Many indications make it evident that a long factional struggle took place over the preparation of the President's message. The telegraph announced several protracted Cabinet sessions; and as early as the 21st of November the points under discussion and the attitude of the President and his several official advisers were accurately foreshadowed in the newspapers. Nor were these momentous deliberations confined to the Cabinet proper. All the varieties of suggestion and contradictory counsels which were solicited or tendered we may never learn, and yet we know enough to infer the highest extremes and antagonisms of doctrine and policy. Jefferson Davis, the future chief of the rebellion, came on the one hand at the urgent call of his fellow-conspirators; Edwin M. Stanton, afterwards Buchanan's Attorney-General and Lincoln's Secretary of War,[4] ] was on the other hand called in by Mr. Buchanan himself, to help him through, the intricate maze of his perplexed opinions and inclinations. How many others may have come voluntarily or by summons it is impossible to guess. Many brains and hands, however, must have joined in the work, since the document is such a heterogeneous medley of conflicting theories, irreconcilable doctrines, impracticable and irrelevant suggestions. For at length the hesitating and bewildered President, unable to decide and impotent to construct, seems to have made his message a patchwork from the contributions of his advisers, regular and irregular, with the inevitable effect, not to combine and strengthen, but to weaken and confuse the warring thoughts and alien systems.
Aside from the mere recapitulation of department reports, the message of President Buchanan delivered to Congress on the 4th of December occupied itself mainly with two subjects—slavery and disunion. On the question of slavery it repeated the assertions and arguments of the Buchanan faction of the Democratic party during the late Presidential campaign, charging the present peril entirely upon the North. As a remedy it recommended an amendment to the Federal Constitution expressly[5] ] recognizing slavery in States which had adopted or might adopt it, and also expressly giving it existence and protection in the Federal Territories. The proposal was simply childish. Precisely this issue had been decided at the Presidential election; to do this would be to reverse the final verdict of the ballot-box.[6] ]
On the question of disunion or secession, the message raised a vague and unwarrantable distinction between the infractions of law and allegiance by individuals, and the infractions of law and allegiance by the commonwealth, or body politic denominated a State. Under the first head it held: That the Union was designed to be perpetual; that the Federal Government is invested with sovereign powers on special subjects, which can only be opposed or abrogated by revolution; that secession is unconstitutional, and is, therefore, neither more nor less than revolution; that the Executive has no right to recognize the secession of a State; that the Constitution has established a perfect government in all its forms, legislative, executive, and judicial, and this government, to the extent of its powers, acts directly upon the individual citizen of every State and executes its own decrees by the agency of its own officers; and, finally, that the Executive cannot be absolved from his duty to execute the laws.
But, continued the President, the laws can only be executed in certain prescribed methods, through the agency of courts, marshals, posse comitatus, aided, if necessary, by the militia or land and naval forces. The means and agencies, therefore, fail, and the performance of this duty becomes impraticable, when, as in South Carolina, universal public sentiment has deprived him of courts, marshals, and posse. Present laws being inadequate to overcome a united opposition, even in a single State, Congress alone has the power to decide whether they can be effectually amended.[7] ]
It will be seen from the above summary, that the whole of the President's rambling discussion of the first head of the disunion question resulted logically in three ultimate conclusions: (1) That South Carolina was in revolt; (2) that the Constitution, the laws, and moral obligation all united gave the Government the right to suppress this revolt by executing the laws upon and against the citizens of that State; (3) that certain defects in the laws paralyzed their practical enforcement.
Up to this point in his argument, his opinions, whatever may be thought of their soundness, were confined to the legitimate field of executive interpretation, and such as in the exercise of his official discretion he might with undoubted propriety communicate to Congress. But he had apparently failed to satisfy his own conscience in thus summarily reasoning the executive and governmental power of a young, compact, vigorous, and thoroughly organized nation of thirty millions of people into sheer nothingness and impotence. How supremely absurd was the whole national panoply of commerce, credit, coinage, treaty power, judiciary, taxation, militia, army and navy, and Federal fag, if, through the mere joint of a defective law, the hollow reed of a secession ordinance could inflict a fatal wound!
Appendix, "Globe," Dec. 3, 1860, p. 3.
The President proceeds, therefore, to discuss the second head of the disunion question, by an attempt to formulate and define the powers and duties of Congress with reference to the threatened rebellion. He would not only roll the burden from his own shoulders upon the National Legislature, but he would by volunteer advice instruct that body how it must be borne and disposed of. Addressing Congress, he says in substance: "You may be called upon to decide the momentous question, whether you possess the power by force of arms to compel a State to remain in the Union.... The question, fairly stated, is: Has the Constitution delegated to Congress the power to coerce a State into submission 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.... It may be safely asserted that the power to make war against a State is at variance with the whole spirit and intent of the Constitution.... But if we possessed this power, would it be wise to exercise it under existing circumstances?... Our Union rests upon public opinion, and can never be cemented by the blood of its citizens shed in civil war.... Congress possesses many means of preserving it by conciliation; but the sword was not placed in their hand to preserve it by force."