CHAPTER XVIII._Life of James Buchanan, Fifteenth President of the United States. v. 2 (of 2)

1860—December.

GENERAL SCOTT AGAIN ADVISES THE PRESIDENT—MAJOR ANDERSON'S REMOVAL

FROM FORT MOULTRIE TO FORT SUMTER—ARRIVAL OF COMMISSIONERS FROM

SOUTH CAROLINA IN WASHINGTON—THEIR INTERVIEW AND COMMUNICATION

WITH THE PRESIDENT—THE SUPPOSED PLEDGE OF THE STATUS QUO—THE

“CABINET CRISIS” OF DECEMBER 29TH—REPLY OF THE PRESIDENT TO THE

SOUTH CAROLINA COMMISSIONERS—THE ANONYMOUS DIARIST OF THE NORTH

AMERICAN REVIEW CONFUTED.

On the 12th of December General Scott arrived in Washington from New

York, where he had been ill for a long time. Since the presentation

of his “views” of October 29th-30th, the President had not heard

from him on the subject of the Southern forts. On the 11th of

December Major Anderson, then at Fort Moultrie, and in no danger of

attack or molestation by the authorities of South Carolina, had

received his instructions from Major Buell, Assistant Adjutant

General of the Army, who had been sent by the President expressly to

Fort Moultrie, in order that Anderson might be guided in his course

with reference to all probable contingencies.[83] The South Carolina

convention had not assembled when Anderson received his

instructions. General Scott, on the 15th of December, had an

interview with the President, in which he urged that three hundred

men be sent to reinforce Anderson at Fort Moultrie. The President

declined to give this order, for the following reasons: First,

Anderson was fully instructed what to do in case he should at any

time see good reason to believe that there was any purpose to

dispossess him of any of the forts. Secondly, at this time, December

15th, the President believed—and the event proved the correctness of

his belief—that Anderson was in no danger of attack. He and his

command were then treated with marked kindness by the authorities

and people of Charleston. Thirdly, the President, in his annual

message, had urged upon Congress measures of conciliation by the

adoption of certain amendments of the Constitution; and Mr.

Crittenden’s propositions, of substantially the same character as

those of the President, called the “Crittenden Compromise,” were

before the Senate. Strong hopes were at this time entertained

throughout the country that Congress would adopt these or some other

measures to quiet the agitation in the South, so that South

Carolina, in case she should “secede,” would be left alone in her

course. Under all these circumstances, to have sent additional

troops to Fort Moultrie would only have been, as Mr. Buchanan

afterward said, “to impair the hope of compromise, to provoke

collision and disappoint the country.”[84]

Footnote 83:

The instructions will be quoted hereafter.

Footnote 84:

See the controversy between General Scott and Mr. Buchanan in

1862; Mr. Buchanan’s letter of October 28, 1862.

On the same day, General Scott sent a note to the President,

reminding him of General Jackson’s measures in regard to the

threatened nullification of the tariff in 1833; an occasion, the

circumstances of which bore little resemblance to the situation of

the country in December, 1860, as I have already had reason to say

in commenting on General Scott’s “views” of October 29th-30th.

In the controversy which General Scott had with Mr. Buchanan in

1862, in the _National Intelligencer_, the General reported the

President as saying to him, on the 15th of December, 1860, among

other reasons for not reinforcing Anderson at that time, that he

should await the action of the South Carolina convention, in the

expectation that a commission would be appointed and sent to

negotiate with _him_ (the President) and Congress, respecting the

secession of the State, and the property of the United States within

the borders of that State; and that if Congress should decide

against the secession, he would then send a reinforcement, and would

telegraph to Anderson to hold the forts against any attack. General

Scott made two palpable mistakes in thus representing what the

President said to him on the 15th of December, 1860.[85] In the

first place, as will presently appear, the President never gave any

person or persons claiming to represent South Carolina to understand

that he would receive a commission to negotiate with _him_ for an

admission of the right of secession, or for a surrender of the

forts. In his annual message, he had most distinctly and

emphatically declared that, as an executive officer, he had no power

whatever to hold such a negotiation, but that it belonged to

Congress to deal with the property of the United States as it should

see fit; and that it was his duty to maintain the possession of the

forts until Congress should authorize and direct him to surrender

them. When commissioners were subsequently appointed by the State of

South Carolina, they were told by the President that he could not

receive them in a diplomatic character, and that he would not

himself negotiate with them for a surrender of the forts. In the

next place, the President could not have told General Scott that he

would send a reinforcement to Anderson in a certain contingency, and

would then telegraph him to hold the forts. Anderson had already

received instructions to hold them, and had been directed how to

act.

Footnote 85:

Mr. Buchanan said, in 1862, that he had no recollection of some of

the details of the conversation imputed to him by General Scott,

and that the General’s memory must be defective. See Mr.

Buchanan’s letters of 1862, in the _National Intelligencer_.

Mr. Buchanan has said—and it deserves to be quoted—that “it is

scarcely a lack of charity to infer that General Scott knew at the

time he made this recommendation (on the 15th of December), that it

must be rejected. The President could not have complied with it, the

position of affairs remaining unchanged, without at once reversing

his entire policy, and without a degree of inconsistency amounting

almost to self-stultification.” He adds:

This, the General’s second recommendation, was wholly unexpected.

