made to yield to such a demand; but the explanation is to be found in the three facts, that the South Carolina leaders meant to make the issue on the whole doctrine of secession in such a shape as would secure the support of some other States and their representatives in Washington; that they had reason to count confidently upon the support of the latter; and that they believed that President Buchanan could be induced or driven into a compliance with their demands, if they presented the alternatives of a complete admission of their right to secede peaceably on the one hand, and civil war on the other.
Perhaps the only thing that Major Anderson could prudently do, after what he considered as a demand upon him for a surrender of the fort, was to do precisely what he did, namely, to refer the whole matter to Washington. His answer to the Governor, sent on the same day, was that he could not comply with the demand, but that “should your Excellency deem fit, prior to a resort to arms, to refer the matter to Washington, it would afford me the sincerest pleasure to depute one of my officers to accompany any messenger you may deem proper to be the bearer of your demand.” This proposition was accepted by the Governor, and he commissioned the Attorney General of the State, the Hon. J. W. Hayne, to proceed to Washington and make the same demand on the President that had been made on Major Anderson. Major Anderson, on his part, sent one of his officers, Lieutenant J. Norman Hall, as his deputy, to await the President’s decision. The two gentlemen arrived in Washington together, on the evening of January 13th, 1861.
There was thus established between Major Anderson and the Governor of South Carolina a temporary truce of arms, which related to no locality but the harbor of Charleston, and would terminate when Major Anderson should receive his instructions how to act. On the one side, South Carolina, in an armed attitude, demands of Major Anderson the surrender of a fort of the United States, with a plain intimation that if he does not surrender it he must be driven out of it. On the other hand, Major Anderson, who, as the commanding officer of the United States in that harbor, has a just cause for retaliation on account of the attack on the Star of the West, proposes a suspension of all hostilities until he can receive the instructions of his Government. The proposal being accepted and acted upon, the circumstances constituted what President Buchanan, with entire accuracy, and citing the language of Vattel, calls “a partial truce, under which hostilities are suspended only in certain places.”[131] But the President was greatly surprised by this state of things. The truce made it alike impossible for Major Anderson to ask for, or the Government to send him, reinforcements, while it lasted. All that could be done by the President was to learn what the South Carolina messenger or envoy had to say, and then to decide again that Fort Sumter could not and would not be surrendered. When this had been done, the truce would be ended.[132]
Footnote 131:
Buchanan’s Defence, p. 144.
Footnote 132:
See Ex. Doc., H. R., vol. ix., No. 61. The reader who consults the documents without prejudice cannot fail to be struck with the arrogance of tone and the extreme nature of the demands, that mark all the papers that emanated from the South Carolina authorities at this period. Nor can he fail, I think, to see that President Buchanan, while he exercised great patience, bore himself throughout with the dignity that belonged to his position. When a paper became too outrageous to be tolerated, it was promptly returned.
Colonel Hayne called upon the President on the morning of the 14th of January, stating that he bore a letter from Governor Pickens to the President, which he would deliver in person on the next day. Remembering his experience with the former commissioners from South Carolina, the President declined to hold any conversation with Colonel Hayne on the subject of his errand, and requested that all communications should be made in writing, to which Colonel Hayne assented. On the 15th the Governor’s letter was not delivered to the President; it was held back on the advice of certain Southern Senators. The following memorandum, drawn up by the President on the 16th, will explain what those Senators were then trying to accomplish:
Wednesday afternoon, at 4 P. M., January 16.
Senator Clay (of Alabama) called. He began by assigning reasons why I should withdraw Major Anderson and his troops from Fort Sumter. I told him that it was quite out of the question for me to hold verbal communication on this subject. Although I relied implicitly upon his honor, yet there would be mistakes with the best intentions. He concurred in this opinion, but said he would never repeat to any human being what had passed between him and me. I thought, however, I would leave no room for doubt on the important point, and I told him I would not, under any circumstances, withdraw the troops from Fort Sumter. He spoke of the inauguration of civil war in Charleston as a dreadful calamity. I answered that the troops were there in a small number, in the possession of a fort which I firmly believed belonged to the United States, to act purely on the defensive; and if assaulted by the authorities of South Carolina, on them would rest the exclusive responsibility of commencing civil war. I believed South Carolina still to be a part of the Confederacy.
He then (and I am not certain he did not mention it before) said he had come from the seceding Senators to suggest to me some plan by which the effusion of human blood might be spared at Charleston. I told him any proposition of this kind must be reduced to writing—that without this I could not consider it. Still, he went on and said there was a truce agreed upon, so long as Colonel Hayne was here. I told him I had understood that there had been. He said they wanted him to remain a few days, and submit a proposition to the government of South Carolina, to agree that Major Anderson should be placed in his former position; that the Government should have free access to him; that he should buy all the provisions he wanted in Charleston; and that he should not be disturbed if I would not send him additional reinforcements. I again said that I could not take any proposition into consideration unless it were reduced to writing. He said he understood this perfectly. But [he] went on to say that the truce might be extended until the meeting at Milledgeville, or even till the 4th March. I told him that the truce would continue until Colonel Hayne left here, which I supposed would be in a few days; that Lieutenant Hall had been informed by Colonel Hayne that he might go to see his sick sister in New York, provided he was back on Friday evening. I told him I could say nothing further on the subject of the truce, nor could I express any opinion on the subjects to which he had referred, unless the proposition were reduced to writing, and presented to me in a distinct form. He said I need be under no apprehensions as to the security of the fort. He had just come from Jefferson Davis, who said it could not be taken; and Lars Anderson had informed him that Major Anderson said he did not require reinforcements. He got up and said he would go to those who had sent him, and it would be for them to decide upon the proposition. I then said to him, emphatically, that Colonel Hayne could not possibly be authorized to send any propositions to Charleston until they had been first submitted to myself and cabinet and agreed to. He said certainly not, that this was a necessary preliminary. I repeated again that I could not even consider any verbal proposition. He said he understood that perfectly; that he would not have anything to do with it himself without this. He then asked me when the cabinet would meet. He believed it was to-morrow, and they would not have time to come to an understanding so soon. I said that the regular day was Friday. He said that would give them time, and so he went away.
In the course of conversation I told him that I felt as much anxiety to prevent a collision and spare the effusion of blood as any man living; but this must be done in consistency with the discharge of all my duties as laid down in my annual message and my late special message. That I could not, and would not, withdraw Major Anderson from Fort Sumter.
What ensued after this interview between the President and Senator Clay can be best related in the President’s own words. Every statement that he makes in the following narrative is founded on and supported by the written correspondence.
Colonel Hayne, the commissioner from South Carolina, as already stated, arrived in Washington on the 13th January. He bore with him a letter from Governor Pickens addressed to the President. On the next morning he called upon the President, and stated that he would deliver this letter in person on the day following. The President, however, admonished by his recent experience with the former commissioners, declined to hold any conversation with him on the subject of his mission, and requested that all communications between them might be in writing. To this he assented. Although the President had no actual knowledge of the contents of the Governor’s letter, he could not doubt it contained a demand for the surrender of the fort. Such a demand he was at all times prepared peremptorily to reject. This Colonel Hayne must have known, because the President had but a fortnight before informed his predecessors this was impossible, and had never been thought of by him in any possible contingency. The President confidently expected that the letter would be transmitted to him on the day after the interview, when his refusal to surrender the fort would at once terminate the truce, and leave both parties free to act upon their own responsibility. Colonel Hayne, however, did not transmit this letter to the President on the 15th January, according to his promise, but withheld it until the 31st of that month. The reason for this vexatious delay will constitute a curious portion of our narrative, and deserves to be mentioned in some detail. (Vide the President’s message of 8th February, 1861, with the accompanying documents, Ex. Doc., H. R., vol. ix., No. 61.)
The Senators from the cotton States yet in Congress appeared, strangely enough, to suppose that through their influence the President might agree not to send reinforcements to Fort Sumter, provided Governor Pickens would stipulate not to attack it. By such an agreement they proposed to preserve the peace. But first of all it was necessary for them to prevail upon Colonel Hayne not to transmit the letter to the President on the day appointed, because they well knew that the demand which it contained would meet his prompt and decided refusal. This would render the conclusion of such an agreement impossible.
In furtherance of their plan, nine of these Senators, with Jefferson Davis at their head, addressed a note to Colonel Hayne on the 15th January, requesting him to defer the delivery of the letter. They proposed that he should withhold it until they could ascertain from the President whether he would agree not to send reinforcements, provided Governor Pickens would engage not to attack the fort. They informed the Colonel that should the President prove willing in the first place to enter into such an arrangement, they would then strongly recommend that he should not deliver the letter he had in charge for the present, but send to South Carolina for authority from Governor Pickens to become a party thereto. Colonel Hayne, in his answer to these Senators of the 17th January, informed them that he had not been clothed with power to make the arrangements suggested, but provided they could get assurances with which they were entirely satisfied that no reinforcements would be sent to Fort Sumter, he would withhold the letter with which he had been charged, refer their communication to the authorities of South Carolina, and await further instructions.
On the 19th January this correspondence between the Senators and Colonel Hayne was submitted to the President, accompanied by a note from three of their number, requesting him to take the subject into consideration. His answer to this note was delayed no longer than was necessary to prepare it in proper form. On the 22d January it was communicated to these Senators in a letter from the Secretary of War. This contained an express refusal to enter into the proposed agreement. Mr. Holt says: “I am happy to observe that, in your letter to Colonel Hayne, you express the opinion that it is ‘especially due from South Carolina to our States, to say nothing of other slaveholding States, that she should, so far as she can consistently with her honor, avoid initiating hostilities between her and the United States or any other power.’ To initiate such hostilities against Fort Sumter would, beyond question, be an act of war against the United States. In regard to the proposition of Colonel Hayne, ‘that no reinforcements will be sent to Fort Sumter in the interval, and that public peace will not be disturbed by any act of hostility towards South Carolina,’ it is impossible for me to give you any such assurances. The President has no authority to enter into such an agreement or understanding. As an executive officer, he is simply bound to protect the public property so far as this maybe practicable; and it would be a manifest violation of his duty to place himself under engagements that he would not perform this duty, either for an indefinite, or limited, period. At the present moment it is not deemed necessary to reinforce Major Anderson, because he makes no such request and feels quite secure in his position. Should his safety, however, require reinforcements, every effort will be made to supply them.”
It was believed by the President that this peremptory refusal to enter into the proposed agreement, would have caused Colonel Hayne immediately to present the letter he had in charge and thus terminate his mission, thereby releasing both parties from the obligations of the truce. In this expectation the President was disappointed. The secession Senators again interposed, and advised Colonel Hayne still longer to withhold the letter from the President, and await further instructions from Charleston. In his answer of 24th January to their note containing this advice, he [Col. Hayne] informs them that although the letter from the Secretary of War “was far from being satisfactory,” yet in compliance with their request he “would withhold the communication with which he was at present charged, and refer the whole matter to the authorities of South Carolina, and would await their reply.” On the 30th this reply was received, and on the next day Colonel Hayne transmitted to the President the letter of Governor Pickens demanding the surrender of the fort, with a long communication from himself. This letter is dated “Headquarters, Charleston, January 12, 1861,” and is as follows:
“SIR:—
“At the time of the separation of the State of South Carolina from the United States, Fort Sumter was, and still is, in the possession of troops of the United States, under the command of Major Anderson. I regard that possession as not consistent with the dignity or safety of the State of South Carolina, and have this day [it was the day previous] addressed to Major Anderson a communication to obtain possession of that fort by the authorities of this State. The reply of Major Anderson informs me that he has no authority to do what I required, but he desires a reference of the demand to the President of the United States. Under the circumstances now existing, and which need no comment by me, I have determined to send to you Hon. I. W. Hayne, the Attorney-General of the State of South Carolina, and have instructed him to demand the delivery of Fort Sumter, in the harbor of Charleston, to the constituted authorities of the State of South Carolina. The demand I have made of Major Anderson, and which I now make of you, is suggested by my earnest desire to avoid the bloodshed which a persistence in your attempt to retain possession of that fort will cause, and which will be unavailing to secure to you that possession, but induce a calamity most deeply to be deplored. If consequences so unhappy shall ensue, I will secure for this State, in the demand which I now make, the satisfaction of having exhausted every attempt to avoid it.
“In relation to the public property of the United States within Fort Sumter, the Hon. I. W, Hayne, who will hand you this communication, is authorized to give you the pledge of the State that the valuation of such property will be accounted for by this State, upon the adjustment of its relations with the United States, of which it was a part.”
On the 6th February, the Secretary of War, on behalf of the President, replied to this demand, as well as to the letter of Colonel Hayne accompanying it. Our narrative would be incomplete without this admirable and conclusive reply. It is as follows:
“WAR DEPARTMENT, February 6, 1861.[133]
“SIR:—
“The President of the United States has received your letter of the 31st ultimo, and has charged me with the duty of replying thereto.
“In the communication addressed to the President by Governor Pickens, under date of the 12th January, and which accompanies yours now before me, his Excellency says: ‘I have determined to send to you the Hon. I. W. Hayne, the Attorney General of the State of South Carolina, and have instructed him to demand the surrender of Fort Sumter, in the harbor of Charleston, to the constituted authorities of the State of South Carolina. The demand I have made of Major Anderson, and which I now make of you, is suggested because of my earnest desire to avoid the bloodshed which a persistence in your attempt to retain possession of that fort will cause, and which will be unavailing to secure to you that possession, but induce a calamity most deeply to be deplored.’ The character of the demand thus authorized to be made appears (under the influence, I presume, of the correspondence with the Senators to which you refer) to have been modified by subsequent instructions of his Excellency, dated the 26th, and received by yourself on the 30th January, in which he says: ‘If it be so that Fort Sumter is held as property, then, as property, the rights, whatever they may be, of the United States, can be ascertained, and for the satisfaction of these rights the pledge of the State of South Carolina you are authorized to give.’ The full scope and precise purport of your instructions, as thus modified, you have expressed in the following words: ‘I do not come as a military man to demand the surrender of a fortress, but as the legal officer of the State—its Attorney General—to claim for the State the exercise of its undoubted right of eminent domain, and to pledge the State to make good all injury to the rights of property which arise from the exercise of the claim.’ And lest this explicit language should not sufficiently define your position, you add: ‘The proposition now is that her [South Carolina’s] law officer should, under authority of the Governor and his council, distinctly pledge the faith of South Carolina to make such compensation, in regard to Fort Sumter and its appurtenances and contents, to the full extent of the money value of the property of the United States, delivered over to the authorities of South Carolina by your command.’ You then adopt his Excellency’s train of thought upon the subject, so far as to suggest that the possession of Fort Sumter by the United States, ‘if continued long enough, must lead to collision,’ and that ‘an attack upon it would scarcely improve it as property, whatever the result; and if captured, it would no longer be the subject of account.’
