Twenty Years of Congress, Vol. 1 / From Lincoln to Garfield, with a Review of the Events Which Led to the Political Revolution of 1860

by James Gillespie Blaine

Having made his argument in favor of the right of "Revolution," Mr. Buchanan proceeded to argue ably and earnestly against the assumption by any State of an inherent right to secede from the government at its own will and pleasure. But he utterly destroyed the force of his reasoning by declaring that "after much serious reflection" he had arrived at "the conclusion that no power has been delegated to Congress, or to any other department of the Federal Government, to coerce a State into submission which is attempting to withdraw, or has actually withdrawn," from the Union. He emphasized his position by further declaring that, "so far from this power having been delegated to Congress, it was expressly refused by the convention which framed the Constitution." Congress "possesses many means," Mr. Buchanan added, "of preserving the Union by conciliation; but the sword was not placed in their hands to preserve it by force."

The fatal admission was thus evolved from the mind of the President, that any State which thought itself aggrieved and could not secure the concessions demanded, might bring the Government down in ruins. The power to destroy was in the State. The power to preserve was not in the Nation. The President apparently failed to see that if the Nation could not be preserved by force, its legal capacity for existence was dependent upon the concurring and continuing will of all the individual States. The original bond of union was, therefore, for the day only, and the provision of the Constitution which gave to the Supreme Court jurisdiction in controversies between States was binding no further than the States chose to accept the decisions of the Court.

The difference between the President and the Secessionists of the South was a difference of opinion as to the time for action, and as to the name by which that action should be called. In principle there was concurrence. The President insisted that the injured party should appeal to the aggressor, and then to the courts, with the reserved right of revolution always in view and to be exercised if neither the aggressor nor the courts furnished satisfactory redress. The President recognized the reserved right of revolution in the States, and it was a necessary incident of that right that each State might decide when the right should be exercised. He suggested that, as justification of revolution, the Federal Government must be guilty of "a deliberate, palpable, and dangerous exercise" of powers not granted by the Constitution, quoting from the text of the State-rights declaration by Virginia in 1798. But in all his arguments he left the State to be the ultimate judge of the constitutionality of the Acts of the Federal Government. Under these doctrines the Government of the United States was shorn of all power to preserve its own existence, and the Union might crumble and fall while its constituted authorities stood paralyzed and impotent.

This construction was all that the extremists of the South desired. With so much conceded, they had every thing in their own hands. They could march out of the Union at their own will and caprice, without resistance from the National Government, and they could come back upon such conditions as, with the President's aid, they might extort from an alarmed and weakening North. Assured by the language of the President that they could with impunity defy the constitutional authority of the government, the Secessionists were immeasurably encouraged. The Southern men had for three generations been cherishing the belief that they were as a class superior to Northern men, and they were more than ever confirmed in this pleasing illusion when they saw a Northern President, with the power of the nation in his hands, deliberately affirming that he could exercise no authority over or against them.

Men who, under the wholesome restraint of executive power, would have refrained from taking aggressive steps against the National Government, were by Mr. Buchanan's action forced into a position of hostility. Men in the South, who were disposed to avoid extreme measures, were by taunt and reproach driven into the ranks of Secession. They were made to believe, after the President's message, that the South would be ruined if she did not assert a position which the National authority confessed it had no right and no means to contest. The Republicans had been taunting Southern men with the intention of using only bluster and bravado, and if they should now fail to take a decisive step in the direction of Disunion, they felt that it would be a humiliating retraction of all they had said in the long struggle over slavery. It would be an invitation to the Abolitionists and fanatics of the North, to deal hereafter with the South, and with the question of slavery, in whatever manner might seem good in their sight. No weapon of logic could have been more forcible; and, wielded as it was by Southern leaders with skill and courage, they were able to consolidate the public opinion and control the political action of their section.

The evil effects of Mr. Buchanan's message were not confined to the slave States. It did incalculable harm in the free States. It fixed in the minds of tens of thousands of Northern men who were opposed to the Republican party, the belief that the South was justified in taking steps to break up the government, if what they termed a war on Southern institutions should be continued. This feeling had in turn a most injurious influence in the South, and stimulated thousands in that section to a point of rashness which they would never have reached but for the sympathy and support constantly extended to them from the North. Even if a conflict of arms should be the ultimate result of the Secession movement, its authors and its deluded followers were made to believe that, against a South entirely united, there would be opposed a North hopelessly divided. They were confident that the Democratic party in the free States held the views expressed in Mr. Buchanan's message. They had conclusively persuaded themselves that the Democrats, together with a large proportion of the conservative men in the North who had supported Mr. Bell for the Presidency, would oppose an "abolition war," and would prove a distracting and destructive force in the rear of the Union army if it should ever commence its march Southward.

THE SECRETARY OF STATE RESIGNS.

The most alarming feature of the situation to reflecting men in the North was that, so far as known, all the members of Mr. Buchanan's Cabinet approved the destructive doctrines of the message. But as the position of the President was subjected to examination and criticism by the Northern press, uneasiness was manifested in Administration circles. It was seen that if the course foreshadowed by Mr. Buchanan should be followed, the authority of the Union would be compelled to retreat before the usurpations of seceding States, and that a powerful government might be quietly overthrown, without striking one blow of resistance, or uttering one word of protest. General Cass was the first of the Cabinet to feel the pressure of loyalty from the North. The venerable Secretary of State, whose whole life had been one of patriotic devotion to his country, suddenly realized that he was in a false position. When it became known that the President would not insist upon the collection of the national revenue in South Carolina, or upon the strengthening of the United-States forts in the harbor of Charleston, General Cass concluded that justice to his own reputation required him to separate from the Administration. He resigned on the twelfth of December,—nine days after Mr. Buchanan had sent his fatal message to Congress.

CHARACTER AND CONDUCT OF JUDGE BLACK.

Judge Black, who had from the beginning of the Administration been Mr. Buchanan's chief adviser, now became so by rank as the successor of General Cass in the State Department. He was a man of remarkable character. He was endowed by nature with a strong understanding and a strong will. In the profession of the law he had attained great eminence. His learning had been illustrated by a prolonged service on the bench before the age at which men, even of exceptional success at the bar, usually attract public observation. He had added to his professional studies, which were laborious and conscientious, a wide acquaintance with our literature, and had found in its walks a delight which is yielded to few. In history, biography, criticism, romance, he had absorbed every thing in our language worthy of attention. Shakspeare, Milton, indeed all the English poets, were his familiar companions. There was not a disputed passage or an obscure reading in any one of the great plays upon which he could not off-hand quote the best renderings, and throw original light from his own illumined mind. Upon theology he had apparently bestowed years of investigation and reflection. A sincere Christian, he had been a devout and constant student of the Bible, and could quote its passages and apply its teachings with singular readiness and felicity. To this generous store of knowledge he added fluency of speech, both in public address and private communication, and a style of writing which was at once unique, powerful, and attractive. He had attained unto every excellence of mental discipline described by Lord Byron. Reading had made him a full man, talking a ready man, writing an exact man. The judicial literature of the English tongue may be sought in vain for finer models than are found in the opinions of Judge Black when he sat, and was worthy to sit, as the associate of John Bannister Gibson, on the Supreme Bench of Pennsylvania.