The Great Conspiracy, Volume 2 - John Alexander Logan

We have seen how President Andrew Jackson some thirty years before, had stamped out Nullification and Disunion in South Carolina, with an iron heel.

But a weak and feeble old man—still suffering from the effects of the mysterious National Hotel poisoning—was now in the Executive Chair at the White House. Well-meaning, doubtless, and a Union man at heart, his enfeebled intellect was unable to see, and hold firm to, the only true course. He lacked clearness of perception, decision of character, and nerve. He knew Secession was wrong, but allowed himself to be persuaded that he had no Constitutional power to prevent it. He had surrounded himself in the Cabinet with such unbending adherents and tools of the Slave-Power, as Howell Cobb of Georgia, his Secretary of the Treasury, John B. Floyd of Virginia, as Secretary of War, Jacob Thompson of Mississippi, as Secretary of the Interior, and Isaac Toucy of Connecticut, as Secretary of the Navy, before whose malign influence the councils of Lewis Cass of Michigan, the Secretary of State, and other Union men, in and out of the Cabinet, were quite powerless.

When, therefore, the Congress met (December 3, 1860) and he transmitted to it his last Annual Message, it was found that, instead of treating Secession from the Jacksonian standpoint, President Buchanan feebly wailed over the threatened destruction of the Union, weakly apologized for the contemplated Treason, garrulously scolded the North as being to blame for it, and, while praying to God to "preserve the Constitution and the Union throughout all generations," wrung his nerveless hands in despair over his own powerlessness—as he construed the Constitution—to prevent Secession! Before writing his pitifully imbecile Message, President Buchanan had secured from his Attorney-General (Jeremiah S. Black of Pennsylvania) an opinion, in which the latter, after touching upon certain cases in which he believed the President would be justified in using force to sustain the Federal Laws, supposed the case of a State where all the Federal Officers had resigned and where there were neither Federal Courts to issue, nor officers to execute judicial process, and continued: "In that event, troops would certainly be out of place, and their use wholly illegal. If they are sent to aid the Courts and Marshals there must be Courts and Marshals to be aided. Without the exercise of these functions, which belong exclusively to the civil service, the laws cannot be executed in any event, no matter what may be the physical strength which the Government has at its command. Under such circumstances, to send a military force into any State, with orders to act against the people, would be simply making War upon them."

Resting upon that opinion of Attorney-General Black, President Buchanan, in his Message, after referring to the solemn oath taken by the Executive "to take care that the laws be faithfully executed," and stating that there were now no longer any Federal Officers in South Carolina, through whose agency he could keep that oath, took up the laws of February 28, 1795, and March 3, 1807, as "the only Acts of Congress on the Statute-book bearing upon the subject," which "authorize the President, after he shall have ascertained that the Marshal, with his posse comitatus, is unable to execute civil or criminal process in any particular case, to call out the Militia and employ the Army and Navy to aid him in performing this service, having first, by Proclamation, commanded the insurgents to 'disperse and retire peaceably to their respective abodes, within a limited time'"—and thereupon held that "This duty cannot, by possibility, be performed in a State where no judicial authority exists to issue process, and where there is no Marshal to execute it; and where even if there were such an officer, the entire population would constitute one solid combination to resist him." And, not satisfied with attempting to show as clearly as he seemed to know how, his own inability under the laws to stamp out Treason, he proceeded to consider what he thought Congress also could not do under the Constitution. Said he: "The question fairly stated, is: Has the Constitution delegated to Congress the power to coerce into submission a State which is attempting to withdraw, or has actually withdrawn, from the Confederacy? If answered in the affirmative, it must be on the principle that the power has been conferred upon Congress to declare and make War against a State. After much serious reflection, I have arrived at the conclusion that no such power has been delegated to Congress or to any other department of the Federal Government." And further: "Congress possesses many means of preserving it (the Union) by conciliation; but the sword was not placed in their hands to preserve it by force."