“The proposal, then, now presented to the President, is simply an offer on the part of South Carolina to buy Fort Sumter and contents as property of the United States, sustained by a declaration in effect, that if she is not permitted to make the purchase, she will seize the fort by force of arms. As the initiation of a negotiation for the transfer of property between friendly governments, this proposal impresses the President as having assumed a most unusual form. He has, however, investigated the claim on which it professes to be based, apart from the declaration that accompanies it. And it may be here remarked, that much stress has been laid upon the employment of the words ‘property’ and ‘public property’ by the President in his several messages. These are the most comprehensive terms which can be used in such a connection, and surely, when referring to a fort or any other public establishment, they embrace the entire and undivided interest of the Government therein.
“The title of the United States to Fort Sumter is complete and incontestable. Were its interest in this property purely proprietary, in the ordinary acceptation of the term, it might probably be subjected to the exercise of the right of eminent domain; but it has also political relations to it of a much higher and more imposing character than those of mere proprietorship. It has absolute jurisdiction over the fort and the soil on which it stands. This jurisdiction consists in the authority to ‘exercise exclusive legislation’ over the property referred to, and is therefore clearly incompatible with the claim of eminent domain now insisted upon by South Carolina. This authority was not derived from any questionable revolutionary source, but from the peaceful cession of South Carolina herself, acting through her legislature, under a provision of the Constitution of the United States. South Carolina can no more assert the right of eminent domain over Fort Sumter than Maryland can assert it over the District of Columbia. The political and proprietary rights of the United States in either case rest upon precisely the same ground.
“The President, however, is relieved from the necessity of further pursuing this inquiry by the fact that, whatever may be the claim of South Carolina to this fort, he has no constitutional power to cede or surrender it. The property of the United States has been acquired by force of public law, and can only be disposed of under the same solemn sanctions. The President, as the head of the executive branch of the Government only, can no more sell and transfer Fort Sumter to South Carolina than he can sell and convey the Capitol of the United States to Maryland or to any other State or individual seeking to possess it. His Excellency the Governor is too familiar with the Constitution of the United States, and with the limitations upon the powers of the Chief Magistrate of the Government it has established, not to appreciate at once the soundness of this legal proposition. The question of reinforcing Fort Sumter is so fully disposed of in my letter to Senator Slidell and others, under date of the 22d of January, a copy of which accompanies this, that its discussion will not now be renewed. I then said: ‘At the present moment it is not deemed necessary to reinforce Major Anderson, because he makes no such request. Should his safety, however, require reinforcements, every effort will be made to supply them.‘ I can add nothing to the explicitness of this language, which still applies to the existing status.
“The right to send forward reinforcements when, in the judgment of the President, the safety of the garrison requires them, rests on the same unquestionable foundation as the right to occupy the fortress itself. In the letter of Senator Davis and others to yourself, under date of the 15th ultimo, they say: ‘We therefore think it especially due from South Carolina to our States—to say nothing of other slaveholding States—that she should, as far as she can consistently with her honor, avoid initiating hostilities between her and the United States or any other power;‘ and you now yourself give to the President the gratifying assurance that ‘South Carolina has every disposition to preserve the public peace;’ and since he is himself sincerely animated by the same desire, it would seem that this common and patriotic object must be of certain attainment. It is difficult, however, to reconcile with this assurance the declaration on your part that ‘it is a consideration of her [South Carolina’s] own dignity as a sovereign, and the safety of her people, which prompts her to demand that this property should not longer be used as a military post by a government she no longer acknowledges,’ and the thought you so constantly present, that this occupation must lead to a collision of arms and the prevalence of civil war. Fort Sumter is in itself a military post, and nothing else; and it would seem that not so much the fact as the purpose of its use should give to it a hostile or friendly character. This fortress is now held by the Government of the United States for the same objects for which it has been held from the completion of its construction. These are national and defensive; and were a public enemy now to attempt the capture of Charleston or the destruction of the commerce of its harbor, the whole force of the batteries of this fortress would be at once exerted for their protection. How the presence of a small garrison, actuated by such a spirit as this, can compromise the dignity or honor of South Carolina, or become a source of irritation to her people, the President is at a loss to understand. The attitude of that garrison, as has been often declared, is neither menacing, nor defiant, nor unfriendly. It is acting under orders to stand strictly on the defensive; and the government and people of South Carolina must well know that they can never receive aught but shelter from its guns, unless, in the absence of all provocation, they should assault it and seek its destruction. The intent with which this fortress is held by the President is truthfully stated by Senator Davis and others in their letter to yourself of the 15th January, in which they say: ‘It is not held with any hostile or unfriendly purpose toward your State, but merely as property of the United States, which the President deems it his duty to protect and preserve.’
“If the announcement so repeatedly made of the President’s pacific purposes in continuing the occupation of Fort Sumter until the question shall have been settled by competent authority, has failed to impress the government of South Carolina, the forbearing conduct of his administration for the last few months should be received as conclusive evidence of his sincerity, And if this forbearance, in view of the circumstances which have so severely tried it, be not accepted as a satisfactory pledge of the peaceful policy of this administration toward South Carolina, then it may be safely affirmed that neither language nor conduct can possibly furnish one. If, with all the multiplied proofs which exist of the President’s anxiety for peace, and of the earnestness with which he has pursued it, the authorities of that State shall assault Fort Sumter, and peril the lives of the handful of brave and loyal men shut up within its walls, and thus plunge our common country into the horrors of civil war, then upon them and those they represent must rest the responsibility.
“Very respectfully, your obedient servant, “J. HOLT, “Secretary of War.
“HON. I. W. HAYNE, “Attorney General of the State of South Carolina.
“P.S.—The President has not, as you have been informed, received a copy of the letter to yourself from the Senators, communicating that of Mr. Holt of the 22d January.”
Footnote 133:
H. R. Ex. Doc., 1860-’61, vol. ix, Doc. No. 61.
This letter of Mr. Holt, though firm and decided in character, is courteous and respectful, both in tone and in terms. It reviews the subject in an able and comprehensive manner, explaining and justifying the conduct of the President. Unlike the letters to which it is a response, it contains no menace. In conclusion, it does no more than fix the responsibility of commencing a civil war on the authorities of South Carolina, should they assault Fort Sumter and imperil the lives of the brave and loyal men shut up within its walls. It does not contain a word or an expression calculated to afford just cause of offence; yet its statements and its arguments must have cut Colonel Hayne to the quick. To reply to them successfully was impossible. He, therefore, had no resort but to get angry. Following in the footsteps of his predecessors, on the 8th February he addressed an insulting answer, not to Secretary Holt, as usage and common civility required, but directly to the President. He then suddenly left Washington, leaving his missile behind him to be delivered after his departure. From his conduct he evidently anticipated its fate. His letter was returned to him on the same day, directed to Charleston, with the following indorsement: “The character of this letter is such that it cannot be received. Colonel Hayne having left the city before it was sent to the President, it is returned to him by the first mail.” What has become of it we do not know. No copy of it was retained, nor have we ever heard of it since.
What effect this letter of Mr. Holt may have produced upon the truculent Governor of South Carolina we shall not attempt to decide. Certain it is, from whatever cause, no attack was made upon Fort Sumter until six weeks after the close of Mr. Buchanan’s administration. The fort remained unmolested until South Carolina had been for some time a member of the Confederate States. It was reserved for Mr. Jefferson Davis, their President, to issue the order for its bombardment, and thus formally to commence the civil war. This he did with a full consciousness that such would be the fatal effect; because in the letter from him and other Southern Senators to Colonel Hayne, of the 15th January, both he and they had warned Governor Pickens that an attack upon the fort would be “the instituting hostilities between her [South Carolina] and the United States.”
Thus ended the second mission from South Carolina to the President, and thus was he relieved from the truce concluded by Major Anderson. But in the mean time, before the termination of this truce, the action of the General Assembly of Virginia, instituting the Peace Convention, had interposed an insurmountable obstacle to the reinforcement of Fort Sumter, unless attacked or in immediate danger of attack, without entirely defeating this beneficent measure.
The attention of the reader must now be directed to the harbor of Pensacola. To unravel and correct the misrepresentations which have been accepted as part of the history of Mr. Buchanan’s administration, is no agreeable, but it is a very necessary duty. If General Scott, at this period of his life, had not been a man very far advanced in years and burthened with increasing infirmities, he ought to be held to a severer responsibility than I am disposed to apply to him, on account of the entirely unwarrantable imputations which, with great personal inconsistency, he allowed himself to cast upon Mr. Buchanan, after the latter had retired to private life, and after new men had come into power who made it their policy to blame the preceding President.
Pensacola, a town in the western end of the State of Florida, is on a broad bay of the same name, which opens into the Gulf of Mexico. The narrow entrance is commanded by Fort Pickens, built on the extreme western point of Santa Rosa Island, and standing boldly upon the Gulf. This fortress, unlike Fort Sumter, could be relieved at any time by a naval force, which nothing could assail before the fort was reached. Florida “seceded” on the 10th of January. The command of the State troops was assumed by Colonel William H. Chase, previously an officer of the United States corps of engineers. These State forces suddenly expelled a small body of United States troops from the town of Pensacola and the adjacent navy yard. This body of regular troops was under the command of Lieutenant Slemmer, an officer of the artillery, and it consisted of between seventy and eighty men. They took refuge in Fort Pickens. Unless relieved, they were in great danger of being captured by a much superior force, and they were in pressing need of provisions. General Scott’s charge against Mr. Buchanan, made in a paper which he presented to President Lincoln in 1861, and which he called a report, was couched in the following language:
“The Brooklyn, with Captain Vogdes’ company alone, left the Chesapeake for Fort Pickens about January 22d, and on the 29th, President Buchanan having entered into a quasi armistice with certain leading seceders at Pensacola and elsewhere, caused Secretaries Holt and Toucey to instruct, in a joint note, the commanders of the war vessels off Pensacola, and Lieutenant Slemmer, commanding Fort Pickens, to commit no act of hostility, and not to land Captain Vogdes’ company unless the fort should be attacked. That joint note I never saw, but suppose the armistice was consequent upon the Peace Convention at Washington, and was understood to terminate with it.”
The facts are as follows:
1. General Scott not only saw the joint order issued by Secretaries Holt and Toucey, but he approved of it entirely. This is made certain by a note written by Mr. Holt to the President, on the day the order was issued, the 29th of January, informing him of the fact. The original of this note was sealed up by the President and put away. It reads as follows:
[SECRETARY HOLT TO THE PRESIDENT.]
“MY DEAR SIR:—
“The words [of the joint order] are ‘the provisions necessary for the supply of the fort you will land.’ I think the language could not be more carefully guarded. If, on communication with the fort, it is found that no provisions are needed, then none will be landed.
“I have the satisfaction of saying that on submitting the paper to General Scott, he expressed himself satisfied with it, saying that there could be no objection to the arrangement in a military point of view or otherwise.
“Sincerely yours, “J. HOLT.”
2. The Brooklyn, which, after her return from her cruise in search of the Star of the West, had lain in Hampton Roads ready for any emergency, sailed on the 24th of January for Fort Pickens, with Captain Vogdes’ company of artillery, from Fortress Monroe, and with provisions and military stores. Previous to this, the Secretary of the Navy, as a measure of precaution, had withdrawn from foreign stations all the war vessels that could be spared, and the home squadron was thus made unusually large in the Gulf of Mexico.[134]
Footnote 134:
Writing on the 25th of June, 1861, to Mr. Buchanan, Mr. Toucey says: “The naval force assembled at Pensacola under your administration consisted of the steamship Brooklyn, the frigate Sabine, the sloop of war Macedonian, the steamer Wyandotte, and for a time the sloop of war St. Louis. Without including the troops on board the Brooklyn, this squadron could have thrown a reinforcement of six or seven hundred men into Fort Pickens at any time.”
3. The circumstances which led to the joint order of January 29th were the following: On the 28th, four days after the Brooklyn sailed, Senators Slidell, of Louisiana, Hunter, of Virginia, and Bigler, of Pennsylvania, received a telegraphic despatch from Senator Mallory, then at Pensacola, with a request that it be laid before the President. It gave the most positive assurances of both Mallory and Chase that no attack would be made on the fort, if its present status should be allowed to remain, and it expressed an anxious desire to preserve peace. Notwithstanding these assurances, the President was careful not to tie his own hands, in regard to Pensacola, as they had been tied for a time by Major Anderson, in regard to Charleston. The Brooklyn might not arrive in time to preserve Fort Pickens, or to supply it with provisions, which must, if needed, be thrown in at every hazard: and while it was of the utmost importance that no collision should occur at that point, and at a moment when the Peace Convention was about to assemble, it was equally important that Mr. Mallory and Colonel Chase should be made to understand that the fleet in the Gulf of Mexico would act, at a moment’s warning, not only in the event of any attack upon the fort, but whenever the officer in command should observe that preparations were making for an attack. A cabinet council was accordingly held on the day on which the President saw Mr. Mallory’s despatch to the three Senators, and with the approbation of every member of the cabinet, the President directed the Secretaries of War and of the Navy to issue the following joint order, and to transmit it immediately by telegraph to the naval officers in the Gulf, including the commander of the Brooklyn, and to Lieutenant Slemmer:
WASHINGTON, January 29, 1861.