He had remained silent for more than six weeks from the date of

his supplemental “views,” convinced, as the President inferred,

that he had abandoned the idea of garrisoning all these forts with

“the five companies only” within his reach. Had the President

never so earnestly desired to reinforce the nine forts in

question, at this time, it would have been little short of madness

to undertake the task with the small force at his command. Without

authority to call forth the militia, or accept the services of

volunteers for the purpose, this whole force now consisted of six

hundred recruits, obtained by the General since the date of his

“views,” in addition to the five regular companies. Our army was

still out of reach on the remote frontiers, and could not be

withdrawn during midwinter in time for this military operation.

Indeed, the General had never suggested such a withdrawal. He knew

that had this been possible, the inhabitants on our distant

frontiers would have been immediately exposed to the tomahawk and

scalping knife of the Indians.

While he was unwilling at this moment to send reinforcements into

the harbor of Charleston, and thereby to incur the risk of provoking

the secession of other States, the President did not neglect the use

of any means that were in his power to prevent the secession of

South Carolina. He sent the Hon. Caleb Cushing to Charleston, with a

letter to Governor Pickens, in which he said:

From common notoriety I assume the fact that the State of South

Carolina is now deliberating on the propriety and necessity of

seceding from the Union. Whilst any hope remains that this may be

prevented, or even retarded, so long as to enable the people of

her sister States to have opportunity to manifest their opinion

regarding the matters which may have impelled the State to take

this step, it is my duty to exert all the means in my power to

avoid so dread a catastrophe. I have, therefore, deemed it

advisable to send to you the Hon. Caleb Cushing, to counsel and

advise with you, in regard to the premises, and to communicate

such information as he may possess concerning the condition of

public opinion in the North touching the same. I need scarcely

add, that I entertain full confidence in his integrity, ability,

and prudence. He will state to you the reasons which exist to

prevent, or to delay, the action of the State for the purpose

which I have mentioned.

But notwithstanding the efforts of the President to induce the

authorities and people of South Carolina to await the action of

Congress and the development of public opinion at the North on the

recommendations of his message, events were hurrying on in that

State with fearful rapidity. The leading spirits in the

secession movement did not desire the success of the President’s

recommendations. Encouraged, not by anything that they could find in

the message, or by anything that they could learn of the President’s

intentions, but by what they had learned of the “views” of the

General in Chief of the Federal army, and by other indications of

the same kind, they determined to try secession, in the belief that

the people and Government of the United States would not resort to

war. They initiated and conducted their measures with a supreme and

lofty disregard of all the consequences, because they believed that

they could throw the onus of those consequences upon the Government

of the Union. It was in vain that they were warned by the President

that their doctrine of secession, pushed to its results, would

oblige him to meet their claim, by virtue of a State ordinance, of

dispossessing the United States of the property which belonged to

the Government, with all the means at his disposal. It is one of the

most singular political phenomena recorded in history, that under

such a system of Government as ours, men should have believed not

only that a State ordinance of secession would dissolve all the

relations between the inhabitants of that State and the Government

of the United States, but that it would _ipso facto_ transfer to the

State property which the State had ceded to that Government by

solemn deeds of conveyance. The principle of public law on which

this claim was supposed to be based, involved in its application the

assumption that South Carolina, becoming by her own declaration a

nation foreign to the United States, was entitled to take peaceable

possession of all the property which the United States held within

her limits, and to forbid the vessels of the United States from

entering her waters in order to reach that property. Upon any view

of the nature of the Federal Constitution, even upon the theory that

it was a mere league between sovereign States, dissoluble in regard

to any State at the will of its people, it would not have followed

that the ordinance of dissolution would divest the title of the

United States to their property. Yet it is an undeniable fact that

the people and authorities of South Carolina initiated and carried

out their secession, upon the claim that their interpretation of the

Federal Constitution must be accepted by the whole country; that

their fiat alone made them an independent nation; that it divested

the United States of whatever property the Government held within

their borders; and that if these claims were not submitted to, the

consequence would be that South Carolina must make them good by all

the power she could use. The subsequent change of attitude, by which

it was proposed to negotiate and pay for the possession of the

property, or the theory that the forts were built by the Federal

Government for the protection of the State, should not lead any

historian to overlook the demand which the authorities of the State

first presented at Washington, or the manner in which it was met by

President Buchanan.

On the 20th of December, the Convention of South Carolina, without a

dissenting voice, adopted an ordinance of secession, which purported

to dissolve the connection between the State of South Carolina and

the Government of the United States. A copy of the ordinance, with

the signatures of all the members, and with the great seal of the

State, was formally transmitted to the President. On the 22d, three

eminent citizens of the State, Robert W. Barnwell, James H. Adams

and James L. Orr, were appointed to proceed to Washington, to treat

with the Government of the United States concerning the new

relations which the ordinance was supposed to have established

between that Government and the people of South Carolina. The

commissioners arrived in Washington on the 26th. On the next

morning, intelligence reached them that on the night of the 25th,

Major Anderson had secretly dismantled Fort Moultrie, spiked his

cannon, burnt his gun-carriages, and transferred his troops to Fort

Sumter, as if he were about to be attacked. This information they

sent to the President.

