Abraham Lincoln; a history

Front matter

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Chapter I. South Carolina Secession

The South CaroUna Convention. Governor Pickens. Letter to President Buchanan. Reply Prepared by the President. Trescott's Letter to Pickens. The Governor's Letter Withdrawn. Caleb Cushing's Mission. The Ordinance of Secession. The " Declaration of Causes." The Doctrine of States Rights . . . . 1

Chapter II. Personal Liberty Bills

Southern Accusations. Alexander H. Stephens's Criticism on the South CaroUna Declaration of Causes. Origin of Personal Liberty Bills. The Fugitive-Slave Law of 1793. The Case of Prigg vs. Pennsylvania. The Fugitive-Slave Law of 1850. " The Era of Slave Hunting." Summary of Personal Liberty Acts. The Fugitive- Slave Law Declared Constitutional. Fugitive Slaves and the Census. Southern Infractions of the Constitution. Lincoln on the Fugitive-Slave Law . . 17

Chapter III. The Surrender Programme

Anderson's " Sand Hill" Instructions. A Comparison of Dates. President Buchanan IModifies the Buell Memorandum. A Programme of SuiTender. Floyd's " Satisfactoi-y " News. Governor Pickens's Inquiry. The Harbor Guard Steamers. Anderson's Resolve. The Christmas MeiTy-Making 35

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Chaptee IV. FoKT Sumter

Anderson's Preparatory Orders. Fort Moultrie Abandoned. The General Clinch. The Landing at Sumter. The Work of the Rear-Guard, Astonishment in Charleston, Governor Pickens's Demand, Secessionists Occupy Castle Pinckney and Fort Moultrie, Seizure of Government Buildings in Charleston .... 47

Chapter V. A Blundering Commission

The South CaroUna Commissioners. Appointed Interview with Mr. Buchanan, Effect of the News in Washington. Anderson's Reply to Floyd, The Cabinet Discussion, Secretaries Floyd and Black, Floyd's Demand. General Scott's Reminder. Pressure on the President. Mr, Buchanan's Hesitation. The Commissioners' Demand 62

Chapter YI. The Cabinet Regime

A Cabinet Incident. Floyd's Resignation. Holt Secretary of War. Buchanan's Proposed Answer. A New Cabinet Crisis. The Regime of the Cabinet. The Message of January 8. The Leadership of Secretary Black, His Memorandum to the President. Buchanan's Reply to the Commissioners. The Commissioners' Retort 73

Chapter VII. The " Star of the West "

General Scott's Suggestions. Holt in the War Department. General Scott on Duty. Plans to Reenforce Sumter. Secretary Thompson's Intrigue. Alann in Secession Councils. Orders for the BrooMyn. The Star of the West. Anderson's Report. The Star of the West at Charleston Bar. The Morris Island Battery. Failure of the Relief Expedition 87

Chapter VIII. Anderson's Truce

Newspaper Reports. The Watch in Sumter. Anderson's Hesitation. A Council of War. Anderson's Notice to Governor Pickens. The Governor's Re-

TABLE OF CONTENTS XI

sponse. Anderson's Rejoinder. Messenj^'ers to Washington. Anderson's Course Approved. The Governor's Demand on Anderson. A Military Council. Anderson Declines to Deliver Fort Sumter. The Question Referred to Washington 102

Chapter IX. The Military Situation at Charleston

The Governor's Revolutionary Zeal. A Campaign against Sumter. Pickens as Dictator. General Simons's Report. The Weakness of Conspiracy. Governor Pickens's Bravado. The Star of the West Battery. The Siege of Fort Sumter \ 114

Chapter X. The National Defense

Buchanan's Reconstructed Cabinet. Secretary Joseph Holt. Interview with the President. Dix Secretary of the Treasury. Scott's Defensive Orders. The St. Louis Arsenal. The Defense of Washington. Stanton Attorney-General, A Congressional Investigation. The Plot to Seize Washington. The Presidential Count. Holt's Report. The 22d of Febi-uary . . .127