To JAMES GLYNN, Comdg. the “Macedonian,” Captain W. S. WALKER, Comdg. the “Brooklyn,” and other Naval Officers in command, and 1st Lieut. A. J. SLEMMER, First Artillery, commanding Fort Pickens, Pensacola, Florida:—
In consequence of the assurances received from Mr. Mallory in a telegram of yesterday to Messrs. Slidell, Hunter, and Bigler, with a request it should be laid before the President, that Fort Pickens would not be assaulted, and an offer of an assurance to the same effect from Col. Chase, for the purpose of avoiding a hostile collision, upon receiving satisfactory assurances from Mr. Mallory and Col. Chase that Fort Pickens will not be attacked, you are instructed not to land the company on board the Brooklyn, unless said fort shall be attacked, or preparations shall be made for its attack. The provisions necessary for the supply of the fort you will land. The Brooklyn and the other vessels of war on the station will remain, and you will exercise the utmost vigilance, and be prepared at a moment’s warning to land the company at Fort Pickens, and you and they will instantly repel any attack on the fort. The President yesterday sent a special message to Congress, commending the Virginia Resolutions of Compromise. The commissioners of different States are to meet here on Monday, the 4th of February, and it is important that during their session a collision of arms should be avoided, unless an attack should be made, or there should be preparations for such an attack. In either event the Brooklyn and the other vessels will act promptly.
Your right and that of the other officers in command at Pensacola freely to communicate with the Government by special messenger, and its right in the same manner to communicate with yourself and them, will remain intact as the basis on which the present instruction is given.[135]
J. HOLT, Secretary of War, ISAAC TOUCEY, Secretary of the Navy.
Footnote 135:
This order, which was given by the Secretary of War to Captain Vogdes, was founded on and embodied a memorandum of instructions drawn up by the President himself, which now lies before me in his handwriting:
“You are instructed, for the purpose of avoiding a hostile collision, not to land your company and stores at Fort Pickens, upon receiving satisfactory assurances from Major Chase and Mr. Mallory that the fort will not be attacked. The Brooklyn and the other vessels of war in the vicinity will remain, and she will land the company and provisions and defend Fort Pickens, should it be attacked, exercising the utmost vigilance. The President yesterday sent a special message to Congress commending the Virginia Resolutions of Compromise. The commissioners of different States are to meet here on Monday next, 4th February. During their session, a collision of arms ought to be avoided, unless an attack should be made on Fort Pickens, and then it must be repelled.”
4. On the morning of the same day on which this joint order was issued, Senator Bigler called at the White House, but being unable to wait for an interview with the President, he dictated to the private secretary the following message to the President:
“I have seen Mr. Slidell and Mr. Hunter. They both think it very important that collisions should be avoided, and have no doubt of the truth of all that Mr. Mallory has said. They think also that the Brooklyn might be very properly kept there to succor the fort in case of attack. Of course no despatch will be sent to Mr. Mallory, unless authorized by you. You might send such a despatch to the Senate Chamber, as you may desire to have sent.”
(Taken down from Mr. Bigler’s dictation, he being unable to remain on account of meeting of tariff committee.
A. J. G.[136]
Tuesday morning, January 29, 1861.)
Footnote 136:
A. J. Glosbrenner, private secretary to the President. The original memorandum in Mr. Glosbrenner’s handwriting is before me.
5. On the arrival of the joint order at Pensacola, Mr. Mallory and Colonel Chase gave to the naval and military commanders of the United States the assurances which the order required. The Brooklyn did not reach Pensacola until the 5th of February. But under the order the fort was supplied with provisions, and made perfectly secure from any attack. No attack was made, and the fort remained in the possession of the Government from that time forward.
It is thus apparent that, with reference to Fort Pickens, the whole arrangement, although it amounted to a qualified armistice, differed absolutely from that made by Major Anderson with Governor Pickens, in regard to Fort Sumter. Anderson agreed to a temporary suspension of arms on both sides. The President, in respect to Fort Pickens, instructed the naval and military officers to defend the fort against any attack, and not to wait for an actual attack, but to succor Lieut. Slemmer on the instant that they perceived any preparations for attacking him. It is impossible to suggest in what way the President could have more effectually protected the rights of the Government, on the eve of the assembling of the Peace Convention. Fort Pickens, with the Brooklyn, the Macedonian, and other war vessels in its immediate neighborhood, and in the hands of Lieut. Slemmer, was just as safe as if ten thousand men had been thrown into it, while the precautions taken prevented any outbreak that would, if any had occurred, have prostrated the hope with which the country was looking to the labors of the Peace Convention.
How great were the anxieties felt by the Virginians whose State had proposed that assembly, may be seen from an account which may now be given of the informal intercourse between ex-President Tyler and President Buchanan. Mr. Tyler was alarmed when he arrived in Washington and heard that the Brooklyn had sailed with troops for some Southern fort. As all eyes and thoughts were then directed to the harbor of Charleston, Mr. Tyler took the readiest means to ascertain what he could respecting the Brooklyn’s destination. On the evening of January 25th, he addressed to the President the following note:
[MR. TYLER TO THE PRESIDENT.]
Friday evening, January 25, 1861.
MY DEAR SIR:—
The enclosed telegraphic despatch is this moment received. May I be permitted to hope that it is based on an unfounded report. If not, will you do me the favor to inform me on what day the Brooklyn sailed, and whether she has recruits for any Southern fort, and if so, which?
With high regard, yours most truly, JOHN TYLER.
The President’s answer was as follows:
[PRESIDENT BUCHANAN TO MR. TYLER.]
January 25, 1861.
MY DEAR SIR:—
I have just received your note. The orders were given to the Brooklyn, I believe, on Monday or Tuesday last—certainly before your arrival in this city. She goes on an errand of mercy and relief. If she had not been sent, it would have been an abandonment of our highest duty. Her movements are in no way connected with South Carolina.
Your friend, very respectfully, JAMES BUCHANAN.
Mr. Tyler returned to Richmond on the 29th, and before he left the following notes were exchanged between him and the President:
[MR. TYLER TO THE PRESIDENT.]
BROWN’S HOTEL, January 28, 1861.
MY DEAR SIR:—
I leave the city to-morrow morning for the brief interval that elapses between this and the meeting of the [Peace] commissioners on the 4th February. In making my adieus, which I would do in person but for engagements which prevent, I desire to express my pleasure at hearing your message read to-day in the Senate, and to tender to you my acknowledgments for the facilities you have afforded me of acquitting myself of the mission with which my State entrusted me. I feel but one regret in all that has occurred, and that is in the sailing of the Brooklyn, under orders issued before my arrival in this city. I hope, however, that she sailed with such instructions as, if followed, will prevent any collision. There is nothing that I more sincerely desire than that your administration may close amid the rejoicings of a great people at the consummation of the work of a renewed and more harmonious confederacy.
Will you pardon me for calling your attention to the rumor contained in the newspapers of the morning, which state that active proceedings are in course of execution at Fortress Monroe, in planting cannon upon the land side of the fort, with their muzzles turned landward and overlooking the country? If this be so, Mr. President, is such proceeding either appropriate or well-timed? I shall do no more than call your attention to the circumstance, and leave it without comment, with this single remark: that when Virginia is making every possible effort to redeem and save the Union, it is seemingly ungracious to have cannon levelled at her bosom.
With my most cordial wish for your success in steering the ship of State amid the critical relations of the country,
I am, dear Sir, truly and faithfully yours, JOHN TYLER.
[PRESIDENT BUCHANAN TO MR. TYLER.]
WASHINGTON, January 28, 1861.
MY DEAR SIR:—
I have received your note of this evening, and am happy to learn that you were pleased at hearing my message read to-day in the Senate. It expresses my sincere and cordial sentiments. My best wishes attend you on your journey home and for your safe return to this city on the 4th February. I shall then hope to see more of you.
I shall make it a point to inquire to-morrow morning into the rumors in the newspapers, to which you refer, in relation to Fortress Monroe.
Yours very respectfully, JAMES BUCHANAN.
Mr. Tyler was again in Washington on the 4th of February, to attend the sessions of the Peace Convention, of which he was made the presiding officer. On the 7th the members of that body were received by the President. On the 8th Mr. Tyler, still anxious in regard to the situation of things in Charleston, called upon the President, and I find in the handwriting of the latter the following account of their interview:
Friday, February 8th, 1861.
President Tyler and his lady called to see me at about three o’clock in the afternoon. They informed me that Colonel Hayne became much excited on the perusal of Mr. Holt’s last letter, and considered it highly insulting in its character. I told him that this must be a mere pretext,—there was nothing in that letter unkind or disrespectful, and certainly there was no intention to write anything but what was respectful, as its whole tenor would prove.
In answer to it I had received one of the most outrageous and insulting letters from Colonel Hayne which had ever been addressed to the head of any government. He told me he would send for Colonel Hayne, and get him to withdraw the letter. I told him Colonel Hayne had left that morning at six o’clock, and his letter was not delivered to me until between eleven and twelve.
He asked me if he might telegraph to Governor Pickens what I had said relative to the character of Mr. Holt’s letter. I told him certainly he might, he was at perfect liberty to do so. The letter would speak for itself, and I asked him if he had read it, and he said he had not.
He then asked me and urged upon me to permit him to telegraph to Colonel Hayne that I would not send reinforcements to the garrison if Governor Pickens would pledge himself that he would not attack it. I told him this was impossible. I could not agree to bind myself not to reinforce the garrison in case I deemed it necessary. That Mr. Holt’s letter showed that these reinforcements had not yet been ordered, but that the character of Colonel Hayne’s letter was such that these might be immediately necessary.
Mr. Tyler strongly urged that I should withdraw the garrison, and urged reasons to that effect. I told him this was quite impossible—that I could never voluntarily surrender the property of the United States which it was my solemn and imperative duty to protect and defend. (He afterwards addressed me a note, urging the same policy, which I did not answer.)
In order to prevent all mistakes, I told him explicitly, as he was about departing, that he was not authorized to telegraph anything to Governor Pickens except as to the character of Mr. Holt’s letter; that it was not insulting or disrespectful, but, on the contrary, it was kind and respectful in its tone, and was so intended both by the writer and myself. I then informed him that I had sent Colonel Hayne’s letter back to him. He said such a letter was highly improper, addressed to the head of a government.
[MR. TYLER TO THE PRESIDENT.]
Saturday evening, February 9, 1861.
MY DEAR SIR:—
I communicated to Governor Pickens what passed between us as to Mr. Holt’s letter, and I am happy to say that the reply, received a moment ago, leaves me no ground to fear any early disturbance. The whole subject is referred to the convention at Montgomery, as I plainly infer. The conclusion is in these words: “Everything which can be done consistently with the honor and safety of this State to avoid collision and bloodshed, has been and will be the purpose of the authorities here.”
Thus, my dear sir, the inquietude you expressed may be dismissed.
Very truly and faithfully yours, JOHN TYLER.
It will be remembered, that on the 19th of February, the President received information from Philadelphia, by a copy of a telegram said to have been forwarded from Governor Pickens through Augusta to Montgomery, that the Governor was urging an immediate attack on Fort Sumter. This information the President at once communicated to Mr. Tyler. The following notes disclose what Mr. Tyler learned:
[MR. TYLER TO THE PRESIDENT.]
Tuesday, February 19, 1861.
MY DEAR SIR:—
I do not believe a word of it. My last despatch from Judge Robertson is wholly different. I am at the moment so engaged that I cannot hasten to you. I will as soon as I can.
Respectfully, your friend, JOHN TYLER.
Wednesday, February 20, 1861.
MY DEAR SIR:—
I despatched the telegram at about 5 o’clock. No answer yet. Perhaps it was referred to Montgomery, or time may not have been given to respond before the close of the office. A consultation of cabinet may have been required. In short, many things of a similar nature may have occurred. General Davis will be written to to-day. No attack can be made without orders from Montgomery.
Truly yours, JOHN TYLER.
Two o’clock P.M., February 20, 1861.
MY DEAR SIR:—
I have this moment received a telegram from Charleston. The Governor says: “Received your message; know nothing about the report you speak of; no one is authorized to speak for me; things must stand without any movement in force.” I would send the despatch, but the latter part of it relates to another matter.
Truly and sincerely your friend, JOHN TYLER.
BROWN’S HOTEL, February 24, 1861.
MY DEAR SIR:—
I think you may rely upon tranquillity at the South. Since you left me I have made particular inquiries. General Davis has been written to and will be written to. He is advised to send a commissioner, and to go to Charleston himself to represent and quiet all things. In fact, from information from one directly from Richmond, and who travelled with merchants from the South going North, the probability is that he is now in Charleston. The fact may probably be announced in the papers to-morrow. Every one that I have seen, secessionists and others, concur with myself in the improbability of any movement until a commissioner shall come on here and a failure in the mission.
Truly and faithfully yours, JOHN TYLER.
The explanation of the last of these notes is that Mr. Jefferson Davis had assumed at this time, at Montgomery, the office of President of the Confederate States. His inaugural address was delivered on the 18th of February, and his cabinet was organized immediately thereafter. In compliance with the intimation sent by Mr. Tyler, steps were at once taken by Mr. Davis to send commissioners to Washington. It was, therefore, not the “cue” of the Confederate government to have an immediate attack made on Fort Sumter. Mr. Davis did not go to Charleston, but he doubtless exerted there, for a time, the influence which Mr. Tyler desired.
XXIII. 1861—January, February, and March
INTERVENTION OF VIRGINIA TO PREVENT A COLLISION OF ARMS—EX-PRESIDENT TYLER’S MISSION TO THE PRESIDENT—THE PRESIDENT’S PREPARATIONS TO REINFORCE ANDERSON, IN CASE OF NECESSITY—THE MONTGOMERY CONGRESS AND THE CONFEDERATE PROVISIONAL GOVERNMENT—MR. LINCOLN’S JOURNEY TO WASHINGTON—THE NEGLECTS OF CONGRESS.