Before proceeding with an account of what followed this occurrence,

in the interview between the President and the commissioners, this

movement of Major Anderson must be carefully described. It has been

much praised as a bold, skillful and wise act, dictated by a purpose

to make the people of South Carolina feel that the Government of the

United States was not to be trifled with; and the merit of Major

Anderson has been magnified by the suggestion that if he had been

promptly reinforced, after the removal, he never would have been

driven out of Fort Sumter and out of the harbor of Charleston. The

simple truth is, that Anderson was a brave, vigilant and faithful

officer, acting under instructions which had been carefully given to

him, and which allowed him a considerable latitude of judgment in

regard to remaining in Fort Moultrie or removing to any other of the

forts within the limits of his command. He was a man of Southern

birth, and all his sympathies were with the South on the questions

pending between the two sections. This is avowed in a private letter

written by him on the 11th of January, 1861, to a friend in

Washington, a copy of which is now lying before me. But he was as

true as steel to his military duty as an officer of the United

States. He had lost, as he says in this letter, all sympathy with

the persons then governing South Carolina, and he had now begun to

distrust the purposes of the State authorities. Fort Moultrie was

the weakest of all the forts in that harbor belonging to the United

States. From the erection of batteries on the shore which commanded

this fort, and from other indications taking place after the

adoption of the secession ordinance, Anderson believed that the

State authorities were about to proceed to some hostile act, and

therefore thought the contingency contemplated by his instructions

had arrived. He may have been mistaken in this; but neither the

appearances at the time, nor the subsequent action of South

Carolina, show that he was so. At all events, he acted as any

prudent and faithful officer would have acted under the same

circumstances; and in order to be able to defend himself better than

he could in Fort Moultrie, and with no purpose of attacking the city

of Charleston or of making any aggression whatever, he transferred

his command to Fort Sumter. The people and authorities of South

Carolina chose to consider that his occupation of this fort was an

aggressive act, and that he must be ordered back again to Fort

Moultrie, or be dislodged; a demand which of itself shows that the

State of South Carolina, in the event that her secession should not

be submitted to by the Federal Government, expected a civil war and

meant to be in the best condition to meet it.

The intelligence of Anderson’s removal to Fort Sumter was received

by the President with surprise and regret. He was surprised, because

all his previous information led him to believe that Anderson was

safe at Fort Moultrie. He regretted the removal, because of its

tendency to impel the other cotton States and the border States into

sympathy with South Carolina, and thus to defeat the measures by

which he hoped to confine the secession to that State. But he never

for an instant, then or afterwards, doubted that Anderson’s removal

was authorized by his instructions; although he did not suppose that

the authorities of the State would attack him, while their

commissioners were on the way to Washington for the avowed purpose

of negotiating. It is scarcely needful to discuss the question

whether South Carolina had good reason to regard this movement of

Anderson’s as an act of aggression. In such a state of affairs and

of men’s feelings, it was to be expected that complaints would be

made of hostile intentions, if any plausible reason could be found

for them. But any indifferent person, looking back upon the events,

and considering that Anderson was acting under a President who was

doing everything in his power to prevent a collision of arms, must

see that even if the President had specifically ordered the removal,

it was nothing more than a defensive act, done in order to secure

the forces of the Government in the occupation of its own forts, and

that it could not have been an aggressive movement, unless it should

be conceded that those forces had no right to be in Charleston

harbor at all.

But there is one assertion which it is now necessary to examine, in

relation to this removal, because it has been made the foundation of

a charge against the personal good faith and the sound judgment of

President Buchanan. It is the charge that previous to Anderson’s

removal, the President had pledged himself to preserve the _status

quo_ in Charleston harbor, until commissioners to be appointed by

the convention of South Carolina should arrive in Washington, and

some result of a negotiation should be reached. The first and only

interview between the President and the commissioners occurred on

the 28th of December. What occurred should be related in the

President’s own words:

It was under these circumstances that the President, on Friday,

the 28th December, held his first and only interview with the

commissioners from South Carolina. He determined to listen with

patience to what they had to communicate, taking as little part

himself in the conversation as civility would permit. On their

introduction, he stated that he could recognize them only as

private gentlemen and not as commissioners from a sovereign State;

that it was to Congress, and to Congress alone, they must appeal.

He, nevertheless, expressed his willingness to communicate to that

body, as the only competent tribunal, any propositions they might

have to offer. They then proceeded, evidently under much

excitement, to state their grievances arising out of the removal

of Major Anderson to Fort Sumter, and declared that for these they

must obtain redress preliminary to entering upon the negotiation

with which they had been entrusted; that it was impossible for

them to make any proposition until this removal should be

satisfactorily explained; and they even insisted upon the

immediate withdrawal of the Major and his troops, not only from

Fort Sumter, but from the harbor of Charleston, as a _sine qua

non_ to any negotiation.

In their letter to the President of the next day, they repeat

their demand, saying;[86] “And, in conclusion, we would urge upon

you the immediate withdrawal of the troops from the harbor of

Charleston. Under present circumstances they are a standing menace

which renders negotiation impossible, and, as our recent

experience shows, threatens to bring to a bloody issue questions

which ought to be settled with temperance and judgment.” This

demand, accompanied by an unmistakable threat of attacking Major

Anderson if not yielded to, was of the most extravagant character.

To comply with it, the commissioners must have known, would be

impossible. Had they simply requested that Major Anderson might be

restored to his former position at Fort Moultrie, upon a guarantee

from the State that neither it nor the other forts or public

property should be molested; this, at the moment, might have been

worthy of serious consideration. But to abandon all the forts to

South Carolina, on the demand of commissioners claiming to

represent her as an independent State, would have been a

recognition, on the part of the Executive, of her right to secede

from the Union. This was not to be thought of for a moment.

