Abraham Lincoln, a History — Volume 02 · Chapter 24Table of Contents Vol. II (23)
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G.T. Curtis, "Life of James Buchanan." Vol. II., p. 399.
The President had scarcely found a successor for Mr. Cobb when the head of his Cabinet, Lewis Cass, Secretary of State, tendered his resignation also, and retired from the Administration. Mr. Cass had held many offices of distinction, had attained high rank as a Democratic leader, and had once been a Presidential candidate. His resignation was, therefore, an event of great significance from a political point of view. The incident brings into bold relief the mental reservations under which Buchanan's paradoxical theories had been concurred in by his Cabinet. A private memorandum, in Mr. Buchanan's handwriting, commenting on the event, makes the following emphatic statement: "His resignation was the more remarkable on account of the cause he assigned for it. When my late message (of December, 1860) was read to the Cabinet before it was printed, General Cass expressed his unreserved and hearty approbation of it, accompanied by every sign of deep and sincere feeling. He had but one objection to it, and this was, that it was not sufficiently strong against the power of Congress to make war upon a State for the purpose of compelling her to remain in the Union; and the denial of this power was made more emphatic and distinct upon his own suggestion."
See proceedings of convention in "Charleston Courier," Dec., 1860.
But this position was probably qualified and counterbalanced in his mind by the President's direct promise that he would collect the Federal revenue and protect the Federal property. In the nature of things the execution of this policy must not only precede but exclude all other theories and abstractions, and the Secretary of State probably waited in good faith to see the President "execute the laws." Little by little, however, delay and concession rendered this impossible. The collector at Charleston still nominally exercised his functions as a Federal officer; but it was an open secret among the Charleston authorities, and one which, must also by this time have become known to the Government at Washington, that he was only holding the place in trust for the coming secession convention. As to protecting the Federal property, the refusal to send Anderson troops, the President's truce, the gradual development of Mr. Buchanan's irresolution and lack of courage, and finally Mr. Cobb's open defection must have convinced Mr. Cass that, under existing determinations, orders, and influences, it was a hopeless prospect.
Floyd's Richmond Speech, N.Y. "Herald," Jan. 17, 1861, p. 2.
The whole question seems to have been finally decided in a long and stormy Cabinet session held on December 13. The events of the few preceding days had evidently shaken the President's confidence in his own policy. He startled his dissembling and conspiring Secretary of War with the sudden questions, "Mr. Floyd, are you going to send recruits to Charleston to strengthen the forts?" "Don't you intend to strengthen the forts at Charleston?" The apparent change of policy alarmed the Secretary, but he replied promptly that he did not. "Mr. Floyd," continued Mr. Buchanan, "I would rather be in the bottom of the Potomac to-morrow than that these forts in Charleston should fall into the hands of those who intend to take them. It will destroy me, sir, and, Mr. Floyd, if that thing occurs it will cover your name with an infamy that all time can never efface, because it is in vain that you will attempt to show that you have not some complicity in handing over those forts to those who take them."
The wily Secretary replied, "I will risk my reputation, I will trust my life that the forts are safe under the declarations of the gentlemen of Charleston." "That is all very well," replied the President, "but does that secure the forts?" "No, sir; but it is a guaranty that I am in earnest," said Floyd. "I am not satisfied," said the President.
Thereupon the Secretary made the never-failing appeal to the fears and timidity of Mr. Buchanan. He has himself reported the language he used: "I am sorry for it," said he; "you are President, it is for you to order. You have the right to order and I will consider your orders when made. But I would be recreant to you if I did not tell you that this policy of garrisoning the forts will lead to certain conflicts; it is the inauguration of civil war, and the beginning of the effusion of blood. If it is a question of property, why not put an ordnance sergeant into them—a man who wears worsted epaulets on his shoulders and stripes down his pantaloons—as the representative of the property of the United States. That will be enough to secure the forts. If it is a question of property, he represents it,[2] and let us wait until the issue is made by South Carolina. She will go out of the Union and send her commissioners here. Up to that point the action is insignificant. Action after this demands the attention of the great council of the nation. Let us submit the question to Congress—it is for Congress to deal with the matter."