To a right understanding of these complicated affairs that were occurring in the months of January and February, many threads require to be taken up separately, and interwoven in the narrative. The last messenger or envoy from South Carolina, Colonel Hayne, was in Washington from the 13th of January to the 8th of February, during which period, as the reader has seen, the President’s hands were so far tied by Major Anderson’s truce, that reinforcements could not be sent to him while it lasted. But after this temporary truce began, and before it terminated, there occurred another intervention, altogether different from that of any of the Senators. This was the action of the General Assembly of Virginia, which, besides instituting the Peace Convention, took, at the same time, a step which interposed an insurmountable obstacle to the reinforcement of Fort Sumter, unless it should be attacked, or be in immediate danger of attack. There is no reason to doubt that what the State of Virginia then did was done in entire good faith, and with an honorable and beneficent purpose to preserve the peace of the country. At all events, the President was not at liberty to regard her action in any other light, nor was he disposed to do so.
On the 19th of January, ten days after the affair of the Star of the West, and six days after the arrival of Colonel Hayne in Washington, the General Assembly of Virginia, among their other proceedings, appointed ex-President Tyler a commissioner to the President of the United States, and Judge John Robertson a commissioner to the State of South Carolina and the other States which had seceded, or might thereafter secede, with instructions to procure a mutual agreement to “abstain from any and all acts calculated to produce a collision of arms between the States and the Government of the United States,” pending the proceedings of the Peace Convention. Mr. Tyler, who was also a member of the Peace Convention, arrived in Washington on the 23d of January, two weeks before the departure of Col. Hayne. On the following day, he presented the resolutions of his State to the President, at the same time assuring him that the efforts of Virginia to secure peace and a reconstruction of the basis of the Union depended for their success on her being allowed to conduct them undisturbed by any outside collision. The resolutions of Virginia requested the President, and not Congress, to enter into the proposed agreement. The President, already informed unofficially of the tenor of the resolutions, was then preparing a special message to Congress on the subject.[137] What occurred at this first interview between Mr. Tyler and the President will appear from the following memorandum the original of which is in the President’s handwriting:
Thursday morning, January 24, 1861.
Mr. Tyler called and delivered me his credentials, and we had a conference. I foreshadowed to him the principal points of my message as [it was] delivered. He preferred that I should enter into the arrangement myself. We discussed this question for some time, and I was decided that I had no power. He then expressed an apprehension that my message might precipitate action in Congress. I told him I thought not. I sent for Governor Bigler that he might consult him on this point, but Governor Bigler had gone to the Senate.
Friday morning, 25th.
Mr. Tyler called again, and Mr. Bigler came. I read to him the principal points of the message. He was anxious it should be sent that day, and I immediately proceeded to put it in form. I told him it should be sent in that day, or at latest on Saturday morning. But the Senate adjourned over till Monday at an early hour, and my purpose was thus defeated.
Footnote 137:
Message of January 28, 1861.
Mr. Buchanan has said that while he had no constitutional power to enter into the agreement proposed, it was due to its intrinsic importance and to the State of Virginia, which had manifested so strong a desire to restore and preserve the Union, that the proposal should be submitted to Congress.[138]
The President, accordingly, in his message of the 28th January, submitting the Virginia resolutions to Congress, observed in regard to this one, that “however strong may be my desire to enter into such an agreement, I am convinced that I do not possess the power. Congress, and Congress alone, under the war-making power, can exercise the discretion of agreeing to abstain ‘from any and all acts calculated to produce a collision of arms’ between this and any other Government. It would, therefore, be a usurpation for the Executive to attempt to restrain their hands by an agreement in regard to matters over which he has no constitutional control. If he were thus to act, they might pass laws which he would be bound to obey, though in conflict with his agreement. Under existing circumstances, my present actual power is confined within narrow limits. It is my duty at all times to defend and protect the public property within the seceding States, so far as this may be practicable, and especially to employ all constitutional means to protect the property of the United States, and to preserve the public peace at this the seat of the Federal Government. If the seceding States abstain ‘from any and all acts calculated to produce a collision of arms,’ then the danger so much to be deprecated will no longer exist. Defence, and not aggression, has been the policy of the administration from the beginning. But whilst I can enter into no engagement such as that proposed, I cordially commend to Congress, with much confidence that it will meet their approbation, to abstain from passing any law calculated to produce a collision of arms pending the proceedings contemplated by the action of the General Assembly of Virginia. I am one of those who will never despair of the Republic. I yet cherish the belief that the American people will perpetuate the union of the States on some terms just and honorable for all sections of the country. I trust that the mediation of Virginia may be the destined means, under Providence, of accomplishing this inestimable benefit. Glorious as are the memories of her past history, such an achievement, both in relation to her own fame and the welfare of the whole country, would surpass them all.”
This noble and patriotic effort of Virginia met no favor from Congress. Neither House referred these resolutions of her General Assembly to a committee, or even treated them with the common courtesy of ordering them to be printed. In the Senate no motion was made to refer them, and the question to print them with the accompanying message was debated from time to time until the 21st February,[139] when the Peace Convention had nearly completed its labors, and after this no further notice seems to have been taken of the subject. In the House the motion to refer and print the Virginia resolutions, made by Mr. Stanton, of Ohio, on the day they were received, was never afterwards noticed.[140] This mortifying neglect on the part of the Representatives of the States and of the people, made a deep and unfortunate impression on the citizens of Virginia.[141]
Footnote 138:
Buchanan’s Defence, p. 206.
Footnote 139:
Cong. Globe, pp. 590, 636.
Footnote 140:
H. J., p. 236. Cong. Globe, p. 601.
Footnote 141:
Buchanan’s Defence, pp. 207, 208.
The President having laid this whole matter before Congress, with whom it appropriately belonged, the question now recurs whether he omitted any thing that it was in his power to do, during the session of the Peace Convention. It was manifestly his duty to be prepared, to the extent of all the means at his command, when Anderson’s truce had terminated, to send him reinforcements, should Anderson request them, or should it be known from any other quarter that Fort Sumter was in danger of attack. Congress might not, as it did not, assume any part of its just responsibility; and it was not known until some days after the termination of Major Anderson’s truce, on the 6th of February, that the Governor of South Carolina had determined to respect the wishes of the Virginia Legislature, and refrain from attacking the fort while the Peace Convention was sitting.[142]
Footnote 142:
Buchanan’s Defence, p. 209.
Without waiting to know how Congress might treat this proposal of the Virginia General Assembly, the President, on the 30th of January, addressed the following note to the Secretary of War, Mr. Holt:
WASHINGTON, January 30th, 1861.
MY DEAR SIR:—
It is time we should have decided whether it is practicable with the means in our power, considering the obstacles interposed in the harbor of Charleston, to reinforce Major Anderson at Fort Sumter, should the action of the authorities of South Carolina, or his request, render this necessary. The high military attainments and just reputation of General Scott render his advice on this subject of the greatest importance. Should reinforcements be deemed practicable, then, in consultation with him, a plan ought to be devised in advance to accomplish the object. I should be gratified to see General Scott, the Secretary of the Navy, and yourself, at twelve o’clock to-day, or any other hour most convenient to yourselves, to talk over this and other matters.
Your friend very respectfully, JAMES BUCHANAN.
The result of the conference appointed by this note has been given by Mr. Buchanan himself:
After several consultations, an expedition for this purpose was quietly prepared at New York, under the direction of Secretary Toucey, for the relief of Fort Sumter, the command of which was intrusted to his intimate friend, the late lamented Commander Ward of the navy. This gallant officer had been authorized to select his own officers and men, who were to rendezvous on board the receiving-ship, of which he was then in command. The expedition consisted of a few small steamers, and it was arranged that on receiving a telegraphic despatch from the Secretary, whenever the emergency might require, he should, in the course of the following night, set sail for Charleston, entering the harbor in the night, and anchoring if possible under the guns of Fort Sumter.
It is due to the memory of this brave officer to state that he had sought the enterprise with the greatest enthusiasm, and was willing to sacrifice his life in the accomplishment of the object, should such be his fate, saying to Secretary Toucey, this would be the best inheritance he could leave to his wife and children.[143]
Footnote 143:
Buchanan’s Defence, p. 210.
This expedition did not sail. It consisted of a few small vessels borrowed from the Treasury Department, with two or three hundred men. While it was preparing, the Peace Convention was in session; and as it had become known to the President that the authorities of South Carolina were then respecting the appeal of the General Assembly of Virginia to avoid collision, it would have broken up the Peace Convention to send reinforcements to Major Anderson, unless he asked for them; and it would inevitably have led to an immediate assault upon the fort, which would have been the signal for a civil war. These considerations caused some delay in issuing the orders to Commander Ward. In point of fact, Major Anderson not only did not ask for reinforcements, but on the 30th of January, the day on which the President summoned the Secretaries of War and the Navy and General Scott to a conference, Anderson wrote to the War Department that he hoped no attempt would be made to throw in supplies; that it would do more harm than good. From later advices received from him, it became apparent that this small expedition under Commander Ward could not enter the harbor of Charleston without a fearful sacrifice of life. It was therefore kept back, but kept in readiness, at New York, until the 5th day of March, on which day President Lincoln was fully informed of it, and of the circumstances which had prevented its sailing, by the retiring Secretary of War, Mr. Holt, with the concurrence of President Buchanan.
Without anticipating, however, what occurred on the last day of Mr. Buchanan’s administration, and on the day following, it is only needful to say here that Fort Sumter remained unmolested by any actual attack, until some time after Mr. Lincoln’s inauguration, although the disposition of the authorities of South Carolina continued to be as hostile as ever. On the 4th of February, a Congress of the States which had then seceded was held at Montgomery in Alabama. These were the States of South Carolina, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia and Louisiana. The delegates to this Congress were appointed by conventions of their respective States. This body framed a provisional constitution for the new Confederacy, which they styled the “Confederate States of America.” It was adopted by the Congress on the 8th of February, and was to continue in force for one year, unless it should be superseded at an earlier period by a permanent organization. Jefferson Davis was elected President, and Alexander H. Stephens Vice President, of the new Confederacy. No popular election of Congress was ordered, but the legislative powers were vested “in this Congress now assembled, until otherwise ordered.”[144]
Footnote 144:
The reader who desires to examine the provisional constitution will find it in Mr. Jefferson Davis’s work on the Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government, Appendix.
The authorities of South Carolina immediately began to look to the Montgomery government for direction. On the 14th of February, a telegraph operator in Augusta, Georgia, transmitted a despatch from Charleston to Montgomery, urging the Southern Congress to do something definite in regard to Fort Sumter, and asking whether the Congress would appoint a General to lead the attack, or whether it should be done under the superintendence of Governor Pickens, who said, “the fort must be taken before Lincoln takes his seat.”[145] Comparing the date on which information of this despatch reached President Buchanan (February 19th), with what was taking place in Washington at that time, it will appear that the administration could not, while the Peace Congress was still in session, do anything more than to prepare secretly the small expedition under Commander Ward, and hold it in readiness to sail, whenever Major Anderson should signify that he considered his position as insecure. From information which reached the President from other quarters, he was satisfied that the Montgomery Congress would not approve of the taking of Fort Sumter before Mr. Lincoln’s inauguration. The great body of the persons composing the Montgomery government were too cool and too wary in their plans to promote, at that time, the hasty and hot-headed schemes of their friends in South Carolina. They were still bent upon procuring the peaceable assent of the Federal Government to the separation of their States from the Union.[146]
Footnote 145:
My authority for this statement is a letter written on the 19th of February to President Buchanan from Philadelphia, by an intimate friend of his, giving an extract from a letter from the telegraph operator, dated at Augusta on the 14th, and reciting the substance of the despatch which the operator had that day forwarded. The letter reached Mr. Buchanan on the same day on which it was written.
Footnote 146:
On the 15th of February, the Montgomery Congress provided for the appointment by their President-elect of three commissioners to the Federal Government, for the negotiation and settlement of a peaceful separation.
They did not mean to initiate a war, although most of them saw clearly that there would be war, while they denied that there ought to be one. At all events, they meant to have it appear to the world that they had done everything they could to procure a peaceable acquiescence in their secession from the Union. Under these circumstances, President Buchanan, who now had less than three weeks of his official term remaining, and who could not anticipate that commissioners of the new Confederacy would reach Washington while he was President (they were not appointed until the 25th of February), could only leave the position of things in regard to Fort Sumter in the best possible attitude for his successor. This attitude was, to hold privately all the means that the Government then had for relieving Fort Sumter, in readiness, to be used by his successor as circumstances might require.
In the mean time, as the 4th of March was drawing near, Mr. Lincoln, the President-elect, was making his journey from Springfield towards Washington, delivering public speeches on the way, the tenor of which was that retaining the forts and other property of the United States in the seceded States was not coercion, that there need be no war, and that there was no occasion for any alarm, as “nobody was hurt.” From these strange utterances of Mr. Lincoln, as he approached the capital, the only inference that could be drawn was that he considered the country to be in no danger, and that there would be no occasion to use force. It has been claimed, and not without some reason, that Mr. Lincoln’s speeches on this journey encouraged the secessionists to believe that they could negotiate a peaceable and final separation of their States from the Union. But at all events, Mr. Lincoln’s travelling speeches justified the course that had been pursued by Mr. Buchanan; for Mr. Lincoln’s attitude as the incoming President was that the use of force must be confined to the preservation of the property of the United States in the seceded States, against all attempts to forcibly dispossess the Federal Government. How the war was precipitated, after Mr. Lincoln’s inauguration, is a distinct topic. On the day of his inauguration, he was perfectly at liberty, so far as depended upon anything done or forborne by his predecessor, to refuse all communication with the Montgomery commissioners, and to use all the means that his predecessor had ever had for reinforcing Fort Sumter. He was doubtless surprised, as his predecessor was, by being informed on the 5th day of March, that Fort Sumter could not be held without a force of fifteen or twenty thousand men, to destroy the batteries that had been erected around it; and had the Congress, which expired on the day of his inauguration, made the provisions for the emergency which Mr. Buchanan urged upon them, no member of Mr. Lincoln’s administration would have had any occasion to temporize with the Southern commissioners in any form, concerning the retention of that fortress.
