It ought not to be doubted that such an appeal to the arbitrament established by the Constitution itself would be received with favor by all the States of the Confederacy. In any event, it ought to be tried in a spirit of conciliation before any of these States shall separate themselves from the Union.

When I entered upon the duties of the Presidential office, the aspect neither of our foreign nor domestic affairs was at all satisfactory. We were involved in dangerous complications with several nations, and two of our Territories were in a state of revolution against the Government. A restoration of the African slave trade had numerous and powerful advocates. Unlawful military expeditions were countenanced by many of our citizens, and were suffered, in defiance of the efforts of the Government, to escape from our shores for the purpose of making war upon the unoffending people of neighboring republics with whom we were at peace. In addition to these and other difficulties, we experienced a revulsion in monetary affairs, soon after my advent to power, of unexampled severity, and of ruinous consequences to all the great interests of the country. When we take a retrospect of what was then our condition, and contrast this with its material prosperity at the time of the late Presidential election, we have abundant reason to return our grateful thanks to that merciful Providence which has never forsaken us as a nation in all our past trials.

With respect to the supposed right of secession as a deduction from the nature of the Union, as established by the Constitution—a theory on which the secessionists from the first desired the whole issue to be based, with all its resulting consequences—I shall close this chapter with the remark that, after a long familiarity with our constitutional literature, I know of no document which, within the same compass, states so clearly and accurately what I regard as the true theory of our Constitution, as this message of President Buchanan. Had I the power to change it, I would not alter a word. The President, after stating a case which might justify revolution under this as under all other governments, after all peaceful and constitutional means to obtain redress had been exhausted, proceeded to discuss the supposed constitutional right of secession, with the power of a statesman and the precision of a jurist.[[78]]

Among all the reproaches that have been cast upon President Buchanan, none has been more persistently repeated than that which has imputed to him a “temporizing policy;” and the doctrine on which he denied that the Federal Government could make aggressive war upon a State for the purpose of preventing her from seceding from the Union, has been represented as the strongest proof of his want of the vigor necessary for the emergency. Little are the objectors aware that the policy of Mr. Lincoln’s administration, until after the attack on Fort Sumter, was identical with that of Mr. Buchanan. Mr. Lincoln’s policy was largely shaped by his Secretary of State, Mr. Seward; and there can be no better authority than Mr. Seward’s for proof of that policy.[[79]]

CHAPTER XVII.
1860—December.

RECEPTION OF THE PRESIDENT'S MESSAGE IN THE CABINET, IN CONGRESS, AND IN THE COUNTRY—THE FIRM ATTITUDE AND WISE POLICY OF MR. BUCHANAN.

Reference has already been made to what took place when this annual message was read to the cabinet, before it was transmitted to Congress. Recent revelations made by Judge Black in the public prints disclose the nature of an objection made by him to the expression “to coerce a State into submission, which is attempting to withdraw, or has actually withdrawn, from the Confederacy.” His criticism did not apply to the legal proposition of the message, in which he entirely concurred; but his apprehension was that the expression would be read superficially, and be misunderstood. The President did not think so, nor did the other members of the cabinet. It is only necessary for me to repeat that the message clearly and unequivocally pointed out that the coercive power of the Federal Government was necessarily confined and must be applied to the execution upon individuals of the laws of the United States; and that it explicitly stated, with proper references to the proceedings of the framers of the Constitution, that a power to coerce a State by force of arms was expressly rejected by them, since it would, if applied, be equivalent to a declaration of war against the State by the Government of the Union. But the apprehension felt by the learned Attorney General was caused, I presume, by his anxiety concerning the reception of the message in the South and among the secessionists. It was their misconstruction that he feared. He could not well have supposed that Northern statesmen, grounded at least in the fundamental principles of the Constitution usually accepted at the North, and with the clear distinction put before them in the message between coercing a State and coercing individuals, would impute to the President an intention to renounce the right to use force in the execution of the laws and the protection of the public property of the Union. In point of fact, as the sequel will show, nearly the whole Republican party, after the message became public, without any rational excuse for such a misconstruction, saw fit to treat the message as a denial by the President of any power to enforce the laws against the citizens of a State after secession, and even after actual rebellion. If this was what the Attorney General anticipated, it would seem that the President, having taken great care to make clear the distinction, was not bound to suppose that a merely partisan spirit of misrepresentation would be applied to such a document as this message, to the extent of utterly perverting its meaning. On the other hand, the disunionists did not misunderstand or misconstrue the message. They saw clearly that it not only denounced secession, but that while it enunciated the doctrine that the Federal Government could not apply force to prevent a State from adopting an ordinance of secession, it could and must use force, if need be, to execute its laws, notwithstanding the secession. This was a doctrine opposed toto cælo, and in all its branches, to the secessionist’s theory of the Constitution. It met them upon their own ground, for it utterly denied that a State ordinance of secession could absolve its people from obeying the laws of the United States. Accordingly they denounced the message; and upon their theory of the Constitution they denounced it rightly. All friendly intercourse between the leading disunionists in Congress and the President ceased after the message became public; and from the multitude of private letters which reached the President from the South, now lying before me, it is apparent that throughout that section he was regarded, alike by the enemies and the friends of the Union, as having made the issue on which the secessionists desired to have the whole controversy turn. They were just as ready to accept the issue of a constitutional power in the Federal Government to enforce its laws after secession, as they were to accept the issue of coercing a State to remain in the Union.