Chapter XI. The Sumter and Pickens Truce

Hayne's Intei-view with Buchanan. The Letter of Governor Pickens. Letter of Secession Senators. Seeretai'y Black's Questions. Instructions to Anderson. Mr. Buchanan's Reply. Pensacola Harbor. Lieutenant Slemmer's Movement. The Errand of the Brooklyn. The Fort Pickens Truce. The Scott-Buchanan (controversy. Colonel Hayne's Demand. Holt's Instruction to Anderson 153

Chapter XII. The Cotton "Republics"

Secession Commissioners. The Senatorial Caucus. Yulee's Letter to Finegan. Oi'dinances of Secession. Florida Convention. Mississippi Convention. Alabama Convention. Geoi'gia Convention. Louisiana Convention. Texas Convention 175 xii TABLE OF CONTENTS

Chaptek XIII. The Montgomery Confedeeacy

Withdrawals from Congress. The Montgomery Gathering. The " Confederate States of America." Cobb, Davis, and Stephens. " EquaUty of States." Mississippi Declaration of Causes. Stephens's " Comerstone " Speech. Southern Rivalries. Jefferson Davis and Abraham Lincoln Compared and Contrasted. Davis's Double Attitude. The Confederate Cabinet. Confederate Measures 195

Chapter XIV. Failure of Compromise

The House Committee of Thirty-Three. Propositions of Compromise. Corwin's Letter to Lincoln. The Senate Committee of Thirteen. Toombs's Plan. Jefferson Davis's Plan. Crittenden's Plan. Douglas's Plan. Seward's Plan. Bigler's Plan. Rice's Plan. Crittenden's Senate Propositions. Senator Clark's Amendment. The Peace Convention 214

Chapter XV. The Constitutional Amendment

Corwin's Constitutional Amendment. Mr. Lincoln's Comment. Recommendations of the Committee of Five. The Treasury Condition. Cobb's Financial Management. Secretary Phihp F. Thomas. The Public Credit. The Morrill Tariff. Bonds and Treasury Notes 234

Chapter XVI. The President-Elect

Lincoln at Home. Views on Secession. News from Fort Moultrie. General Scott's Correspondence with Lincoln. News from Washington. Thurlow Weed and Horace Greeley. Lincoln's Letter to Kellogg. Lincoln's Letter to Seward. Seward and the Committee of Thu-teen. The Crisis at the Capital ... 245

Chapter XX. Lincoln's Secret Night Journey

Protection to Railroads. Reports of Detectives. Baltimore Secessionists. The President in Philadelphia. Incidents of the Journey. Seward's Letter to Lincoln. Colonel Stone's Report. Observations of the New York Pohce. The Conference at Harrisburg. The Night Journey. Arrival in Washington 302

Chapter XXI. Lincoln's Inauguration

Calls on the President-Elect. Conference with Party Leaders. Preparation of the Inaugural Address. Mr. Seward's Amendments. The Closing Paragraph. Precautions for the Inauguration. The Procession to the Capitol. The Group on the Portico. The Inaugural Address. Changes Suggested and Adopted. The Presidential Oath 317

Chapter XXII. Lincoln's Cabinet

Election Evening. An Editorial Question. Seward Accepts the State Department. The Choice of Bates and Smith. Letter to Schuyler Colfax. The Cameron Incidents. Conference with Chase. The South in the Cabinet. The Blair-Davis Contest. Seward Declines and Reconsiders. The Cabinet Nominated and Confirmed ^^

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Chapter XXIII. The Question of Sumter

Report from Anderson. Questions to General Scott. The First Cabinet Meeting. Scott Recommends the Evacuation of Sumter. The Plan of Captain Fox. Lincoln's Question to the Cabinet. The Cabinet Rephes. Fox's Visit to Sumter. The Mission of Lamon and Hurlbut. Mr. Petigru's Opinion. Scott Recommends the Evacuation of Fort Pickens 375