And here it may be well to recapitulate distinctly what President Buchanan urged Congress to do and what it neglected to do. He has himself so clearly stated this, that I cannot do better than to quote his words:
We have already seen that Congress, throughout the entire session, refused to adopt any measures of compromise to prevent civil war, or to retain first the cotton or afterwards the border States within the Union. Failing to do this, and whilst witnessing the secession of one after another of the cotton States, the withdrawal of their Senators and Representatives, and the formation of their Confederacy, it was the imperative duty of Congress to furnish the President or his successor the means of repelling force by force, should this become necessary, to preserve the Union. They, nevertheless, refused to perform this duty, with as much pertinacity as they had manifested in repudiating all measures of compromise.
1. At the meeting of Congress, a Federal Judiciary had ceased to exist in South Carolina. The District Judge, the District Attorney, and the United States Marshal had resigned their offices. These ministers of justice had all deserted their posts before the act of secession, and the laws of the United States could no longer be enforced through their agency. We have already seen that the President, in his message, called the attention of Congress to this subject, but no attempt was made in either House to provide a remedy for the evil.
2. Congress positively refused to pass a law conferring on the President authority to call forth the militia, or accept the services of volunteers, to suppress insurrections which might occur in any State against the Government of the United States. It may appear strange that this power had not long since been vested in the Executive. The Act of February 28, 1795,[147] the only law applicable to the subject, provides alone for calling forth the militia to suppress insurrections against State governments, without making any similar provision for suppressing insurrections against the Government of the United States. If anything were required beyond a mere inspection of the act to render this clear, it may be found in the opinion of Attorney General Black, of the 20th November, 1860. Indeed, it is a plain casus omissus. This palpable omission, which ought to have been instantly supplied, was suffered to continue until after the end of Mr. Buchanan’s administration, when on the 29th July, 1861, Congress conferred this necessary power on the President.[148] The framers of the Act of 1795 either did not anticipate an insurrection within any State against the Federal Government, or if they did, they purposely abstained from providing for it. Even in regard to insurrections against a State government, so jealous were they of any interference on the part of the Federal Government with the rights of the States, that they withheld from Congress the power to protect any State “against domestic violence,” except “on the application of the Legislature, or of the Executive (when the Legislature cannot be convened).” Under the Act of 1795, therefore, the President is precluded from acting, even upon his own personal and absolute knowledge of the existence of such an insurrection. Before he can call forth the militia for its suppression, he must first be applied to for this purpose by the appropriate State authorities, in the manner prescribed by the Constitution. It was the duty of Congress, immediately after their meeting, to supply this defect in our laws, and to confer an absolute authority on the President to call forth the militia, and accept the services of volunteers, to suppress insurrections against the United States, whenever or wherever they might occur. This was a precautionary measure which, independently of existing dangers, ought long since to have formed a part of our permanent legislation. But no attempt was ever made in Congress to adopt it until after the President’s special message of the 8th January, 1861, and then the attempt entirely failed. Meanwhile the aspect of public affairs had become more and more threatening. Mr. Crittenden’s amendment had been defeated before the Committee of Thirteen, on the last day of December; and it was also highly probable that his proposition before the Senate to refer it to a vote of the people of the States, would share the same fate. South Carolina and Florida had already seceded, and the other cotton States had called conventions for the purpose of seceding. Nay, more, several of them had already seized the forts, magazines, and arsenals within their limits. Still all this failed to produce any effect upon Congress. It was at this crisis the President sent his special message to Congress (8th January, 1861), by which he endeavored to impress them with the necessity for immediate action. He concealed nothing from them. Whilst still clinging to the fading hope that they might yet provide for a peaceful adjustment of our difficulties, and strongly recommending this course, he says: “Even now the danger is upon us. In several of the States which have not yet seceded, the forts, arsenals, and magazines of the United States have been seized. This is by far the most serious step which has been taken since the commencement of the troubles...... The seizure of this property, from all appearances, has been purely aggressive, and not in resistance to any attempt to coerce a State or States to remain in the Union.” He also stated the well-known fact that our small army was on the remote frontiers, and was scarcely sufficient to guard the inhabitants against Indian incursions, and consequently our forts were without sufficient garrisons.
Footnote 147:
1 Stat. at Large, p. 424.
Footnote 148:
12 U. S. Stat. at Large, p. 281.
Under these circumstances he appeals to Congress in the following language: “But the dangerous and hostile attitude of the States toward each other has already far transcended and cast in the shade the ordinary executive duties already provided for by law, and has assumed such vast and alarming proportions as to place the subject entirely above and beyond executive control. The fact cannot be disguised that we are in the midst of a great revolution. In all its great bearings, therefore, I commend the question to Congress, as the only human tribunal, under Providence, possessing the power to declare war, or to authorize the employment of military force in all cases contemplated by the Constitution; and they alone possess the power to remove grievances which might lead to war, and to secure peace and union to this distracted country. On them, and on them alone, rests the responsibility.”
Congress might, had they thought proper, have regarded the forcible seizure of these forts and other property, including that of the Branch Mint at New Orleans, with all the treasure it contained, as the commencement of an aggressive war. Beyond question the cotton States had now committed acts of open hostility against the Federal Government. They had always contended that secession was a peaceful constitutional remedy, and that Congress had no power to make war against a sovereign State for the purpose of coercing her to remain in the Union. They could no longer shelter themselves under this plea. They had by their violent action entirely changed the position they had assumed; and instead of peacefully awaiting the decision of Congress on the question of coercion, they had themselves become the coercionists and assailants. This question had, therefore, passed away. No person has ever doubted the right or the duty of Congress to pass laws enabling the President to defend the Union against armed rebellion. Congress, however, still shrunk from the responsibility of passing any such laws. This might have been commendable had it proceeded from a sincere desire not to interpose obstacles to a compromise intended to prevent the effusion of fraternal blood and restore the Union. Still, in any event, the time had arrived when it was their duty to make at the least contingent provisions for the prosecution of the war, should this be rendered inevitable. This had become the more necessary as Congress would soon expire, and the new Congress could not be convened for a considerable period after the old one had ceased to exist, because a large portion of the Representatives had not then been elected. These reasons, however, produced no effect.
The President’s special message[149] was referred, two days after its date (10th January), by the House of Representatives to a special committee, of which Mr. Howard, of Michigan, was chairman. Nothing was heard from this committee for the space of twenty days. They then, on the 30th January, through Mr. John H. Reynolds, of New York, one of its members, reported a bill[150] enabling the President to call forth the militia or to accept the services of volunteers for the purpose of protecting the forts, magazines, arsenals, and other property of the United States, and to “recover possession” of such of these as “have been or may hereafter be unlawfully seized or taken possession of by any combination of persons whatever.” Had this bill become a law, it would have been the duty of the President at once to raise a volunteer or militia force to recapture the forts which had been already seized. But Congress was not then prepared to assume such a responsibility. Mr. Reynolds accordingly withdrew his bill from the consideration of the House on the very day it was reported. On his own motion it was recommitted, and thus killed as soon as it saw the light. It was never heard of more.
Footnote 149:
Cong. Globe, p. 316.
Footnote 150:
Ibid., p. 645, bills of H. R., No. 698.
Then, after another pause of nineteen days, and only a fortnight before the close of the session, the Committee on Military Affairs, through Mr. Stanton, of Ohio, their chairman, on the 18th February reported another bill[151] on the subject, but of a more limited character than that which had been withdrawn. It is remarkable that it contains no provision touching the recovery of the forts and other property which had been already seized by the delinquent States. It did no more than provide that the powers already possessed by the President, under the Act of 1795, to employ the militia in suppressing insurrections against a State government, should be “extended to the case of insurrections against the authority of the United States,” with the additional authority to “accept the services of such volunteers as may offer their services for the purpose mentioned.” Thus all hostile action for the recovery of the forts already seized was excluded from the bill. It is difficult to conceive what reasonable objection could be made to this bill, except that it did not go far enough and embrace the forts already seized; and more especially as when it was reported we may recollect that the Confederate Congress had already been ten days in session at Montgomery, Alabama, and had adopted a Provisional Constitution. Notwithstanding all this, the House refused to act upon it. The bill was discussed on several occasions until Tuesday, 26th February. On that day a motion was made by Mr. Corwin, of Ohio, to postpone its consideration until Thursday, the 28th February.[152] Mr. Stanton, the reporter of the bill, resisted this motion, stating that such a postponement would be fatal to it. “It will,” said he, “be impossible after that to have it passed by the Senate” (before the 4th March). He, therefore, demanded the ayes and noes; and notwithstanding his warning, Mr. Corwin’s motion prevailed by a vote of 100 to 74, and thus the bill was defeated.
Footnote 151:
Ibid., p. 1001. bill 1003, H. R.
Footnote 152:
Cong. Globe, p. 1232.
It may be proper to observe that Mr. Corwin, whose motion killed the bill, was a confidential friend of the President elect, then present in Washington, and was soon thereafter appointed minister to Mexico.
But even had Congress passed this bill, it would have proved wholly inefficient for want of an appropriation to carry it into effect. The Treasury was empty; but had it been full, the President could not have drawn from it any, even the most trifling sum, without a previous appropriation by law. The union of the purse with the sword, in the hands of the Executive, is wholly inconsistent with the idea of a free government. The power of the legislative branch to withhold money from the Executive, and thus restrain him from dangerous projects of his own, is a necessary safeguard of liberty. This exists in every government pretending to be free. Hence our Constitution has declared that “no money shall be drawn from the Treasury but in consequence of appropriations made by law.” It is, therefore, apparent that even if this bill had become a law, it could not have been carried into effect by the President without a direct violation of the Constitution.
Notwithstanding these insuperable obstacles, no member of either House, throughout the entire session, ever even proposed to raise or appropriate a single dollar for the defence of the Government against armed rebellion. Congress not only refused to grant the President the authority and force necessary to suppress insurrections against the United States, but the Senate, by refusing to confirm his nomination of a collector of the customs for the port of Charleston, effectually tied his hands and rendered it impossible for him to collect the revenue within that port. In his annual message he expressed the opinion that “the same insuperable obstacles do not lie in the way of executing the [existing] laws for the collection of customs on the seaboard of South Carolina as had been interposed to prevent the administration of justice under the Federal authority within the interior of that State.” At all events he had determined to make the effort with the naval force under his command. He trusted that this might be accomplished without collision; but if resisted, then the force necessary to attain the object must be applied. Accordingly, whilst informing Congress “that the revenue still continues to be collected as heretofore at the custom house in Charleston,” he says that “should the collector unfortunately resign, a successor may be appointed to perform this duty.” The collector (William F. Colcock) continued faithfully to perform his duties until some days after the State had seceded, when at the end of December he resigned. The President, immediately afterwards, on the 2d January, nominated to the Senate, as his successor, Mr. Peter McIntire, of Pennsylvania, a gentleman well qualified for the office. The selection could not have been made from South Carolina, because no citizen of that State would have accepted the appointment. The Senate, throughout their entire session, never acted upon the nomination of Mr. McIntire; and without a collector of customs duly appointed, it was rendered impossible for the President, under any law in existence, to collect the revenue.
But even if the Senate had confirmed Mr. McIntire’s nomination, it is extremely doubtful whether the President could lawfully have collected the revenue against the forcible resistance of the State, unless Congress had conferred additional powers upon him. For this purpose Mr. Bingham, of Ohio, on the 3d January, 1861,[153] the day after Mr. McIntire’s nomination to the Senate, reported a bill from the Judiciary Committee, further to provide for the collection of duties on imports. This bill embraced substantially the same provisions, long since expired, contained in the Act of 2d March, 1833, commonly called “the Force Bill,” to enable General Jackson to collect the revenue outside of Charleston, “either upon land or on board any vessel.” Mr. Bingham’s bill was permitted to slumber on the files of the House until the 2d March, the last day but one before Congress expired,[154] when he moved for a suspension of the rules, to enable the House to take it up and consider it, but his motion proved unsuccessful. Indeed, the motion was not made until so late an hour of the session that even if it had prevailed, the bill could not have passed both Houses before the final adjournment. Thus the President was left both without a collector of customs, and most probably without any law which a collector could have carried into effect, had such an officer existed. Mr. Bingham’s bill shared the fate of all other legislative measures, of whatever character, intended either to prevent or to confront the existing danger. From the persistent refusal to pass any act enabling either the outgoing or the incoming administration to meet the contingency of civil war, it may fairly be inferred that the friends of Mr. Lincoln, in and out of Congress, believed he would be able to settle the existing difficulties with the cotton States in a peaceful manner, and that he might be embarrassed by any legislation contemplating the necessity of a resort to hostile measures.
Footnote 153:
Cong. Globe, p. 236, bills H. R., No. 910.
Footnote 154:
H. Journal, p. 465.
The 36th Congress expired on the 3d March, 1861, leaving the law just as they found it. They made no provision whatever for the suppression of threatened rebellion, but deliberately refused to grant either men or money for this purpose. It was this violation of duty which compelled President Lincoln to issue a proclamation convening the new Congress, in special session, immediately after the attack on Fort Sumter.[155]
Footnote 155:
Buchanan’s Defence, p. 153, et seq.
It is proper to state that President Lincoln did not accord to the Montgomery Commissioners any official reception as representatives of an independent government. But as will hereafter appear, his Secretary of State, Mr. Seward, through the intervention of distinguished persons in Washington, held much informal intercourse with them in regard to the evacuation of Fort Sumter, the result of which was that the commissioners left Washington believing, or professing to believe, that they had been duped by a promise to withdraw the troops, which had not been fulfilled, but, on the contrary, that secret preparations were making by Mr. Lincoln’s government to send reinforcements. This has always been assigned as the excuse for the attack on Fort Sumter.[156]
Footnote 156:
In the 1st vol. of Mr. Jefferson Davis’s work, “Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government,” will be found a full statement of the Confederate side of the story relative to the intercourse between the commissioners and Mr. Seward. I refer to it without either assent or dissent, as it is not my province to examine the truth or falsity of the charge made against the Lincoln administration. It will be seen from the letters written by Mr. Stanton to Mr. Buchanan during March and the early part of April (quoted post), what opinion Mr. Stanton formed from all the information that he could obtain, respecting the course of the new administration.