As soon as the message was published, “thick as autumnal leaves that strew the brooks in Vallambrosa,” private letters of approbation were showered upon the President from all quarters of the North. The most diverse reasons for praising his policy marked this heterogeneous correspondence. The Democrat, who was afraid to have a civil war begin under a Democratic administration, predicted that it would destroy his party forever. The pious “abolitionist,” who saw the finger of God in everything, and who prayed daily for a separation of the free and the slave States, so that the reproach of tolerating slavery might no longer rest upon the Constitution of his country, hailed the annunciation of a policy which he thought destined, in the course of Providence, to work out the result which he longed to see. The Quaker, who abhorred war and bloodshed, hoped that “thee” would preserve peace at any price. The man of business, looking to his material interests and to the commercial advantages of the Union, deprecated a civil war which would disturb the natural current of affairs, and would end where no man could foresee. Thoughtful citizens, who comprehended more within their range of reflection than was common with their neighbors, recognized the wisdom and the necessity of the conciliatory steps which the President had recommended. The speculative jurist, meditating in his closet upon what he supposed might be a panacea for this disordered condition of the body politic, sent his recommendations. Nearly all of these classes, in their various ways of looking at such a crisis, were on the whole gratified that the President had afforded to the country a breathing spell, had solemnly called upon Congress to reflect, and had at the same time called upon it to act in the manner best adapted to meet the emergency. Very few desired aggressive measures to be taken, which would put the Federal Government in the attitude of making war upon a State.

These numerous private communications, coming from the people, were addressed to one of the most self-reliant of men, who had surveyed the whole field that was before him, who had firmly settled the general policy which it was his duty to follow, and who was as calm and collected in this great trial as he had ever been in any situation of his life, while he was neither insensible to or careless of its weighty responsibilities. It has been one of the fashionable errors concerning Mr. Buchanan to impute to him, from age or some other cause, a lack of firmness and self-possession in this perilous emergency. He has been spoken of as having lost his faculties, or as being bewildered by the perplexities of his situation. There never was a more unfounded imputation. It is an imputation to which no one who was closely in contact with him gave at the time any countenance whatever. It will appear, as I go on, that, of the members of his cabinet who were most concerned in all his official acts during the last months of his administration, not one formed at that time the opinion that he was wanting in firmness, decision, or energy, however any of them may have differed with him from time to time in regard to particular steps or measures. The President who sent to Congress the message on which I commented in the last preceding chapter, was certainly equal to the occasion. How he felt, and what he said of his situation, the reader will be interested to learn by the following extract from a confidential letter which he wrote to a gentleman in New York on the 20th of December:

I have never enjoyed better health or a more tranquil spirit than during the past year. All our troubles have not cost me an hour’s sleep or a single meal, though I trust I have a just sense of my high responsibility. I weigh well and prayerfully what course I ought to adopt, and adhere to it steadily, leaving the result to Providence. This is my nature, and I deserve neither praise nor blame for it. Every person who served with me in the Senate in high party times would avouch the truth of this statement.