“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]]
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.