XXIV. 1861—February and March
COMMISSIONERS FROM THE CONFEDERATE GOVERNMENT—MR. JEFFERSON DAVIS’S STATEMENT THAT THEY WERE INVITED BY PRESIDENT BUCHANAN CALLED IN QUESTION.
It is now my duty to examine a statement made by Mr. Jefferson Davis in his recent work, to the effect that Confederate commissioners were appointed and sent to Washington from Montgomery, partly, at least, in consequence of a suggestion made to him by President Buchanan. The statement is in these words: “It may here be mentioned, in explanation of my desire that the commission, or at least a part of it, should reach Washington before the close of Mr. Buchanan’s term, that I had received an intimation from him, through a distinguished Senator of one of the border States,[157] that he would be happy to receive a commissioner or commissioners from the Confederate States, and would refer to the Senate any communication that might be made through such a commission.”[158]
Footnote 157:
Mr. Hunter, of Virginia.
Footnote 158:
Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government, vol. i., p. 264.
This intimation, if it was ever made, was, as Mr. Davis describes it, that the President would himself receive a diplomatic agent or agents from the Confederate States, and would, as is the customary and constitutional course on extraordinary occasions, consult the Senate, not Congress, upon any communication that such agent or agents might desire to make. Mr. Davis, although he names Mr. Hunter, of Virginia, as the person through whom he received this intimation, quotes no letter or telegram from that gentleman; so that a judgment cannot be formed upon the character of this alleged intimation. There is not the least trace among Mr. Buchanan’s private papers of his ever having made to Mr. Hunter such a suggestion in writing. If it was made orally—considering his habit of keeping memoranda of important conversations, especially with the Southern Senators—it is highly probable that he would not have omitted to record this one. No such memorandum has been found after the most diligent search. One is left, therefore, to the probabilities of the case, which are all against the correctness of Mr. Davis’ statement. No imputation is here made upon Mr. Davis’ veracity; but it evidently requires something more in the nature of proof than anything he has given, to justify the belief that President Buchanan ever expressed his willingness to receive commissioners from the Confederate States, to negotiate with the diplomatic department of the Government for a peaceable acknowledgment of the independence of those States. The mere reception of such commissioners and a reference of their communication to the Senate, would have been tantamount to an admission that the Confederate government could be treated with as an independent power.
1. In the letter addressed by Mr. Davis to the President, dated on the 27th of February, 1861, and which he describes in his book as “of a personal and semi-official character,” introducing Mr. Crawford, the first commissioner to arrive in Washington, and asking for him “a favorable reception corresponding to his station,” he did not in any manner signify that he was sending Mr. Crawford to Washington in compliance with an intimation which he, Mr. Davis, had received from Mr. Buchanan. This he would naturally have said, in such a personal letter, if he at that time was acting upon such an intimation from Mr. Buchanan, because it would have been an unanswerable ground on which to ask for a favorable reception of the commissioner. The appeal ad hominem would not have been left out of such a letter.
2. Mr. Davis was well aware that President Buchanan had steadily refused to accord any diplomatic or official character to the South Carolina commissioners, as representatives of a foreign or independent power, and that he had conferred with them only as private and eminent citizens of their State. Mr. Davis was also aware that the President had never offered to entertain, and had never entertained, a proposition to refer to any other body than Congress, the question of the standing of any seceded State. He had acted in the same way towards Colonel Hayne, when he came from Governor Pickens to demand the surrender of Fort Sumter; and again, early in February, when the Hon. Thomas J. Judge presented himself as a commissioner from the seceded State of Alabama, the President, as Mr. Davis doubtless knew, refused to receive him in any capacity but that of a distinguished citizen of Alabama, referring to his several previous messages to Congress as proof that he could not recognize Mr. Judge in the character which he claimed. All this had transpired a good while before Mr. Davis sent Mr. Crawford to Washington. On the other hand, ex-President Tyler had been received by the President as a commissioner from the State of Virginia, which had not seceded, and did not then propose and was not likely to secede from the Union. Yet, the world is asked to believe that President Buchanan, through a third person, sent an intimation to the President of the Confederate States, that he would be happy to receive a diplomatic agent of that government, and would consult the Senate upon what that agent had to propose.
3. The date of Mr. Crawford’s departure from Montgomery, “on or about February 27th,” the date of his arrival in Washington, “two or three days before the expiration of Mr. Buchanan’s term of office,” and the fact that Mr. Buchanan declined to receive him or to send any message to the Senate touching the subject of his mission, militate strongly against the correctness of the assertion that he went there in consequence of an intimation from Mr. Buchanan that such an agent would be received. If such an intimation had been given, the President could have had no excuse for refusing to hold any communication with the agent, even if he did not arrive until the last two or three days of the administration.
4. Mr. Crawford, in a manuscript account which he furnished to Mr. Davis of his “recollections of events connected with” his mission, represents Mr. Buchanan as “panic-stricken;” in “a state of most thorough alarm, not only for his home at Wheatland, but for his personal safety;” that he was “afraid of a public visit” from the commissioner whose appointment he had himself suggested, and whom he had promised to receive.[159] Mr. Crawford is not alone in imputing “panic” to Mr. Buchanan. It was a common mode, both with Mr. Buchanan’s Northern and his Southern enemies, to represent him as bewildered, confused, timorous, not only during the last days, but during the last months of his administration. This was their way of accounting for conduct which, for very opposite reasons, they disliked. It has been my duty, in investigating day by day every act of his official and private life during this period, to penetrate into his closet, if I may so express myself, and to form an opinion respecting the effect upon him of the great and critical events with which he had to deal. The materials for such an opinion, when one has access to the written evidence of what such a statesman was doing from day to day and from hour to hour, are almost as ample as if one had all the while been at his side and sate at his board. It seems to me the veriest folly, to speak of a man as panic-stricken or bewildered, who was daily and hourly answering with his own hand the most important public despatches, and the most familiar private letters, in the manner appropriate to each; recording with his own pen important conversations; holding cabinet councils; giving directions and transacting with punctuality and order the multifarious business of a great office; attending to his own private concerns, and grasping firmly the helm of state amid waves that rose higher and were more dangerous than any through which the good ship had ever floated; entertaining friends, enjoying the delights of social intercourse, writing at one time the gravest and most important messages to Congress, and then congratulating a young lady friend on her approaching marriage, in as graceful and charming a little note as a woman ever received. I cannot give to the reader an adequate idea of what I have gone through, in the study of these last four months of Mr. Buchanan’s official life. I can only say that on me it has produced the impression of great versatility of powers, immense industry, complete self-command, unshaken firmness, and undeviating consistency. That a man of nearly seventy years should have encountered, as he did, what he had to encounter, with so little sign of fear, is the best proof of an undaunted temper and a serene self-possession. The gossip of Pennsylvania Avenue, and the tattle of secession circles, supposed him to be panic-stricken; while he sate in the White House the most remarkable instance, in those tumultuous times, of the mens aequa in arduis.[160]
Footnote 159:
As Mr. Crawford had no interview with President Buchanan, he could have had none but hearsay evidence of Mr. Buchanan’s state of mind.
Footnote 160:
I have had occasion heretofore to speak of the multitudes of letters received by the President from all quarters of the country, after the promulgation of his annual message of December 3d. The inundation was scarcely less during the months of January and February; and as a general rule, when an answer was necessary or expedient, he made the original draft of it himself. In almost all cases, he noted on the back of letters or other papers which he received, the name of the writer, the date, and the date of the answer. But was he wasting his energies, it may be asked, in the duties of a mere clerk? Turn to his messages; consider the almost daily cabinet consultations, and the incessant attention which he had to give to the state of things in the South, the proceedings of Congress, the condition of public opinion in the North, and the deliberations of the Peace Convention, as well as to the ordinary business of the Government.
It seems to be quite evident from Mr. Tyler’s note of February 24th, to the President, that so far as any suggestion of a commission to be sent by Mr. Davis to Washington proceeded from that city, it proceeded from Mr. Tyler himself, and those gentlemen of his own State who, acting with him, were endeavoring to ward off any attack upon Fort Sumter. Mr. Davis became President of the Confederate States on the 18th of February. But before that date, Mr. Tyler was actively engaged in efforts to prevent an armed collision at Charleston; and as it was well known that Mr. Davis would be the President of the new confederacy whose delegates had assembled at Montgomery, Mr. Tyler and the other Virginians looked to him to prevent any outbreak in South Carolina. But I know of nothing that can connect Mr. Buchanan with the suggestion of a commission, beyond Mr. Davis’s statement, which is wholly unsupported by proof. The fair inference from all that occurred is, that the commission was sent to Washington to take the chances of being received by the out-going or the incoming administration, as circumstances might admit. As the first commissioner did not leave Montgomery until the 27th of February, it could not have been expected that Mr. Buchanan would take the responsibility of binding his successor by negotiating with a diplomatic agent of the Confederate States during the last three days of his administration; nor is it probable that Mr. Davis, whose last words in the Senate of the United States arraigned Mr. Buchanan severely for his course towards South Carolina, had, as President of the Confederate States, received from Mr. Buchanan an intimation that was equivalent to an invitation from one potentate to another to send a commission for the adjustment of all differences between their two governments.
“He is advised to send a commission,” said Mr. Tyler to Mr. Buchanan. Advised by whom? “By me, Mr. Tyler, and those Virginians who are acting with me,” is plainly to be read between the lines of Mr. Tyler’s letter of February 24th to the President. No one can doubt that Mr. Buchanan’s account of his administration, published in 1866, was written with perfect candor. If he had ever sent to Mr. Davis the intimation which that gentleman says he received from him through a third person, inviting commissioners from the Confederate Government, he would have stated the fact, together with his reasons for it. He never shrank from assigning reasons for any thing that he ever did. Yet not only does he make no allusion to the Montgomery commissioners, but any one who reads his fair and considerate comments on the peace policy pursued by Mr. Lincoln down to the attack on Fort Sumter, ought to be convinced that there was no need for the presence of Confederate commissioners in Washington, coming there on the suggestion of Mr. Buchanan, to negotiate matters that would have to be referred to the Senate, although it is highly probable that Mr. Tyler may have desired that a commissioner be sent to arrange amicably for an agreement by the Confederates not to attack Fort Sumter.
XXV. 1861—February and March
TROOPS AT THE CAPITAL—INAUGURATION OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN—IMPORTANT AND ALARMING DESPATCHES FROM MAJOR ANDERSON—MR. HOLT’S COMMUNICATION TO PRESIDENT LINCOLN—ATTITUDE IN WHICH MR. BUCHANAN LEFT THE GOVERNMENT TO HIS SUCCESSOR—HIS DEPARTURE FOR WHEATLAND.
As the administration was drawing to its end, great uneasiness was felt by many persons in Washington for the safety of the capital and the Government. Rumors of a conspiracy to seize the city and to prevent the inauguration of the President-elect filled the air. Among those who were affected by these rumors was the Secretary of State, Judge Black. With characteristic energy, on the 22d of January, being prevented by illness from attending the cabinet meeting of that day, he addressed to the President a long and earnest private letter, setting forth the grounds of his belief that the existence of such a conspiracy was highly probable, and that at all events, even if it were doubtful, the Government ought to be prepared for the worst. The President, although at first he did not share these apprehensions, was not the less vigilant in the discharge of his executive duties, or the less disposed to give due weight to Judge Black’s impressive arguments. He would have had everything needful done in a manner not to excite public observation, if the matter had not been broached in Congress. His message of the 8th of January had been referred on the 10th, in the House of Representatives, to a select committee of five members, consisting of Messrs. Howard, of Michigan, Branch, of North Carolina, Dawes, of Massachusetts, John Cochrane, of New York, and Hickman, of Pennsylvania. On the 25th this committee were instructed, by a resolution offered by Mr. Grow, of Pennsylvania, “to inquire whether any secret organization hostile to the Government of the United States exists in the District of Columbia; and if so, whether any official or employé of the city of Washington, or any employées or officers of the Federal Government, in the Executive or Judicial Departments, are members of it.” Before this committee had reported, steps had been taken by the Executive to assemble quietly at Washington a small body of the regular troops. This at once aroused the jealousy of certain members from the border States. On the 11th of February, a resolution, offered by Mr. Burnett, of Kentucky, was adopted in the House, calling upon the President to furnish to the House, if not incompatible with the public service, “the reasons that have induced him to assemble a large number of troops in this city, why they are kept here, and whether he has any information of a conspiracy on the part of any portion of the citizens of the country to seize the capital and prevent the inauguration of the President-elect.”
On the 14th of February the select committee reported all the testimony they had taken, and expressed their unanimous opinion that the evidence produced before them did not prove the existence of a secret organization at Washington, or elsewhere, for purposes hostile to the Government.
Thereupon Mr. Branch, of North Carolina, introduced another resolution, condemning the quartering of troops at the capital.
In the meantime, the Secretary of War, Mr. Holt, on the 18th of February, made a full report to the President, in response to Mr. Burnett’s resolution of the 11th, setting forth the reasons for the assembling of the troops, and officially declaring that their presence “is the result of the conclusion arrived at by yourself and cabinet, on the proposition submitted to you by this department.” On the 20th, Mr. Holt addressed to the President the following private note:
[MR. HOLT TO THE PRESIDENT.]
WAR DEPARTMENT, Feb. 20, 1861.