Footnote 86:

Ex. Doc., H. R., vol. vi, No. 26, p 6.

The President replied to the letter of the commissioners on

Monday, 31st December. In the meantime information had reached him

that the State authorities, without waiting to hear from

Washington, had, on the day after Major Anderson’s removal, seized

Fort Moultrie, Castle Pinckney, the custom house, and post office,

and over them all had raised the Palmetto flag; and, moreover,

that every officer of the customs, collector, naval officer,

surveyor, appraisers, together with the postmaster, had resigned

their appointments; and that on Sunday, the 30th December, they

had captured from Major Humphreys, the officer in charge, the

arsenal of the United States, containing public property estimated

to be worth half a million of dollars. The Government was thus

expelled from all its property except Fort Sumter, and no Federal

officers, whether civil or military, remained in the city or

harbor of Charleston. The secession leaders in Congress attempted

to justify these violent proceedings of South Carolina as acts of

self-defence, on the assumption that Major Anderson had already

commenced hostilities. It is certain that their tone instantly

changed after his removal; and they urged its secrecy, the hour of

the night when it was made, the destruction of his gun-carriages,

and other attendant incidents, to inflame the passions of their

followers. It was under these circumstances that the President was

called upon to reply to the letter of the South Carolina

commissioners, demanding the immediate withdrawal of the troops of

the United States from the harbor of Charleston. In this reply, he

peremptorily rejected the demand in firm but courteous terms, and

declared his purpose to defend Fort Sumter by all the means in his

power against hostile attacks, from whatever quarter they might

proceed. (_Vide_ his letter of the 31st December, 1860, Ex. Doc.

No. 26, H. R., 36th Congress, 2d Session, accompanying President’s

message of 8th January, 1861.) To this the commissioners sent

their answer, dated on the 2d January, 1861. This was so violent,

unfounded, and disrespectful, and so regardless of what is due to

any individual whom the people have honored with the office of

President, that the reading of it in the cabinet excited

indignation among all the members. With their unanimous

approbation it was immediately, on the day of its date, returned

to the commissioners with the following indorsement; “This paper,

just presented to the President, is of such a character, that he

declines to receive it.” Surely no negotiation was ever conducted

in such a manner, unless, indeed, it had been the predetermined

purpose of the negotiators to produce an open and immediate

rupture.

In the intended reply of the commissioners, dated January 2, 1861,

which the President returned to them, it was asserted in a variety

of offensive forms that the removal of Major Anderson to Fort Sumter

was a violation of a pledge which the President had previously given

not to send reinforcements to the forts in Charleston harbor, and

not to change their relative military status. The same thing had

been asserted in their letter to the President of December 28th, and

it was emphatically and distinctly denied in his answer of the 31st.

Is it true, then, as a matter of fact, that such a pledge had ever

been given?

1. By his annual message of December 3d, the President stood pledged

to the country to exercise all his constitutional powers to maintain

possession of the public property, in case of the secession of any

State or States. 2. There is no possible channel through which the

President could have given the supposed pledge of the _status quo_,

excepting at an interview which took place between him and the South

Carolina members of Congress on the 10th of December. If the

President then gave such a pledge, it follows that at the end of a

week from the date of his annual message he tied his own hands, in

advance of the secession of that State, in a manner utterly

inconsistent with the purpose declared in his message. 3. The

circumstances attending Major Anderson’s removal from Fort Moultrie

to Fort Sumter, and the manner in which the President received and

acted upon the information after it reached him and down through

every succeeding day of his administration, repel the idea that

before the removal he had said or done anything to warrant the

authorities of South Carolina in assuming that he was bound to order

Anderson back to Fort Moultrie, or not to reinforce him at Fort

Sumter. Anderson received his instructions on the 11th of December,

through Assistant Adjutant General Buell, to whom they were given

verbally by the Secretary of War, and by whom they were reduced to

writing, at Fort Moultrie, after he (Buell) arrived there. When

reduced to writing, they became the President’s orders, by which

Anderson was to be guided. The orders were given with reference to

the following contingency: The President believed that, under

existing circumstances, the State of South Carolina would not attack

any of the forts in Charleston harbor, whilst he allowed their

_status quo_ to remain. But in this he might be mistaken. In order

to be prepared for what might possibly happen after the State should

have “seceded,” the Secretary of the Navy had stationed the war

steamer Brooklyn, in complete readiness for sea, in Hampton Roads,

to take on board for Charleston three hundred disciplined troops,

with provisions and munitions of war, from the neighboring garrison

of Fortress Monroe. In this attitude of the secret preparations of

the Government, Anderson’s instructions were given to him, in the

manner above described, and when they had been reduced to writing

and delivered to him by Buell, they read textually as follows:

You are aware of the great anxiety of the Secretary of War, that a

collision of the troops with the people of the State shall be

avoided, and of his studied determination to pursue a course with

reference to the military force and forts in this harbor, which

shall guard against such a collision. He has, therefore, carefully

abstained from increasing the force at this point, or taking any

measures which might add to the present excited state of the

public mind, or which would throw any doubt on the confidence he

feels that South Carolina will not attempt by violence to obtain

possession of the public works, or interfere with their occupancy.