Chapter XXIV. The Rebel Game

Beauregard Sent to Charleston. The Commissioners in Washington. The Senate Debate. Rumors in the Capital. Hunter's Interview with Seward. The Commissioners Refused an Interview. Their Formal Note. Justice Campbell's Mediation. Seward's Prediction. Campbell's Report to Jefferson Davis. Davis's Acknowledgment of Campbell's Service. Toombs's Letter to the Commissioners 396

Chapter XXV. Virginia

Governor Wise's Preparation for War. The Virginia Vote. Wise's Speech. Governor Letcher's Message. The Interstate Slave-Trade. Fort Monroe. The Virginia Convention. Baldwin's Interview with Lincoln. 415

Chapter XXVI. Premier or President

Cabinet Opinions of March 29. A Change of Vote. Captain Fox Prepares an Expedition for Sumter. Captain Meigs Prepares an Expedition for Fort Pickens. The Orders for the Powhatan. Seward and Welles. The Situation During March. Secretary Seward's Memorandum. President Lincoln's Reply .... 429

Chapter I

THE delegates to the South Carolina Convention chap, l were elected on the 6th of December, and as- iseo. sembled and organized at Columbia, the capital of the State, on the 17th of the same month ; on account of a local epidemic, however, both the convention and the Legislature adjourned to Charleston, where the former reassembled on the following day and the latter two days afterwards. Elected under the prevailing secession furor which tolerated no opposition, and embracing the leading conspirators in its membership, the convention was practically unanimous. " There is no honor," said the chairman on taking his seat, "I esteem more highly than to sign the ordinance of secession as a member of this body ; but I will regard it as the great- .. convei est honor of my life to sign it as your presiding nai,- p. i officer."

The Legislature of South Carolina had just elected a new governor, who was inaugurated on the same day on which the convention met. This

I ABKAHAM LINCOLN

CHAP. I. was F. W. Pickens, a revolutionist of a yet more radical and energetic type than his predecessor Gist, and who, as we have seen, had been in close consultation with the Cabinet cabal at Washington, more than a month before. He was, of course, anxious to signalize his advent ; and to this end immediately dispatched to Washington a special messenger, bearing the following letter to President Buchanan :

(Strictly confidential.)

Columbia, December 17, 1860.

My Dear Sir : With a sincere desire to prevent a collision of force, I have thought proper to address you directly and truthfully on points of deep and immediate interest.

I am authentically informed that the forts in Charleston harbor are now being thoroughly prepared to turn, with effect, their guns upon the interior and the city. Jurisdiction was ceded by this State expressly for the purpose of external defense from foreign invasion, and not with any view that they should be turned upon the State.

In an ordinary case of mob rebellion, perhaps it might be proper to prepare them for sudden outbreak. But when the people of the State, in sovereign convention assembled, determine to resume their original powers of separate and independent sovereignty, the whole question is changed, and it is no longer an act of rebellion. I, therefore, most respectfully urge that all work on the forts be put a stop to for the present, and that no more force may be ordered there.

The regular convention of the people of the State of South Carohna, legally and properly called, under our Constitution, is now in session, deliberating upon the gravest and most momentous questions, and the excitement of the great masses of the people is great, under a sense of deep wrongs, and a profound necessity of doing something to preserve the peace and safety of the State.

To spare the effusion of blood, which no human power may be able to prevent, I earnestly beg your immediate consideration of all the points I call your attention to. It is not improbable that, under orders from the Commandant, or perhaps from the Commander-in-Chief of the Army, the alteration and defenses of those posts are progresshig without the knowledge of yourself or the Secretary of War.

The arsenal, in the city of Charleston, with the public arms, I am informed, was turned over very properly to the keeping and defense of a State force, at the urgent request of the Governor of South Carolina. I would most respectfully, and from a sincere devotion to the public peace, request that you would allow me to send a small force, not exceeding twenty-five men and an ofiicer, to take possession of Fort Sumter, immediately, in order to give a feeling of safety to the community. There are no United States troops in that fort whatever, or perhaps only four or five, at present; besides some additional workmen or laborers, lately employed to put the guns in order. If Fort Sumter could be given to me, as Governor, under a permission similar to that by which the Governor was permitted to keep the arsenal with the United States arms in the city of Charleston, then I think the public mind would be (juieted under a feeling of safety ; and as the convention is now in full authority, it strikes me that could be done with perfect propriety. I need not go into particulars, for urgent reasons will force themselves readily upon your consideration.