Thus, in President Buchanan's judgment, while, in another part of his Message, he had declared that no State had any right, Constitutional or otherwise, to Secede from that Union, which was designed for all time—yet, if any State concluded thus wrongfully to Secede, there existed no power in the Union, by the exercise of force, to preserve itself from instant dissolution! How imbecile the reasoning, how impotent the conclusion, compared with that of President Jackson, thirty years before, in his Proclamation against Nullification and Secession, wherein that sturdy patriot declared to the South Carolinians. that "compared to Disunion, all other evils are light, because that brings with it an accumulation of all;" that "Disunion by armed force, is Treason;" and that he was determined "to execute the Laws," and "to preserve the Union!"

President Buchanan's extraordinary Message—or so much of it as related to the perilous condition of the Union—was referred, in the House of Representatives, to a Select Committee of Thirty-three, comprising one member from each State, in which there was a very large preponderance of such as favored Conciliation without dishonor. But the debates in both Houses, in which the most violent language was indulged by the Southern Fire-eaters, as well as other events, soon proved that there was a settled purpose on the part of the Slave-Power and its adherents to resist and spit upon all attempts at placation.

In the Senate also (December 5), a Select Committee of Thirteen was appointed, to consider the impending dangers to the Union, comprising Senators Powell of Kentucky, Hunter of Virginia, Crittenden of Kentucky, Seward of New York, Toombs of Georgia, Douglas of Illinois, Collamer of Vermont, Davis of Mississippi, Wade of Ohio, Bigler of Pennsylvania, Rice of Minnesota, Doolittle of Wisconsin, and Grimes of Iowa. Their labors were alike without practical result, owing to the irreconcilable attitude of the Southrons, who would accept nothing less than a total repudiation by the Republicans of the very principles upon which the recent Presidential contest had by them been fought and won. Nor would they even accept such a repudiation unless carried by vote of the majority of the Republicans. The dose that they insisted upon the Republican Party swallowing must not only be as noxious as possible, but must absolutely be mixed by that Party itself, and in addition, that Party must also go down on its knees, and beg the privilege of so mixing and swallowing the dose! That was the impossible attitude into which, by their bullying and threats, the Slave Power hoped to force the Republican Party—either that or "War."

Project after project in both Houses of Congress looking to Conciliation was introduced, referred, reported, discussed, and voted on or not, as the case might be, in vain. And in the meantime, in New York, in Philadelphia, and elsewhere in the North, the timidity of Capital showed itself in great Conciliation meetings, where speeches were applauded and resolutions adopted of the most abject character, in behalf of "Peace, at any price," regardless of the sacrifice of honor and principles and even decency. In fact the Commercial North, with supplicating hands and beseeching face, sank on its knees in a vain attempt to propitiate its furious creditor, the South, by asking it not only to pull its nose, but to spit in its face, both of which it humbly and even anxiously offered for the purpose!*

[Thus, in Philadelphia, December 13, 1860, at a great meeting held at the call of the Mayor, in Independence Square, Mayor Henry led off the speaking—which was nearly all in the same line—by saying: "I tell you that if in any portion of our Confederacy, sentiments have been entertained and cherished which are inimical to the civil rights and social institutions of any other portion, those sentiments should be relinquished." Another speaker, Judge George W. Woodward, sneeringly asked: "Whence came these excessive sensibilities that cannot bear a few slaves in a remote Territory until the white people establish a Constitution?" Another, Mr. Charles E. Lex (a Republican), speaking of the Southern People, said: "What, then, can we say to them? what more than we have expressed in the resolutions we have offered? If they are really aggrieved by any laws upon our Statute-books opposed to their rights—if upon examination any such are found to be in conflict with the Constitution of these United States—nay, further, if they but serve to irritate our brethren of the South, whether Constitutional or not, I, for one, have no objection that they should instantly be repealed." Another said, "Let us repeal our obnoxious Personal Liberty bills * * *; let us receive our brother of the South, if he will come among us for a little time, attended by his servant, and permit him thus to come." And the resolutions adopted were even still more abject in tone than the speeches.]