But as the counsel and acts of rash and impulsive persons may

possibly disappoint these expectations of the Government, he deems

it proper that you shall be prepared with instructions to meet so

unhappy a contingency. He has, therefore, directed me verbally to

give you such instructions. You are carefully to avoid every act

which would needlessly tend to provoke aggression, and for that

reason you are not, without evident and imminent necessity, to

take up any position which could be construed into the assumption

of a hostile attitude, but you are to hold possession of the forts

in this harbor, and if attacked you are to defend yourself to the

last extremity. The smallness of your force will not permit you,

perhaps, to occupy more than one of the three forts, but an attack

on or an attempt to take possession of either one of them will be

regarded as an act of hostility, and you may then put your command

into either of them which you may deem most proper to increase its

power of resistance. You are also authorized to take similar

defensive steps whenever you have tangible evidence of a design to

proceed to a hostile act.

The President, when the text of the instructions reached him,

directed the Secretary of War to modify them in one particular.

Instead of requiring Anderson to defend himself to the last

extremity—which was not demanded by any principle of honor or any

military rule—he was required to defend himself until no reasonable

hope should remain of saving the fort in which he might happen to

be. This modification was approved by General Scott.

The instructions, therefore, under which Anderson acted, authorized

him to remove his force to any other of the three forts whenever

either of them should be attacked, or an attempt should be made to

take possession of it, or whenever he might have tangible evidence

of a design to proceed to a hostile act. In all this, the Government

was acting on the defensive, and was empowering its officer to put

his force into either of its forts where, in his judgment, his power

of resistance would be most increased. To suppose, therefore, that

after these instructions had gone to Anderson, the President made an

agreement with certain members of Congress from South Carolina, that

the _status quo_ in Charleston harbor, in respect to the three

forts, should not be changed, is to suppose something in the highest

degree incredible.

4th. The communication between the President and the South Carolina

members of Congress was both in writing and in two personal

interviews. The written communication remains. Of what took place at

the last interview there is an account by Mr. Buchanan himself,

founded on memoranda which he made immediately after these gentlemen

had left his presence. The first personal interview took place on

the 8th of December. The conversation related to the best means of

avoiding a hostile collision between the Federal Government and the

State of South Carolina. The President desired that the verbal

communication should be put in writing, and brought to him in that

form. Accordingly on the 10th of December, the same gentlemen

brought to him the following letter, signed by five members of

Congress from South Carolina, and dated on the previous day:

TO HIS EXCELLENCY JAMES BUCHANAN,

PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES:

In compliance with our statement to you yesterday, we now express

to you our strong convictions that neither the constituted

authorities nor any body of the people of the State of South

Carolina will either attack or molest the United States forts in

the harbor of Charleston previously to the action of the

convention, and we hope and believe, not until an offer has been

made through an accredited representative to negotiate for an

amicable arrangement of all matters between the State and the

Federal Government, provided that no reinforcements shall be sent

into those forts, and their relative military status remain as at

present.

JOHN MCQUEEN,

WM. PORCHER MILES,

M. L. BONHAM,

W. W. BOYCE,

LAWRENCE M. KEITT.

WASHINGTON, December 9, 1860.

The following memorandum is indorsed upon the original letter, in

the handwriting of the President:

Monday morning, 10th December, 1860, the within paper was

presented to me by Messrs. McQueen, Miles and Bonham. I objected

to the word “provided,” as this might be construed into an

agreement on my part which I never would make. They said nothing

was further from their intention. They did not so understand it,

and I should not so consider it. Afterwards, Messrs. McQueen and

Bonham called, in behalf of the delegation, and gave me the most

positive assurance that the forts and public property would not be

molested until after commissioners had been appointed to treat

with the Federal Government in relation to the public property,

and until the decision was known. I informed them that what would

be done was a question for Congress and not for the Executive.

That if they [the forts] were assailed, this would put them

completely in the wrong, and making them the authors of the civil

war. They gave the same assurances to Messrs. Floyd, Thompson and

others.

Mr. Buchanan’s subsequent account of the interview at which this

letter was delivered to him in person, reads as follows:

Both in this and in their previous conversation, they declared

that in making this statement, they were acting solely on their

own responsibility, and expressly disclaimed any authority to bind

their State. They, nevertheless, expressed the confident belief

that they would be sustained both by the State authorities and by

the convention, after it should assemble. Although the President

considered this declaration as nothing more than the act of five

highly respectable members of the House from South Carolina, yet

he welcomed it as a happy omen, that by means of their influence

collision might be prevented, and time afforded to all parties for

reflection and for a peaceable adjustment. From abundant caution,

however, he objected to the word “provided” in their statement,

lest, if he should accept it without remark, this might possibly

be construed into an agreement on his part not to reinforce the

forts. Such an agreement, he informed them, he would never make.

It would be impossible for him, from the nature of his official

responsibility, thus to tie his own hands and restrain his own

freedom of action. Still, they might have observed from his

message, that he had no present design, under existing

circumstances, to change the condition of the forts at Charleston.

He must, notwithstanding, be left entirely free to exercise his

own discretion, according to exigencies as they might arise. They

replied that nothing was further from their intention than such a

construction of this word; they did not so understand it, and he

should not so consider it.[87]

Footnote 87:

This account, although written and published in 1866 (Buchanan’s

Defence, p. 167), was founded on and embodied the substance of the

private memorandum made by the President on the back of the

letter, immediately after the termination of the interview. Two of

the gentlemen who signed the letter, Messrs. Miles and Keitt,

published at Charleston an account of this interview, in which

they did not intimate that anything in the nature of a pledge

passed on either side. (See Appleton’s “American Annual

Cyclopedia” for 1861, p. 703.)