If something of the kind be not done, I cannot answer for the consequences.

I send this by a private and confidential gentleman, who is authorized to confer with Mr. Trescott fuUy, and to receive through him any answer you may think proper to give to this.

I have the honor to be, most respectfully,

To the President of the United States.

ClIAl". I.

Pickens to Bucbanan, December

17, 1860.

House Journal,"

167, 168.

Arrived in Washington, the special messenger who bore this document sought the active agent

Chap. I. of the Central cabal/ Mr. Trescott, Assistant Secretary of State, and was by him on Thursday morning, December 20, conducted to the White House

M^emoran- ^^^^ prescutcd to Mr. Bucliauan, to whom he per-

«s/'Life sonally delivered his communication. The Pres- *an." Vol idcut reccived the document and promised an an-

■'384! ' swer to it on the following day. The temper and condition of his mind is plainly reflected in what he wrote. He seems to have realized no oifense in this insult to the sovereignty and dignity of the United States whose Constitution he had sworn to " preserve, protect, and defend " ; no patriotic resentment against the South Carolina conspirators who, as he knew by the telegraph, were assembling that same day in convention to inaugurate local rebellion; — his whole answer breathed a tone of apology that his oath and duties would not permit him to oblige the South Carolina Governor ; and he feebly groped for relief from his perplexities in the suggestion that Congress might perhaps somehow arrange the trouble. This was the answer

prepared :

Washington, December 20, 1860.

My Dear Sir : I have received your favor of the 17th inst. by Mr. Hamilton. From it I deeply regret to observe that you seem entirely to have misapprehended my position, which I supposed had been clearly stated in my message. I have incurred, and shall incur, any reasonable risk within the clearly prescribed line of my executive duties to prevent a colhsion between the army

1 In his message of November distinguished citizen, appointed, 5, 1861, Governor Pickens, of as I have since been informed South Carolina, refers to William by my predecessor, to remain H. Trescott, Esq., who was in at Washington as confidential December, 1860, Assistant Sec- representative of the State." retary of State of the United — "South Carolina House Jour- States, at Washington, as " a nal," 1861, p. 31.

SOUTH CAEOLINA SECESSION i

and navy of the United States and the citizens of South cuap. i. Carolina in defense of the forts within the harbor of Charleston. Hence I have declined for the present to reenforce these forts, relying upon the honor of South Carolinians that they will not be assaulted whilst they remain in their present condition ; but that commissioners will be sent by the convention to treat with Congress on the subject. I say with Congress because, as I state in my message, ^' Apart from the execution of the laws so far as this may be practicable, the Executive has no authority to decide what shall be the relations between the Federal Government and South Carolina. He has been invested with no such discretion. He possesses no power to change the relations heretofore existing between them, much less to acknowledge the independence of that State." This would be to invest a mere executive officer with the power of recognizing the dissolution of the confederacy among our thirty-three sovereign States. It bears no resemblance to the recognition of a foreign de facto government, involving no such responsibility. Any attempt to do this would, on my part, be a naked act of usurpation.

As an executive officer of the Government, I have no power to surrender, to any human authority. Fort Sumter or any of the other forts or public property in South Carolina. To do this would, on my part, as I have already said, be a naked act of usurpation. It is for Congress to decide this question, and for me to preserve the status of the public property as I found it at the commencement of the troubles.

If South Carolina should attack any of these forts, she will then become the assailant in a war against the United States. It will not then be a question of coercing a State to remain in the Union, to which I am utterly opposed, as my message proves, but it will be a question of voluntarily precipitating a conflict of arms on her part, without even consulting the only authority which possesses the power to act upon the subject. Between independent governments, if one possesses a fortress within the limits of another, and the latter should seize it without calling upon the appropriate authorities of the power in posses-

Chap. I. Ciirtis

Buchanan."