DEAR SIR:—
I inclose a copy of the resolution referred to in the paper which I had the honor to address to you on yesterday, and trust I shall be pardoned for saying that I shall be very unhappy, if this defence—truthful and tempered as it is—is not permitted to reach the country. The act of assembling troops at the capital, and providing for the inauguration of your successor under the shelter of their guns, is one of the gravest and most responsible of your administration. It constitutes, indeed, an epoch in the history of our institutions, and as the circumstances surrounding you fully justify the measure, they should be frankly and fearlessly set forth to the world. For this step your administration has been, and still continues to be, mercilessly denounced, and of this denunciation, as you are aware, a large part has fallen to my share. I have been defamed in my own State, and in the towns of my nearest relatives and friends, and I confess that I have not yet attained to the Christian philosophy of bearing such things as an ox led to the slaughter, without opening my mouth. Congress is now engaged in spreading broadcast over the country, through the efforts of your enemies and mine, a report intended to show that the safety of the capital has never been menaced, and of course that all your preparations here have been prompted by cowardice, or the spirit of despotism. Now is the time to meet this calumny. A few weeks hence the memory of the measure assailed will be swallowed up by the heady current of events, and nothing will remain but the wounds to the reputation and sensibilities of your friends who gave to that measure their honest and zealous support. I do not ask you to adopt my report as your own, but to submit it simply as the views entertained by the War Department, and for which its head should alone be held responsible.
The helplessness of my position for all purposes of self-defence, without your kind cooperation, must be my apology for the solicitude expressed.
Very sincerely your friend, J. HOLT.
The President did not at once concur in Mr. Holt’s views of the necessity for making public the reasons which had governed the Executive in ordering the troops to Washington. In a memorandum which now lies before me in his handwriting, he says:
After the Committee of Five had reported all the testimony which could be collected in the case, with their opinion upon the result of it, the President did not deem it necessary to answer Mr. Burnett’s resolution. Understanding, however, that he and other members considered it disrespectful to the Union, not to return an answer, he [on the 2d of March] sent a message to the House, in response to the resolution.
This was in ample season to inform everybody that the troops were in Washington to secure a peaceful inauguration of his successor against all possibility of danger; the imputations cast upon his administration in the meantime were of less immediate consequence. The table given below shows the number of troops present in the city on the 27th of February, and until after the 4th of March.[161]
Footnote 161:
Regular troops present in the City of Washington, February 27, 1861.
Officers. _Enlisted men._
Field and Staff 4 4
1st Artillery, Light Battery, I 4 81
2d Artillery, Light Battery, A 4 78
West Point, Light Battery 4 12 70 229
1st Artillery, Foot Company, D 3 50
2d Artillery, Foot Company, E 2 72
2d Artillery, Foot Company, H 2 65
2d Artillery, Foot Company, K 3 52
Engineer, Sappers, and Miners 3 13 81 320
Det. Mtd. Recruits 3 81
Recruits attached 23
Total 32 653
Respectfully submitted for the information of the President, ADJ. GENL,. OFFICE, S. COOPER,
February 28, 1861. Adj. Genl.
The following is the material part of the special message of March 2, 1861:
These troops were ordered here to act as a posse comitatus in strict subordination to the civil authority, for the purpose of preserving peace and order in the City of Washington, should this be necessary before or at the period of the inauguration of the President-elect. I was convinced that I ought to act. The safety of the immense amount of public property in this city, and that of the archives of the Government, in which all the States, and especially the new States in which the public lands are situated, have a deep interest; the peace and order of the city itself and the security of the inauguration of the President-elect, were objects of such vast importance to the whole country, that I could not hesitate to adopt precautionary measures. At the present moment, when all is quiet, it is difficult to realize the state of alarm which prevailed when the troops were first ordered to this city. This almost instantly subsided after the arrival of the first company, and a feeling of comparative peace and security has since existed, both in Washington and throughout the country. Had I refused to adopt this precautionary measure, and evil consequences, which good men at the time apprehended, had followed, I should never have forgiven myself.
Some of these troops were in Washington on the 22d of February. It appears that ex-President Tyler was disturbed by learning that they were to form part of the customary parade on Washington’s Birthday. President Buchanan made the following reply to his remonstrance:
[THE PRESIDENT TO MR. TYLER.]
WASHINGTON, February 22, 1861.
MY DEAR SIR:—
I find it impossible to prevent two or three companies of the Federal troops here from joining in the procession to-day with the volunteers of the District, without giving serious offence to the tens of thousands of the people who have assembled to witness the parade. The day is the anniversary of Washington’s birth—a festive occasion throughout the land—and it has been particularly marked by the House of Representatives. These troops everywhere else join such processions, in honor of the birthday of the Father of his country, and it would be hard to assign a good reason why they should be excluded from this privilege in the capital founded by himself. They are here simply as a posse comitatus to aid the civil authority, in case of need. Besides, the programme was published in the National Intelligencer of this morning without my knowledge.[162]
From your friend, very respectfully, JAMES BUCHANAN.
Footnote 162:
The War Department having considered the celebration of this national anniversary by the military arm of the Government as a matter of course.
Among the interesting occurrences of that day, as part of the history of the time, it is now proper to quote a private correspondence between General Dix and Major Anderson.[163]
Footnote 163:
A copy of this correspondence was sent by General Dix to Mr. Buchanan, after the latter had retired to Wheatland. See post.
[GENERAL DIX TO MAJOR ANDERSON.]
WASHINGTON, March 4, 1861.
MY DEAR MAJOR:—
I have just come from the inauguration of Mr. Lincoln, and in a day or two more I expect to be relieved from my duties as Secretary of the Treasury and return to my family after my short, but laborious and responsible term of official service. I shall send you, by the same mail which takes this note, my answer to a call made upon me by the House of Representatives for instruction in regard to certain transactions in the extreme Southern States. It discloses a demoralization in all that concerns the faithful discharge of official duty, which, if it had pleased God, I could have wished never to have lived to see. The cowardice and treachery of General Twiggs is more disheartening than all that has transpired since this disgraceful career of disloyalty to the Government commenced. No man can help feeling that he is himself stained in reputation by this national degradation. I can hardly realize that I am living in the age in which I was born and educated.
In the midst of these evidences of degeneracy—in the face of the humiliating spectacle of base intrigues to overthrow the Government by those who are living upon its bounty, and of a pusillanimous or perfidious surrender of the trusts confided to them, the country turns with a feeling of relief, which you cannot understand, to the noble example of fidelity and courage presented by you and your gallant associates. God knows how ardently I wish you a safe deliverance! But let the issue be what it may, you will connect with your name the fame of historical recollections, with which life itself can enter into no comparison. One of the most grateful of my remembrances will be that I was once your commanding officer. I write in haste, but from the heart, and can only add, may God preserve you and carry you in triumph through the perils of your position! I have never doubted if you were assailed that the honor of the country would be gloriously vindicated, and the disgrace cast upon it by others would be signally rebuked by your courage and constancy.
I am, my dear Major, faithfully your friend, JOHN A. DIX.
P.S.—It is gratifying to know that your State remains faithful to the Union. My kind regards to Lieutenant Hall.
[MAJOR ANDERSON TO GENERAL DIX.]
FORT SUMTER, S. C., March 7, 1861.
MY DEAR GENERAL:—
Thank you. Many thanks to you for your whole-souled letter of March 4th. One such letter is enough to make amends for a life of trial and of discomfort.
My position is not a very enviable one, but still, when I consider how God has blessed me in every step I have taken here, I have not the least fear of the result. I have written to the Department very fully, and the administration now know my opinion, and the opinion of each individual officer of this command, of the strength of the force necessary for forcing an entrance into this harbor.
You speak of the disgraceful incidents developed in your report to Congress. I had already read some of your correspondence, and was shocked at the developments they made. The faithful historian of the present period will have to present a record which will sadden and surprise. It would seem that a Sirocco charged with treachery, cunning, dishonesty, and bad faith, had tainted the atmosphere of portions of our land; and alas! how many have been prostrated by its blast! I hope that ere long we shall see symptoms of restoration, and that a healthier wind will recover some of those who have given way to the blast. A long life of honest devotion to every duty, moral and social, may cause their course to be forgiven, but it cannot be forgotten. The South Carolinians are on the qui vive to-night; why, we know not. They have four guard boats in the stream, instead of the usual number of late, two. I cannot believe, though, that General Beauregard, lately of the Engineer Corps, would make an attack without having given formal notice of his intention to do so. My rule is, though, always to keep a bright lookout. With many thanks, my dear General, for your most kind and welcome letter, I am, as ever, your sincere friend,
ROBERT ANDERSON.
The last day of the administration had now come. Mr. Buchanan was to be relieved of the burthens of office, and they were to be devolved on his successor. On that morning extraordinary despatches from Major Anderson were delivered at the War Department. In Mr. Buchanan’s handwriting I find, among his private papers, the following account of what took place concerning this sudden revelation of the position of affairs in the harbor of Charleston:—
Monday, March 4, 1861. The cabinet met at the President’s room in the Capitol, to assist me in examining the bills which might be presented to me for approval, between the hours of ten and twelve of that day, when my own term and that of Congress would expire.
Mr. Holt did not attend until after eleven o’clock. At the first opportunity, he informed us that on that morning he had received extraordinary despatches from Major Anderson, saying that without a force of some twenty or thirty thousand men to capture the batteries which had been erected, he could not maintain himself at Fort Sumter, and he [Mr. Holt] intended at once to communicate these despatches to President, Lincoln. The cabinet had some conversation on the subject that evening at Mr. Ould’s.
Tuesday morning, 5th March, we saw Mr. Holt at the War Department. He there read us what he had written to President Lincoln in communicating these despatches to Mr. Holt, giving his reasons for his astonishment. He referred to his own letter to Major Anderson after he had taken possession of Fort Sumter, offering him reinforcements, and the repeated letters of the Major stating that he felt secure, and finally a letter, after the affair of the Star of the West, stating that he did not desire reinforcements. He concluded by referring to the expedition which had been prepared at New York under the direction of General Scott, to sail at once, in case the Major should be attacked or ask for reinforcements. This was small, consisting of two or three hundred men with provisions.
On Tuesday afternoon, 5th March, Mr. Holt told me he had sent the papers to President Lincoln.
This is the last I have heard of it, from any member of the cabinet or any friend at Washington, up till this day (Saturday morning), 9th March, at half-past ten A.M.
The following is Secretary Holt’s letter to President Lincoln:
WAR DEPARTMENT, March 5, 1861.
SIR:—
I have the honor to submit for your consideration several letters with inclosures, received on yesterday from Major Anderson and Captain Foster, of the Corps of Engineers, which are of a most important and unexpected character. Why they were unexpected will appear from the following brief statement:—
“After transferring his forces to Fort Sumter, he [Major Anderson] addressed a letter to this Department, under date of the 31st December, 1860, in which he says: ‘Thank God, we are now where the Government may send us additional troops at its leisure. To be sure, the uncivil and uncourteous action of the Governor [of South Carolina], in preventing us from purchasing anything in the city, will annoy and inconvenience us somewhat; still we are safe.‘ And after referring to some deficiency in his stores, in the articles of soap and candles, he adds: ‘Still we can cheerfully put up with the inconvenience of doing without them for the satisfaction we feel in the knowledge that we can command this harbor as long as our Government wishes to keep it.’ And again, on the 6th January, he wrote: ‘My position will, should there be no treachery among the workmen whom we are compelled to retain for the present, enable me to hold this fort against any force which can be brought against me; and it would enable me, in the event of war, to annoy the South Carolinians by preventing them from throwing in supplies into their new posts, except by the aid of the Wash Channel through Stone River.’
“Before the receipt of this communication, the Government, being without information as to his condition, had despatched the Star of the West with troops and supplies for Fort Sumter; but the vessel having been fired on from a battery at the entrance to the harbor, returned without having reached her destination.
“On the 16th January, 1861, in replying to Major Anderson’s letters of the 31st December and of 6th January, I said: ‘Your late despatches, as well as the very intelligent statements of Lieutenant Talbot, have relieved the Government of the apprehensions previously entertained for your safety. In consequence, it is not its purpose at present to reinforce you. The attempt to do so would no doubt be attended by a collision of arms and the effusion of blood—a national calamity, which the President is most anxious to avoid. You will, therefore, report frequently your condition, and the character and activity of the preparations, if any, which may be being made for an attack upon the fort, or for obstructing the Government in any endeavors it may make to strengthen your command. Should your despatches be of a nature too important to be intrusted to the mails, you will convey them by special messenger. Whenever, in your judgment, additional supplies or reinforcements are necessary for your safety or for a successful defence of the fort, you will at once communicate the fact to this Department, and a prompt and vigorous effort will be made to forward them.’
“Since the date of this letter Major Anderson has regularly and frequently reported the progress of the batteries being constructed around him, and which looked either to the defence of the harbor, or to an attack on his own position; but he has not suggested that these works compromised his safety, nor has he made any request that additional supplies or reinforcements should be sent to him. On the contrary, on the 30th January, 1861, in a letter to this Department, he uses this emphatic language: ‘I do hope that no attempt will be made by our friends to throw supplies in; their doing so would do more harm than good.‘
“On the 5th February, when referring to the batteries, etc., constructed in his vicinity, he said: ‘Even in their present condition, they will make it impossible for any hostile force, other than a large and well-appointed one, to enter this harbor, and the chances are that it will then be at a great sacrifice of life;‘ and in a postscript he adds: ‘Of course, in speaking of forcing an entrance, I do not refer to the little stratagem of a small party slipping in.‘ This suggestion of a stratagem was well considered in connection with all the information that could be obtained bearing upon it; and in consequence of the vigilance and number of the guard-boats in and outside of the harbor, it was rejected as impracticable.
“In view of these very distinct declarations, and of the earnest desire to avoid a collision as long as possible, it was deemed entirely safe to adhere to the line of policy indicated in my letter of the 16th January, which has been already quoted. In that Major Anderson had been requested to report ‘at once,’ ‘whenever, in his judgment, additional supplies or reinforcements were necessary for his safety or for a successful defence of the fort.’ So long, therefore, as he remained silent upon this point, the Government felt that there was no ground for apprehension. Still, as the necessity for action might arise at any moment, an expedition has been quietly prepared and is ready to sail from New York, on a few hours’ notice, for transporting troops and supplies to Fort Sumter. This step was taken under the supervision of General Scott, who arranged its details, and who regarded the reinforcements thus provided for as sufficient for the occasion. The expedition, however, is not upon a scale approaching the seemingly extravagant estimates of Major Anderson and Captain Foster, now offered for the first time, and for the disclosures of which the Government was wholly unprepared.