No one, therefore, I presume, will now question that I am fully

justified in asserting, as I do, that Mr. Buchanan gave no pledge,

express or implied, formal or informal, that no reinforcements

should be sent into Charleston harbor, or that the military status,

as it existed at the time of this interview, should remain

unchanged, or that he in any way fettered himself on the

subject.[88] To have done so in advance of the action of the South

Carolina convention, or at any other time, would have been an act of

inconsistency and folly quite beyond anything that the worst enemy

of the President could have ever desired to impute to him.

Footnote 88:

Mr. Jefferson Davis, although not directly asserting that the

President gave any pledge not to send reinforcements or not to

permit the military _status_ to be changed, says that “the South

Carolinians understood Mr. Buchanan as approving of that

suggestion, although declining to make any formal pledge;” and he

adds, that after Anderson’s removal from Moultrie to Sumter, the

authorities and people of South Carolina considered it “as a

violation of the implied pledge of a maintenance of the _status

quo_,” and he gives this as a reason why the remaining forts and

other public property were at once seized by the State. (Davis,

Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government, I., 212-213.) If the

South Carolina members of Congress told Mr. Davis that the

President assented to or approved of their _proviso_, they told

him what was not true. He does not say that they ever did tell him

so. If they gave their own people and State authorities to

understand that there was any implied pledge of a maintenance of

the _status quo_, the fact was exactly the other way. They have

never said that they gave their people and authorities so to

understand Mr. Buchanan’s language.

But the South Carolina commissioners having asserted in their letter

of December 28th, that the removal of Major Anderson from Moultrie

to Sumter was a violation of a pledge that had been given by the

President, it became important that the denial should instantly

follow the assertion. The President, relying not only on his

recollection, but on his written memoranda of his conversation with

the South Carolina members of Congress, which completely refuted the

assertion, did not, in the first draft of an answer to the

commissioners, which he prepared with his own hand, repel the

assertion as flatly and explicitly as he might have done. He

evidently did not at once see that unless he expressly and pointedly

denied the assertion, he might be construed as giving an implied

assent to it. He was considering how he could best carry on this

conference with persons whom he could not receive in the official

character in which they came, and with whom he could only deal as

distinguished citizens of South Carolina; and his first attention

was directed to the means of convincing _them_ that the people of

South Carolina could have no excuse for breaking the peace, because

it was not his purpose to reinforce Major Anderson unless the

authorities of the State should make it absolutely necessary to do

so. But to three members of his cabinet, Judge Black, Mr. Holt, and

Mr. Stanton, the omission of the President to give a pointed and

explicit denial to the assertion of a pledge not to change the

military status, appeared a fatal defect in the paper which the

President had drawn up. They were also apprehensive that the first

and the concluding paragraph of his proposed answer would be

regarded as acknowledging the right of South Carolina to be

represented near the Government of the United States by diplomatic

officers, as if she were a foreign nation. As the draft of an answer

which the President had prepared is not in existence, and as the

paper of objections presented by Judge Black to the President did

not quote the paragraphs objected to, although that paper has been

preserved, it is impossible to judge how far the criticism was

right, or was called for. Certain it is that at the first and only

interview which the President had with those commissioners, he told

them in the plainest terms that he could only recognize them as

private gentlemen, and not as commissioners of an independent State.

He also told them that as to any surrender to South Carolina of the

forts, within her limits, or any propositions concerning a sale of

them, he, as President, had no authority, and that the only tribunal

to which they could apply was Congress. I am inclined to believe

that it was the repetition of this suggestion of an appeal to

Congress, which caused the three members of the cabinet to fear that

the paragraphs to which they objected might be considered as

implicitly yielding to the commissioners the point of their

diplomatic character. But it is not necessary to speculate about

this, because the President’s draft of an answer is no longer

accessible, and because it is evident from all that occurred that

the President, in drawing up that form of his answer, meant to hold

open a door to the commissioners which it would be perfectly proper

for him to allow them to enter, if they chose. He meant to give them

an opportunity to stipulate that if Major Anderson were restored to

his former position, their State would not molest either Fort

Moultrie or any of the other forts or property of the United States.

Instead of this, their demand from first to last was the withdrawal

of all the troops of the United States from the harbor of

Charleston, and an abandonment of all the forts to South Carolina;

which, if acceded to by the Executive, would have been a recognition

by him of her right to secede from the Union. “This,” says Mr.

Buchanan, “was not to be thought of for a moment;” and I know of no

evidence that he thought of it or contemplated it, when he was

writing his first draft of an answer to the South Carolina

gentlemen. On the contrary, he steadily resisted it to the end of

the conference, and ever afterward.