Vol. II., sion to surrender it, this would not only be a just cause of war, but the actual commencement of hostilities.

No authority was given, as you suppose, from myself or from the War Department, to Governor G-ist, to guard the United States Arsenal in Charleston by a company of South Carolina volunteers. In this respect you have been misinformed — I have, therefore, never been more astonished in my life, than to learn from you that unless Fort Sumter be delivered into your hands, you cannot be answerable for the consequences.

It is easy to infer from results, that while Mr. Buchanan was laboring over this document the central cabal was busy. They saw that the rash zeal of Governor Pickens was endangering the web of conspiracy they had wound around the President. He was committed to non-coercion; committed to non-reenforcement ; committed to await the arrival of South Carolina commissioners. This new demand from a new authority not only indicated a division of sentiment and purpose in the insurrectionary councils in the Palmetto State, but created an opportunity through which Mr. Buchanan under a possible healthier impulse of patriotism might repudiate the whole obligation of non-resistance to their schemes into which they had beguiled him. They clearly saw, as they them- Trescott to sclvcs explained, that though lie would not deliver Dec.21,1860. Sumter now, he might be willing to " approach such action " hereafter, " a possibility not at all improbable, and which ought to be kept open."

Mr. Trescott therefore hastened to take the advice of two of the South Carolina Congressmen, — Mc- Queen and Bonham, — and it is not a violent presumption to assume, also of the chief Senatorial conspirators; for only six days had elapsed since

Journal,"

the Congressioual circular was signed and pub- chap. i. lished, which called upon the Cotton States to proceed with the plot of secession and the formation of a Southern Confederacy. A telegram was at once sent to Charleston, mildly explaining to Governor Pickens the blunder he was making and asking his authority to withdraw his letter to Mr. Buchanan. Governor Pickens must be credited with astuteness enough to comprehend the situation, for he gave the consent requested. On Friday morning Mr. Trescott waited upon Mr. Buchanan and informed him that he would not be required to answer as Governor Pickens had withdrawn his demand ; and Mr. Trescott records, with an evident appreciation of the affair as a successful stroke of policy, that "the withdrawal of the letter was a great relief to the President." To understand more fully the whole scope and spirit of the incident, we must read the report of it which he then transmitted to Charleston :

Washestoton, December 21, 1860.

To His Excellency F. W. Pickens,

Governor of South Carolina.

Sir: Your confidential letter to the President was duly delivered to him yesterday by D. H. Hamilton, Esq., according to your instructions. It was withdrawn (no copy having been taken) this morning by me, under the authority of your telegraphic dispatch. Its withdrawal was most opportune. It reached here under circumstances which you could not have anticipated, and it produced the effect upon the President.

He had removed Colonel Gardiner from command at Fort Moultrie, for carrying ammunition from the arsenal at Charleston ; he had refused to send reenforcements to the garrison there ; he had accepted the resignation of

Chap. I, the oldest, most eminent, and highest member of his Cabinet, rather than consent to send additional force, and the night before your letter arrived, he,^ upon a telegraphic communication that arms had been removed from the arsenal to Fort Moultrie, the Department of War had issued prompt orders by telegraph to the officer removing them, to restore them immediately. He had done this upon his determination to avoid all risk of collision, and upon the written assurance of the majority of the Congressional Delegation from the State that they did not beheve there was any danger of an attack upon the forts before the passage of the Ordinance, and an expression of their trust and hope that there would be none after, until the State had sent commissioners here. His course had been violently denounced by the Northern press, and an effort was being made to ^ a Congressional investigation. At that moment he could not have gone to the extent of action you desired, and I felt confident that if forced to answer your letter then he would have taken such ground as would have prevented his ever approaching it hereafter, a possibility not at all improbable, and which ought to be kept open, I considered, also, that the chance of public investigation rendered the utmost caution necessary as to any communications from the State, and having presented the letter, and ascertained what the nature of the reply would be, you had all the advantage of knowing the truth, without the disadvantage of having it put on record. Besides this, the President seemed to think that your request was based upon the impossibility of your restraining the spirit of our people ; an interpretation which did you injustice, and the possibility of which I deemed it due to you to avoid. He also appeared to labor under the impression that the representations of the Members of Congress and your own differed essentially, and this, I thought, on account of both, should not be stated in any reply to you. I was also perfectly satisfied that the status of the garrisons would not be disturbed.