“The declaration now made by the Major that he would not be willing to risk his reputation on an attempt to throw reinforcements into Charleston harbor, and with a view of holding possession of the same, with a force of less than twenty thousand good and well-disciplined men, takes the Department by surprise, as his previous correspondence contained no such intimation.
“I have the honor to be, very respectfully,
“Your obedient servant, ”J. HOLT.
As the question of peace or war was now to turn on what might happen at Fort Sumter, it is incumbent on me to give a brief summary of the position in which Mr. Buchanan left the Government to Mr. Lincoln. It is for some other pen than mine to unravel the dark story in which is involved the true history of the informal negotiations between Mr. Lincoln’s administration and the Confederate commissioners, in regard to the evacuation of Fort Sumter; negotiations out of which those commissioners came with the professed belief that they had been tricked, and which were swiftly followed by an order from Montgomery to expel Anderson from that post. It is not for me to sit in judgment on that transaction. I have not the means of penetrating the councils of the Lincoln administration, such as I have had for understanding those of his predecessor. I leave to others to explain the truth or falsity of the accusation which has undertaken to justify the bombardment of Fort Sumter and the initiation of a civil war, in which less than thirty days saw the practical transfer of the Confederate Government from Montgomery to Richmond. But it will not be stepping out of my province, if I now describe the situation in which Mr. Buchanan handed over the Government to his successor.
There was now an actual revolt of six States, having about five millions of inhabitants, free and slave, with an organized provisional government, based on the alleged right of States to secede from the Union. Seven other slaveholding States, having more than thirteen millions of inhabitants, free and slave, still held aloof from the Southern Confederacy, still remained loyal to the Government of the United States, still were represented in the new Congress along with the whole North and the whole West. It had been Mr. Buchanan’s policy, from the very first, to save these so-called border States from joining the Southern Confederacy.[164] He could not prevent the formation of that Confederacy among the cotton States, without exercising powers which the Constitution had not conferred upon him. To make aggressive war upon a State, or its people, in order to prevent it or them from doing an unconstitutional act, or because one had been committed, was clearly not within the constitutional powers of the Executive, even if it was within the constitutional powers of Congress. The question has often been asked, why did Mr. Buchanan suffer State after State to go out of the Union? Why did he not prevent their adoption of ordinances of secession? Why did he not call on the North for volunteers, and put down the rebellion in its first stage? The question is a very inconsiderate one, but it shall be answered. In the first place, Mr. Buchanan had no power to call for volunteers under any existing law, and to make such a call without law, was to step outside of the Constitution, and to look to a future indemnification by Congress. Why he did not take such a step has been explained by him so lucidly and exactly, that I have only to quote his words:
Urgent and dangerous emergencies may have arisen, or may hereafter arise in the history of our country, rendering delay disastrous, such as the bombardment of Fort Sumter by the Confederate government, which would for the moment justify the President in violating the Constitution, by raising a military force without the authority of law, but this only during a recess of Congress. Such extreme cases are a law unto themselves. They must rest upon the principle that it is a lesser evil to usurp, until Congress can be assembled, a power withheld from the Executive, than to suffer the Union to be endangered, either by traitors at home or enemies from abroad. In all such cases, however, it is the President’s duty to present to Congress, immediately after their next meeting, the causes which impelled him thus to act, and ask for their approbation; just as, on a like occasion, a British minister would ask Parliament for a bill of indemnity. It would be difficult, however, to conceive of an emergency so extreme as to justify or even excuse a President for thus transcending his constitutional powers whilst Congress, to whom he could make an immediate appeal, was in session. Certainly no such case existed during the administration of the late President. On the contrary, not only was Congress actually in session, but bills were long pending before it for extending his authority in calling forth the militia, for enabling him to accept the services of volunteers, and for the employment of the navy, if necessary, outside of ports of entry for the collection of the revenue, all of which were eventually rejected. Under these circumstances, had the President attempted, of his own mere will, to exercise these high powers, whilst Congress were at the very time deliberating whether to grant them to him or not, he would have made himself justly liable to impeachment. This would have been for the Executive to set at defiance both the Constitution and the legislative branch of the Government.[165]
Footnote 164:
President Buchanan kept before him all the while a table of the Southern States, with the dates of their several secessions, their populations, resources, and other facts, noted by himself, discriminating the cotton and the border States in separate groups.
Footnote 165:
Buchanan’s Defence, p. 161.
This paragraph reveals, better than anything else he ever wrote, his character as an American statesman. He was the last of a race of eminent public men who had been bred in a profound reverence for the Constitution and intimate knowledge of it. With his great contemporaries of an earlier period, he may have differed upon the construction of particular powers; he belonged to the school of strict construction, while some of the famous men with whom he had contended in former days were more lax in their interpretations. But on the fundamental questions of the nature of the Union, the authority of the Federal Government, and the means by which it was to enforce its laws, there was no distinction between the school of Jackson and Buchanan and the school of Clay and Webster. Moreover, there was not one of his very eminent Whig antagonists, not even Webster, whose loyalty to the Constitution—loyalty in the truest and most comprehensive sense—the loyalty that will not violate, any more than it will fail to assert, the just authority of such an instrument—was more deep and fervid than Buchanan’s. This had been, if one may use such an expression, the ruling passion of his public life, from the time when he knew anything of public affairs. He was not a man of brilliant genius, nor had he ever done any one thing that had made his name illustrious and immortal, as Webster did when he defended the Constitution against the heresy of nullification. But in the course of a long, useful and consistent life, filled with the exercise of talents of a fine order and uniform ability, he had made the Constitution of his country the object of his deepest affection, the constant guide of all his public acts. He was in truth conspicuously and emphatically open to the reproach, if it be a reproach, of regarding the Constitution of the United States with what some have considered as idolatry. This trait in Mr. Buchanan’s public character must not be overlooked, when the question is asked to which I am now making an answer. How, in the long distant future, the example of his fidelity to the Constitution contributed to its restoration, after a period of turmoil and of more than neglect of its principles, is worthy of reflection.
In the next place, during the time of the formation of the provisional confederacy of the cotton States, not only was Congress in session, and not only did it neglect to do anything to strengthen the hands of the Executive, but if the President had, without the authority of law, issued a call for volunteers, it would not have been responded to. It is true that some Northern legislatures passed resolutions tendering men and money to the United States. But how could such offers have been accepted and acted upon by the Executive, without the authority of law? How could a regiment, or an army of regiments, have been marched by the President into Georgia or Mississippi, to prevent the adoption of a secession ordinance? What but a declaration of war, made by the only war-making power, would have protected officers and men from being in the condition of trespassers and brigands, from the moment they set foot on the soil of a Southern State on such an enterprise? War, war upon a State or a people, must have a legal basis, if those who wage it are to be entitled to the privileges and immunities of soldiers. On the other hand, to enforce the laws of the United States against obstructions put in the way of their execution by individuals or unlawful combinations, was not to make war. But for this purpose, President Buchanan could not obtain from Congress the necessary means. Moreover, the public mind of the North was at that time intent upon the measures by which it was hoped that all differences between the two sections of the Union might be composed, and a call for volunteers would have been regarded as fatal to any prospect of adjustment, and would therefore have been little heeded. It required all the excitement which followed the bombardment of Fort Sumter, all the monstrous uprising of the North produced by that event, to secure a response to President Lincoln’s irregular call for seventy-five thousand men, in April, 1861.
But it was in the power of President Buchanan to hold the border States back from the secession movement until his successor could take the reins of Government, and this duty he successfully performed. Notwithstanding the failure of Congress to second his efforts to preserve the Union unbroken by anything but the secession of South Carolina; notwithstanding the failure of the Peace Convention to propose anything that Congress would accept, Virginia, North Carolina, Maryland, Kentucky, even Tennessee and Missouri, had not seceded, or taken steps to secede, on the 4th of March, 1861. The same conservative sentiment which still animated the best portion of the people of those States, kept them from the vortex of secession. They did not yet regard the election of Mr. Lincoln by a purely sectional vote of the non-slaveholding States as a sufficient cause for breaking up the Union. They still looked to his administration for measures that would prevent a civil war; still looked to the Federal Government for a redress of all the grievances of which any of the States could complain. So that when Mr. Buchanan laid down and Mr. Lincoln took up the powers of the Executive, the problem which remained for the latter, and which Mr. Buchanan left for him in the best attitude that it could be made to assume, was how still to keep those border States from joining the Southern Confederacy, as they had been kept from it hitherto.
This was largely, almost exclusively, a matter for the Executive, unless, indeed, he should think it best to call the new Congress, then legally existing, together immediately, and insist on its doing what the preceding Congress had neglected. This course was not at once adopted, and consequently everything depended upon the dealing of the Executive with the Confederate commissioners, who were then in Washington, respecting the evacuation of Fort Sumter. Mr. Buchanan had in no way trammelled his successor by negotiations with those commissioners. He had, in fact, declined all intercourse with them; and it was entirely optional with Mr. Lincoln to do the same thing, as it was entirely open to him to determine whether he would or would not order the evacuation of that fort, and to shape his measures accordingly. Thus far, an attack upon Major Anderson’s position had been prevented by the efforts of Virginia, and by the prudent course pursued by Mr. Buchanan. It was to be expected that the Southern commissioners would be most persistent in their demands; that they would seek the aid of influential persons who might desire to see the peace of the country preserved, and who would be willing to hazard so much of a recognition of the new Confederacy as a de facto power, as would be involved in a compliance with its immediate demands respecting Sumter. But by no act, or word, or omission of the outgoing President, had his successor been placed under any obligation to yield to those demands, or even to consider them. That the military situation had become such that Anderson could not be maintained in his position without sending a considerable army to his relief, was not due to President Buchanan’s unwillingness to send him reinforcements, but it was a consequence of Anderson’s not asking for them until he was so surrounded with fortifications and powerful batteries that he could not be relieved without a force many times greater than all that the Government then had at its command.
Mr. Lincoln, therefore, assumed the Government without a single admission by his predecessor of the right of secession, or of any claim founded on it; without any obligation, other than the duty of preventing a civil war, to hold even an informal negotiation with the Confederate commissioners; with thirteen millions of people in the border States still in the Union, and not likely to leave it, unless blood should be shed. It may be that in one sense it was fortunate that the first gun was fired on and not from Fort Sumter. But into that question it is not needful for me to enter. My province is fulfilled, if I have correctly described the condition in which Mr. Buchanan left the Government to his successor.
Excepting on the short drive from the White House to the Capitol, in the same carriage, on the 4th day of March, according to the graceful custom of inaugurating a new President, and in the public ceremony of the day, there is no reason to suppose that Mr. Buchanan and Mr. Lincoln ever met. All that is known is that Mr. Lincoln’s demeanor, while in the carriage, produced upon Mr. Buchanan the impression that he had no fears for his personal safety or the safety of the capital. But it does not appear that at that or any other time, Mr. Lincoln sought to know what his predecessor could tell him. It is too much the habit of our public men to live and act and confer only with their party associates. Unless it be in the conflicts of public debate, they learn nothing of the views, purposes, motives, and very little of the acts, of their political opponents. If ever there was an occasion when this habit needed to be broken, it was when one of these men was putting off and the other was assuming the great duties of the Presidency. Mr. Buchanan could not seek a conference with his successor on the state of public affairs; his successor did not seek or apparently desire one. How much there was that Mr. Buchanan could have communicated to Mr. Lincoln, and how much it concerned the interest of the Republic that the latter should learn, must be apparent from what has been gone over in the preceding pages. Such a conference, if it had served no other good purpose, would have fixed Mr. Lincoln’s attention upon the extreme importance of so guiding the intercourse between his administration, or any member of it, and the Confederate commissioners, as to prevent all pretext for an assault upon Fort Sumter.
Mr. Buchanan was detained by his private affairs in Washington until the 9th day of March. On that day, he departed for Wheatland, accompanied by Miss Lane and the other members of his household.
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TROOPS AT THE CAPITAL.
The anonymous diarist of the North American Review, writing on the 4th day of March, the day of Mr. Lincoln’s inauguration, records his great disgust at the presence of troops in Washington, and attributes it to “the mischievous influence of the Blairs.” It is to be hoped that the statement which I have made will be considered as sufficient proof of the source from which the first suggestion of this very prudent and proper precaution came. There was no single moment of time and no place in the Union, during the whole period of Mr. Buchanan’s Presidency, at which the presence of a military force was more necessary than it was at Washington on the day of Mr. Lincoln’s inauguration; for, notwithstanding the absence of any tangible evidence of a conspiracy to seize the city or to interrupt the proceedings, yet, as Judge Black forcibly remarked in his letter to the President, preparation could do no possible harm, in any event, and in the event which seemed most probable, it was the country’s only chance of salvation. If, then, at this most critical time and place, there could be assembled only 653 men of the rank and file of the army, a part of them being the sappers and miners drawn from West Point, what a commentary does this fact afford, upon the charge that President Buchanan neglected his duty, by not garrisoning the Southern forts in the month of October, 1860. At that time, the whole number of seaboard forts of the United States was 57; the proper complement for war garrisons of these forts would require 28,420 men; and their actual garrisons were 1,334 men, 1,308 of whom were at Governor’s Island, New York, Fort McHenry, Maryland, Fortress Monroe, Virginia, and Alcantraz Island, San Francisco. The regular army, when recruited to its maximum, was only 18,000 men; actually it was not much over 16,000. At no time could any part of it have been withdrawn from the remote frontiers; and of the 1,308 men distributed at the five points above named, very few could have been transferred to the nine Southern forts mentioned by General Scott in his “views” of October, 1860. The Military Committee of the House of Representatives, in their Report of February 18, 1861, said: “Unless it is the intention of Congress that the forts, arsenals, clock yards and other public property, shall be exposed to capture and spoliation by any lawless bands who may have the inclination to commit depredations upon it, the President must be armed with additional force for their protection.” Accordingly, they reported a bill authorizing the President to call out the militia, but it was never acted upon. (See Report, H. R. No. 85, 36th Cong., 2d Session, and Bill No. 1,003.)