Another point on which the three members of the cabinet differed

from the President was in regard to having any negotiation at all

with these gentlemen. It would seem from the paper of objections

presented to the President by Judge Black, that the President was at

first disposed, in the answer which he had prepared, to express his

regret that the commissioners were unwilling to proceed further with

the negotiation, after they had learned that he would not receive

them as diplomatic agents and would not comply with their extreme

demands. Here, then, was a ground for a real, but temporary,

difference of opinion between the President and three members of his

cabinet. On the one side, the President, holding these South

Carolina gentlemen firmly in the attitude of private citizens of

great weight and influence in their State, but denying to them any

diplomatic character which he could recognize, and making them to

clearly understand that the Executive would not withdraw the troops

or surrender the forts, might well and wisely have considered that

if he could draw from them any proposition which it would be fit for

him to present to Congress, that body would have to express an

authoritative opinion on the asserted right of secession. The great

object of preserving the peace of the country, and of gaining time

for angry passions to subside, might thus be gained. On the other

hand, Judge Black and his two colleagues, considering, as the

President considered, that these South Carolina citizens could not

be recognized as commissioners of a foreign State, held that there

could legally be no negotiation with them, whether they were willing

or not. Reduced to the ultimate difference, the question was whether

there should be no further conference at all, because it could have

no legal force, or whether there might still be useful further

communication with them as private citizens, whose propositions, if

they chose to make any in that capacity, the President could submit

to Congress for such action as that body might think proper.

There was still another objection made to the President’s draft of

an answer, which can be better appreciated, because the words which

he proposed to use were quoted in Judge Black’s paper of objections.

These were the words: “Coercing a State by force of arms to remain

in the Confederacy—a power which I do not believe the Constitution

has conferred upon Congress.” This was the same criticism which

Judge Black had made upon the message of December 3d, in which none

of his colleagues had agreed with him. He now renewed the objection,

representing to the President that the words were too vague and

might have the effect (which he was sure the President did not

intend) to mislead the commissioners concerning his sentiments.

Judge Black’s criticism was that to coerce the inhabitants of a

State to obey the laws of the United States, a power which the

President had always asserted, and meant still to assert, was in one

sense to coerce the State to remain in the Union.

Another thing which Judge Black and his two colleagues deprecated

was that the President’s answer should contain the most remote

implication that Major Anderson acted without authority in removing

his force to Fort Sumter. But what there was in the President’s

draft of an answer to give rise to such an implication does not

appear.

I should not have adverted to these objections to the President’s

proposed answer to the South Carolina commissioners, if Judge

Black’s paper of objections to it had not been given to the world;

nor should I have deemed it necessary to consider or describe

anything but the official answer that was actually sent. I hold that

a supreme ruler, who acts with constitutional advisers, is entitled

to be judged in history, not by what he may have written but did not

use, nor by the greater or less necessity for a different paper, nor

by the advice or the assistance which he received; but that he

should be judged by his official act. But as this difference between

President Buchanan and three members of his cabinet in regard to

this particular paper, led to what has been called a “cabinet

crisis,” and as the objections submitted to him have been published,

it is my duty to meet the whole occurrence squarely and directly.

It might be an interesting inquiry, how far a “cabinet crisis” had

become necessary. But of this, the gentlemen who composed the

cabinet were entitled to judge, because their personal honor and

patriotism were involved in the question of their remaining in the

cabinet, if they believed that the President was about to change his

policy. They appear to have at first supposed that the President,

after South Carolina had adopted an ordinance of secession, was

about to make such a change in his policy as would virtually reverse

his position, and would finally lead to an admission of the right of

secession, a result which would inevitably destroy him and his

administration. In this, it is certain that they were mistaken. The

President had not contemplated any such change in his position. I am

justified in asserting this strongly.

Only four days before this cabinet crisis culminated, the President

wrote a private letter to an editor in Washington whose paper was

supposed to be his organ, strongly rebuking him for an editorial

article favoring secession, and informing him that he (the

President) must take steps to make known in some authentic way that

the paper was not an organ of his administration.

Further than this, in every interview which the President had held

before the 29th December, with any persons claiming to represent the

people of South Carolina, he had uniformly and firmly declared that

on the vital point of withdrawing the troops and surrendering the

forts, he should make no concession whatever. But between the 17th

and the 21st of December, an occurrence took place, which has a most

important bearing upon the question whether the President had,

before the 29th of December, determined to make any change in his

attitude towards the people and authorities of South Carolina.

It will be remembered that the South Carolina ordinance of secession

was adopted on the 20th of December. Before that time, however, the

Governor of South Carolina, Mr. Pickens, saw fit to send a special

messenger to Washington, with a letter from himself to the

President, written at Columbia on the 17th of December, demanding

that Fort Sumter be delivered into his (the Governor's) hands. This

letter was written eight days before Major Anderson’s removal to

Sumter.[89] The following memorandum in the President’s handwriting

describes what took place when the Governor’s messenger arrived in

Washington:

Footnote 89:

The remarkable fact that this demand was made before South

Carolina had “seceded,” and before Anderson’s removal, although

the demand was subsequently withdrawn, shows how early the

Executive of South Carolina had formed the determination to treat

the presence of the United States troops in Charleston harbor as

an offence against the dignity and safety of the State.

On Thursday morning, December 20th, 1860, Hamilton, late marshal

of South Carolina, sent especially for this purpose, presented me

a letter from Governor Pickens, in the presence of Mr. Trescot,

dated at Columbia, South Carolina, 17th December (Monday). He was

to wait until this day (Friday afternoon) for my answer. The

character of the letter will appear from the answer to it, which I

had prepared. Thursday night, between nine and ten o'clock, Mr.