Under these circumstances, if I had been acting under

iThe blanks and rhetorical eonstruetion are copied exactly as the authors find them printed in the "South Carolina House Journal."

formal credentials from you, and the letter had been unsealed, I would have delayed its presentation for some hours, until I could have telegraphed you, but that was impossible. As Mr. Hamilton, therefoi-e, had brought with him General McQueen and General Bonham, when he called on me and delivered the letter, and had even gone so far as to express the wish that they should bo present when he delivered it to the President, — a proposition which they declined, however, — I deemed it not indiscreet, nor in violation of the discretionary confidence which your letter implied, to take their counsel. We agreed perfectly, and the result was the telegraphic dispatch of last night. The withdrawal of the letter was a gi-eat relief to the President, who is most earnestly anxious to avoid an issue with the State or its authorities, and, I think, has encouraged his disposition to go as far as he can in this matter, and to treat those who may represent the State with perfect frankness.

I have had this morning an interview with Governor Floyd, the Secretary of War. No order has been issued that will at all disturb the present condition of the garrisons, and while I cannot even here venture into details, which are too confidential to be risked in any way, I am prepared to say, with a full sense of the responsibility, that nothing will be done which will either do you injury or properly create alarm. Of course when your commissioners have succeeded or failed to effect their negotiations, the whole issue is fairly before you, to be met as courage, honor, and wisdom may direct.

My delay in answering your telegraph concerning Colonel Huger, was caused by his absence from this place. He came, in reply to my telegraph last night, and this morning I telegraphed upon his decision, which I presume he has explained by a letter of this same date. As Dr. Hamilton leaves this evening, I have only time to write this hurried letter, and am, sir, Very respectfully,

Wm. Henry Trescott.

I inclose your confidential letter in this.^

lln Curtis's "Life of Buch- will be found the private memoanan," Vol. U., pp. 383, 384, randum of President Buchanan

CHAP. I.

Trescott to

Pickens,

Journal,"

169-71.

Chap. I. We must now turn our attention from the executive rooms of the Presidential mansion in Washington to the executive rooms of South Carolina in Charleston, where on the same day a counterpart of the transaction we have described was going on. Since the beginning of these new troubles, especially since the discussion and issuing of his message. President Buchanan had been anxious and ill at ease. He could not shut his eyes to the fact that in South Carolina, at least, the tide of revolution was steadily rising. He appears to have dimly felt that his official responsibility and honor were somehow involved; and since he had reasoned the executive power into nothingness, the idea suggested itself to his mind that a little friendly expostulation at least was due from him. Under some such impulse he giving his statement of the incident :

' ' On Thursday morning, December 20, 1860, Hamilton, late marshal of South Carolina, sent especially for this purpose, presented me a letter from Governor Pickens, in the presence of Mr.

Trescott, dated at Columbia, South Carolina, 17th December (Monday). He was to wait until this day (Friday afternoon) for my answer. The character of the letter will appear from the answer to it which I had prepared. Thursday night, between 9 and 10 o'clock, Mr. Trescott called upon me. He said that he had seen Messrs. Bonham and McQueen of the South Carolina delegation, that they all agreed that this letter of Governor Pickens was in violation of the pledge which had been given by themselves not to make an assault upon the forts, but to leave them in statu quo until the result of an application of commissioners to be appointed by the State was known ; that Pickens, at Columbia, could not have known of the arrangements.

