After my explosion with the commissioners of South Carolina at the end of December, the Southern Senators denounced me on the floor of the Senate; but after my message to Congress of the 8th January, one of them at least abused me in terms which I would not repeat. In that message I declared that “the right and the duty to use military force defensively against those who resist the Federal officers, in the execution of their legal functions, and against those who assail the property of the Federal Government, is clear and undeniable;” and more to the same purpose.
Warning was repeatedly given that if the authorities of South Carolina should assail Fort Sumter, this would be the commencement of a civil war, and they would be responsible for the consequences. The last and most emphatic warning of this character, is contained in the concluding sentence of Mr. Holt’s final and admirable answer to Mr. Hayne of the 6th of February. It is as follows: “If with all the multiplied proofs which exist of the President’s anxiety for peace, and of the earnestness with which he has pursued it, the authorities of that State shall assail Fort Sumter, and peril the lives of the handful of brave and loyal men shut up within its walls, and thus plunge our common country into the horrors of civil war, then upon them and those they represent must rest the responsibility.” This letter has been published, but seems to have been forgotten. I perceive that you are to be President of the great Union meeting. Would it not be well, in portraying the conduct of South Carolina in assailing Fort Sumter, to state that this had been done under the most solemn warnings of the consequences, and refer to this letter of Mr. Holt? Nobody seems to understand the course pursued by the late administration. A quotation from Holt’s letter would strengthen the hands of the present administration. You were a member of the cabinet at its date, and I believe it received your warm approbation. Hence it would come from you with peculiar propriety.
Had I known you were about to visit Washington on the business of the Treasury, I should have urged you to call at Wheatland on your return. You would then, as you will at all times, be a most welcome visitor.
They talk about keeping secrets. Nobody seems to have suspected the existence of an expedition to reinforce or supply Fort Sumter at the close of our administration.
The present administration had no alternative but to accept the war initiated by South Carolina or the Southern Confederacy. The North will sustain the administration almost to a man; and it ought to be sustained at all hazards.
Miss Hetty feels very much indebted to you, and you are frequently the subject of kind remembrances in our small family circle. Please to present my kind regards to Mrs. Dix.
From your friend always,
James Buchanan.
[GENERAL DIX TO MR. BUCHANAN.]
New York, April 24, 1861.