Trescot called upon me. He said that he had seen Messrs. Bonham

and McQueen of the South Carolina delegation; that they all agreed

that this letter of Governor Pickens was in violation of the

pledge which had been given by themselves not to make an assault

upon the forts, but leave them in _status quo_ until the result of

an application of commissioners to be appointed by the State was

known; that Pickens, at Columbia, could not have known of the

arrangements. They, to wit, Bonham, McQueen, and Trescot, had

telegraphed to Pickens for authority to withdraw his letter.

Friday morning, 10 o'clock, 21st December.—Mr. Trescot called upon

me with a telegram, of which the following is a copy from that

which he delivered to me:

December 21st, 1860.—You are authorized and requested to withdraw

my letter sent by Doctor Hamilton immediately.

F. W. P.

Mr. Trescot read to me from the same telegram, that Governor

Pickens had seen Mr. Cushing. The letter was accordingly

withdrawn.

The following is the draft of the answer to Governor Pickens which

the President was writing with his own hand when he was notified

that the Governor’s letter was withdrawn. Of course the answer was

not concluded or sent; but it shows with the utmost clearness that

the President’s position on the subject of secession was taken, and

was not to be changed by any menace of “consequences,” coming from

those who were disposed to be, as they must be, the aggressors, if

any attempt should be made to disturb the Federal Government in the

possession of its forts.

WASHINGTON, December 20, 1860.

MY DEAR SIR:—

I have received your favor of the 17th inst., by Mr. Hamilton.

From it I deeply regret to observe that you seem entirely to have

misapprehended my position, which I supposed had been clearly

stated in my message. I have incurred, and shall incur, any

reasonable risk within the clearly prescribed line of my executive

duties to prevent a collision between the army and navy of the

United States and the citizens of South Carolina in defence of the

forts within the harbor of Charleston. Hence I have declined for

the present to reinforce these forts, relying upon the honor of

South Carolinians that they will not be assaulted whilst they

remain in their present condition; but that commissioners will be

sent by the convention _to treat with Congress_ on the subject. I

say with _Congress_ because, as I state in my message, “Apart from

the execution of the laws, so far as this may be practicable, the

Executive has no authority to decide what shall be the relations

between the Federal Government and South Carolina. He has been

invested with no such discretion. He possesses no power to change

the relations heretofore existing between them, much less to

acknowledge the independence of that State. This would be to

invest a mere executive officer with the power of recognizing the

dissolution of the confederacy among our thirty-three sovereign

States. It bears no resemblance to the recognition of a foreign

_de facto_ government, involving no such responsibility. Any

attempt to do this would, on my part, be a naked act of

usurpation.”

As an executive officer of the Government, I have no power to

surrender to any human authority Fort Sumter, or any of the other

forts or public property in South Carolina. To do this, would on

my part, as I have already said, be a naked act of usurpation. It

is for Congress to decide this question, and for me to preserve

the status of the public property as I found it at the

commencement of the troubles.

If South Carolina should attack any of these forts, she will then

become the assailant in a war against the United States. It will

not then be a question of coercing a State to remain in the Union,

to which I am utterly opposed, as my message proves, but it will

be a question of voluntarily precipitating a conflict of arms on

her part, without even consulting the only authorities which

possess the power to act upon the subject. Between independent

governments, if one possesses a fortress within the limits of

another, and the latter should seize it without calling upon the

appropriate authorities of the power in possession to surrender

it, this would not only be a just cause of war, but the actual

commencement of hostilities.

No authority was given, as you suppose, from myself, or from the

War Department, to Governor Gist, to guard the United States

arsenal in Charleston by a company of South Carolina volunteers.

In this respect you have been misinformed. I have, therefore,

never been more astonished in my life, than to learn from you that

unless Fort Sumter be delivered into your hands, you cannot be

answerable for the consequences.

It was, then, on the President’s first draft of an answer to the

South Carolina commissioners, after the secession ordinance had been

passed, and upon nothing that had previously occurred, that the

cabinet crisis arose. On the evening of December 29th, the

President’s proposed draft of an answer to the commissioners was

read to the cabinet. It was not much discussed, for it was not the

habit of the ministers to criticise state papers which the President

had himself prepared. But on the following day, Judge Black informed

Mr. Toucey, the Secretary of the Navy, of his purpose to resign, if

this paper, as written by the President, should be delivered to the

commissioners. The President sent for Judge Black, and handed him

the paper, with a request that he modify it to suit himself, and

return it immediately. Judge Black then prepared his memorandum for

the President’s consideration, in which Mr. Holt and Mr. Stanton

concurred. The answer, which was to be sent to the commissioners,

was modified accordingly, and when sent it read as follows:[90]

Footnote 90:

Mr. Jefferson Davis has erroneously given to this letter the date

of December 30th. Its true date was December 31st. (See Mr.

Davis’s Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government, vol. I., p.

592.)

[ANSWER OF THE PRESIDENT TO THE SOUTH CAROLINA COMMISSIONERS.]

WASHINGTON, December 31, 1860.

GENTLEMEN:—

I have had the honor to receive your communication of 26th inst.,

together with a copy of your “full powers from the Convention of

the people of South Carolina,” authorizing you to treat with the

Government of the United States on various important subjects

therein mentioned, and also a copy of the ordinance bearing date

on the 20th inst., declaring that “the union now subsisting

between South Carolina and other States, under the name of 'the

United States of America,' is hereby dissolved.”

In answer to this communication, I have to say that my position as

President of the United States was clearly defined in the message

to Congress of the 3d instant. In that I stated that, “apart from