They — to wit, Bonham, Mc- Queen, and Trescott — had telegraphed to Pickens for authority to withdraw his letter. Friday morning, 10 o'clock, 21st December, Mr. Trescott called upon me with a telegram of which the following is a copy from that which he delivered to me: 'December 21, 1860. — You are authoT'ized and requested to withdraw my letter sent by Dr.

P.' Mr. Trescott read to me, from the same telegram, that Governor Pickens had seen Mr. dishing; the letter was accordingly withdrawn."

SOUTH CAllOLINA SECESSION wrote the following letter to Goveriioi- Pickens, and with it dispatched Caleb Gushing to Charleston, to see if he might not exert a personal influence upon the malcontents, who paid no heed to any wishes or interests but their own:

WAsmNGTON, December 18, 18G0.

My Dear Sir: From common notoriety, I assume the fact that the State of South Carolina is now deliberating on the question of seceding from the Union. Whilst any hope remains that this may be prevented, or even retarded, so long as to allow the people of her sister States an opportunity to manifest their opinions upon the causes which liave led to this proceeding, it is my duty to exert all the means in my power to avert so dread a catastrophe. I have, therefore, deemed it advisable to send to you the Hon. Caleb Cushing, in whose integrity, ability, and prudence I have full confidence, to hold communi(;atioiis with you on my behalf, for the purpose of changing or modifying the contemplated action of the State in the manner I have already suggested. Commending Mr. Cushing to your kind attention, for his own sake, as well as that of the cause, I remain.

Very respectfully, your friend,

James Buchanan.

His Excellency Francis W, Pickens.

Mr. Cushing was a man of great affability, and of prominence in the Democratic party. He had been Attorn ey-Greneral under President Pierce, and was called to preside over the Charleston Convention, until the dissension in that body between Northern and Southern Democrats caused its disruption and adjournment to Baltimore. In the second disruption at Baltimore, Mr. Cushing had followed the fortunes of the Southern leaders, and with them had seceded, and presided over that fraction of the original body which nominated

Chap. I.

Buclianan

to Pickens.

Cnroliua

Journal,"

CHAP. I. Breckinridge. Though a Massachusetts man, he was thus affiliated in party principle, party organization, and party action with the South, and President Buchanan not unnaturally thought that he was personally an agreeable agent, and ought to be an influential party representative, capable, in behalf of the Administration, of dissuading the Charleston conspirators from their dangerous determination, or at least from their reckless precipitancy. But the sequel shows that Buchanan both misunderstood the men he had to deal with, and was unequal in purpose and will to cope with their superior daring and resolution.

Mr. Gushing arrived in Charleston on the day the South Carolina Convention passed its ordinance of secession. He obtained an interview with the G-overnor, and presented the President's letter. "I had but a short interview with him," said Governor Pickens in his message of November 5, 1861, " and told him I would return no reply to the President's letter, except to say very candidly that there was no hope for the Union, and that, so far as I was concerned, I intended to maintain the separate independence of South Carolina, and from this purpose neither temptation nor danger should for a moment deter me." There is a notable contrast in this haughty and defiant reception by a South Carolina governor of the messenger of the President of the United States, to the cringing and apologetic spirit in which the President had on that same morning received the messenger of the Governor and replied to his demand. Mr. Cushing's reply deserves special notice. "He said," continues Governor Pickens,

" tluit lie could not say what changes circiim- ciur. i. stances might produce, but when he left Washington, there was then no intention whatever to change the status of the forts in our liarbor in any way." By this language Mr. Gushing himself seems to have changed his errand from a patriotic mission of protest and warning to one conveying advantageous information to the conspirators.

It could hardly have been without a sense of personal mortification to Mr. Gushing that the drama which he had been sent to avert, or at least to postpone, immediately unrolled itself under his very eyes, and his mortification must have risen to indignation when he was requested by his presence to grace the pageant. The South Garolina Gonvention, during the two days which had elapsed since its adjournment hither from Golumbia, had been deliberating in secret session. A little after midday of December 20, the streets of Gharleston were filled with placards (see page 14) giving the public the first notice of its action.