Life of James Buchanan, Fifteenth President of the United States. v. 2 (of 2)

by George Ticknor Curtis

At this point of writing I have received information, by telegram, from Captain Humphreys, in command of the arsenal at Charleston, that “it has to-day (Sunday the 30th) been taken by force of arms.” It is estimated that the munitions of war belonging to the United States in this arsenal are worth half a million of dollars.

Comment is needless. After this information, I have only to add that, while it is my duty to defend Fort Sumter, as a portion of the public property of the United States, against hostile attacks from whatever quarter they may come, by such means as I may possess for this purpose, I do not perceive how such a defence can be construed into a menace against the city of Charleston.

With great personal regard, I remain, yours very respectfully,

James Buchanan.

In all that related to this cabinet crisis of December 29th, I can see nothing but the prompt action of a wise statesman and a patriotic President, in preventing a disruption of his cabinet upon a draft of a State paper, in which expressions had been used that might have given rise to inferences which the President never intended should be drawn. Among all Mr. Buchanan’s claims to stand in history as a great man, be the criticisms made by the three members of his cabinet on his proposed answer to the South Carolina commissioners more or less important, there is no one act which better entitles him to that rank, than the sacrifice which he made on this occasion of all pride of opinion in respect to the best mode of doing what he and his advisers alike meant to do, in order that the country might not, at this critical juncture, be deprived of the services of men whose services were important to her, and in order that the Government of the Union might not be placed in a false position. He had formed no new policy on the subject of secession, or any new views of his public duty. He never had but one policy, from the beginning of the secession movement to the 4th of March, 1861. Of that policy no concession of the right of secession, or of any claim founded on it, ever formed a part.[^[91]]

The next thing that happened was, that after the reading in the Senate of the President’s special message of January 8th, Mr. Jefferson Davis produced and had read in the Senate, a copy of the commissioners' insulting letter. “Such,” says Mr. Buchanan, “was the temper of that body at the time, that it was received and read, and entered upon their journal...... It is worth notice, that whilst this letter of the commissioners was published at length in the Congressional Globe, among the proceedings of the Senate, their previous letter to the President of the 28th of December, and his answer thereto of the 31st, were never published in this so-called official register, although copies of both had accompanied his special message. By this means, the offensive letter was scattered broadcast over the country, whilst the letter of the President, to which this professed to be an answer, was buried in one of the numerous and long after published volumes of executive documents.”[^[92]] The story related to the unknown diarist, as he says, by Senator Douglas, implies that the commissioners, at some time between the 31st of December and the 2d of January, wrote an uncourteous and improper reply to the President’s letter of December 31st, and then substituted for it a courteous and proper one, which they submitted to “the President’s agents,” who approved of it and sent it to the White House! That the President, through any agent, had signified to the commissioners that he was disposed to accede to their demands, if presented in courteous and proper terms, is an assertion that is contradicted by the whole tenor of his letter of December 31st, and by his uniform and steady refusal to entertain the proposition of an executive surrender of the forts to South Carolina. Down to the moment when the commissioners received the President’s letter of December 31st, he had no occasion to make with them any condition relating to the manner of their reply; and to suppose that at any time he meant to allow his compliance with their demands to turn upon the language in which they presented them, is simply absurd. What he may have signified to them was, that he would refer their demands to Congress; not that he would entertain and act upon them himself. This we know that he did, at the personal interview on the 28th of December; and he did it in order “to bring the whole subject before the representatives of the people in such a manner as to cause them to express an authoritative opinion on secession and the other dangerous questions then before the country, and adopt such measures for their peaceable adjustment as might possibly reclaim even South Carolina herself; but whether or not, might prevent the other cotton States from following her evil and rash example.”[^[93]] The President did not expect that Congress would authorize him to surrender the forts; but he did believe that it would be beneficial to have Congress declare that the whole doctrine of secession was one that could not be accepted by any department of the Federal Government, as he had declared that it could not be accepted by the Executive. The South Carolina commissioners, in their letter of December 28th, claimed that the State has “resumed the powers she delegated to the Government of the United States, and has declared her perfect sovereignty and independence;” that unless Major Anderson’s removal to Fort Sumter was explained in a satisfactory manner, they must suspend all discussion of the arrangements by which the mutual interests of this independent State and the United States could be adjusted; and then, as a preliminary to any negotiation, they urged the immediate withdrawal of the troops from the harbor of Charleston, with a distinct intimation of a “bloody issue” if this should be refused. The President was thus brought to the alternatives of an Executive admission of the independence of South Carolina, by reason of her secession, and a withdrawal of the troops as a consequence, or a bloody issue of questions that ought to be settled amicably. The President’s answer of the 31st of December, being a rejection of what was demanded of him, although entirely courteous, so irritated the commissioners that they wrote the reply which he returned to them.[^[94]] The truth is, that this reply contained so many offensive and unfounded imputations of past bad faith on the part of the President, that it was impossible for him to receive it. The grossest of these imputations I have already dealt with.

