F. W. P.
Mr. Trescot read to me from the same telegram, that Governor Pickens had seen Mr. Cushing. The letter was accordingly withdrawn.
The following is the draft of the answer to Governor Pickens which the President was writing with his own hand when he was notified that the Governor’s letter was withdrawn. Of course the answer was not concluded or sent; but it shows with the utmost clearness that the President’s position on the subject of secession was taken, and was not to be changed by any menace of “consequences,” coming from those who were disposed to be, as they must be, the aggressors, if any attempt should be made to disturb the Federal Government in the possession of its forts.
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 collision between the army and navy of the United States and the citizens of South Carolina in defence of the forts within the harbor of Charleston. Hence I have declined for the present to reinforce 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 authorities which possess 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 possession 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 Gist, 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 was, then, on the President’s first draft of an answer to the South Carolina commissioners, after the secession ordinance had been passed, and upon nothing that had previously occurred, that the cabinet crisis arose. On the evening of December 29th, the President’s proposed draft of an answer to the commissioners was read to the cabinet. It was not much discussed, for it was not the habit of the ministers to criticise state papers which the President had himself prepared. But on the following day, Judge Black informed Mr. Toucey, the Secretary of the Navy, of his purpose to resign, if this paper, as written by the President, should be delivered to the commissioners. The President sent for Judge Black, and handed him the paper, with a request that he modify it to suit himself, and return it immediately. Judge Black then prepared his memorandum for the President’s consideration, in which Mr. Holt and Mr. Stanton concurred. The answer, which was to be sent to the commissioners, was modified accordingly, and when sent it read as follows:[[90]]