WASHINGTON, _February 8, 1861_.
_To the Senate and House of Representatives_:
I deemed it a duty to transmit to Congress with my message of the 8th of
January the correspondence which occurred in December last between the
"commissioners" of South Carolina and myself.
Since that period, on the 14th of January, Colonel Isaac W. Hayne, the
attorney-general of South Carolina, called and informed me that he was
the bearer of a letter from Governor Pickens to myself which he would
deliver the next day. He was, however, induced by the interposition of
Hon. Jefferson Davis and nine other Senators from the seceded and
seceding States not to deliver it on the day appointed, nor was it
communicated to me until the 31st of January, with his letter of that
date. Their letter to him urging this delay bears date January 15, and
was the commencement of a correspondence, the whole of which in my
possession I now submit to Congress. A reference to each letter of the
series in proper order accompanies this message.