The diarist of the North American Review has related another story, on the authority of a person whose name, as well as his own, he conceals, which imputes to Major Anderson a motive of a most extraordinary character, for taking possession of Fort Sumter. We thus have the anonymous fortified by the anonymous—ignotum per ignotum—as the historical basis of belief. The statement is that the diarist’s informant, who had just come from Montgomery and had passed through Charleston, where he conversed with Major Anderson, told the diarist, on the 6th of March (1861), in Washington, that Anderson intended to be governed in his future course by the course of his own State of Kentucky; that if Kentucky should secede, Anderson would unhesitatingly obey the orders of a Confederate secretary of war; that he meant to retain the control of the position primarily in the interests of his own State of Kentucky; and that for this reason he removed from Fort Moultrie where he was liable to be controlled by the authorities of South Carolina.[^[95]] The diarist took his informant to President Lincoln, who heard the tale repeated, but parried it by one or two of his characteristic jests, and the diarist was disappointed in not being able to divine how Mr. Lincoln was affected by the narrative. It will require something more than this kind of unsupported and unauthenticated nonsense to destroy Major Anderson’s reputation as a loyal officer of the United States. What he might have done with his commission, in case Kentucky had joined the Southern Confederacy, is one thing. What he would have done with Fort Sumter is a very different matter. His answer to a letter of General Dix does not accord with the account of his intentions given by the unknown informant of the unknown diarist.[^[96]]

CHAPTER XIX.
December, 1860,—January, 1861.

RESIGNATION OF GENERAL CASS FROM THE DEPARTMENT OF STATE—RECONSTRUCTION OF THE CABINET WHICH FOLLOWED AFTER THE RESIGNATIONS OF MESSRS. COBB, THOMPSON, AND THOMAS.

Serious and embarrassing as was the situation of the country, it was not to have been expected that the first person to leave an administration, which had worked together with entire harmony for nearly four years, would be the Secretary of State, General Cass. I shall make but few comments on this occurrence. The correspondence which took place between General Cass and the President, and a memorandum made by the latter at the time, sufficiently show what degree of necessity there was for the General’s resignation. With reference to the reason which he assigned for it, the date of his letter is important to be observed. He tendered his resignation at a time when every consideration of prudence forbade the sending of further military or naval forces into the harbor of Charleston; after his advice on this point had been overruled by the opinions of all the other members of the cabinet, and of the President; before the State of South Carolina had adopted her ordinance of secession; and while the collector of the revenue at Charleston was still faithfully, and without molestation, performing his duties. If it was the General’s sagacity which led him to foresee that the State would “secede,” that the collector would resign, and that the revenue would have to be collected outside of the custom house, and by some other officer, his suggestions could not be carried out by the President without authority of law, and the whole subject was then before Congress, submitted to it by the President’s annual message, in which the General himself had fully concurred. That the General regretted his resignation, and would have withdrawn it, if permitted, is now made certain by the President’s memorandum, which I shall presently cite.