Floyd's Richmond Speech, N.Y. "Herald," Jan. 17, 1861, p. 2.
This crafty appeal to the President's hesitating inclinations, and in accord with his policy hitherto pursued, was seconded by the active persuasions of the leading conspirators of Congress whom Floyd promptly called to his assistance. "I called for help from that bright Saladin of the South, Jefferson Davis, of Mississippi—and I said, 'Come to my rescue; the battle is a little more than my weak heart can support. Come to me;' and he came. Then came that old jovial-looking, noble-hearted representative from Virginia, James M. Mason. Here came that anomaly of modern times, the youthful Nestor, here came Hunter.... From the north, the south, the east, and the west there came up the patriots of the country, the champions of constitutional liberty, and they talked with the President of the United States, and they quieted his fears and assured him in the line of duty. They said, 'Let there be no force'; and the President said to me, 'I am content with your policy'; and then it was that we determined that we would send no more troops to the harbor in Charleston."
Strip this statement of its oratorical exaggeration, and the reader can nevertheless see, in the light of after occurrences, a vivid and truthful picture of a conspiring cabal, stooping to arts and devices difficult to distinguish from direct personal treachery, flattering, threatening, and coaxing by turns, and finally lulling the fears of the President, through his vain hope that they would help him tide over a magnified danger, and shift upon Congress a responsibility he had not the courage to meet.
Mr. Cass, however, could no longer be quieted. Through all the rhetoric, sophistry, and bluster of the conspirators he saw the diminishing resources of the Government and the rising power of the insurrection. With a last bold effort to rouse the President from his lethargy, he demanded, in the Cabinet meeting of the 13th, that the forts should be strengthened. But he was powerless to break the spell. Says Floyd: "The President said to him in reply, with a beautiful countenance and with a heroic decision that I shall never forget, in the council chamber, 'I have considered this question. I am sorry to differ from the Secretary of State; I have made up my mind. The interests of the country do not demand a reënforcement of the forces in Charleston. I cannot do it—and I take the responsibility of it upon myself.'"
The letters which were exchanged between the President and his premier set out the differences between them with the same distinctness. Mr. Cass, after premising that he concurred with the general principles laid down in the message, says:
Cass to Buchanan, Dec. 12, 1860. Curtis, "Life of Buchanan," Vol. II., p. 397.
In some points which I deem of vital importance, it has been my misfortune to differ from you. It has been my decided opinion, which for some time past I have urged at various meetings of the Cabinet, that additional troops should be sent to reënforce the forts in the harbor of Charleston, with a view to their better defense, should they be attacked, and that an armed vessel should likewise be ordered there, to aid, if necessary, in the defense, and also, should it be required, in the collection of the revenue; and it is yet my opinion that these measures should be adopted without the least delay. I have likewise urged the expediency of immediately removing the custom-house at Charleston to one of the forts in the port, and of making arrangements for the collection of the duties there, by having a collector and other officers ready to act when necessary, so that when the office may become vacant the proper authority may be there to collect the duties on the part of the United States. I continue to think that these arrangements should be immediately made. While the right and the responsibility of deciding belong to you, it is very desirable that at this perilous juncture there should be, as far as possible, unanimity in your councils, with a view to safe and efficient action.
To this statement the President replied:
Buchanan to Cass, Dec. 15, 1860. Curtis, "Life of Buchanan," Vol. II, p. 398.
The question on which we unfortunately differ is that of ordering a detachment of the army and navy to Charleston, and is correctly stated in your letter of resignation. I do not intend to argue this question. Suffice it to say that your remarks upon the subject were heard by myself and the Cabinet, with all the respect due to your high position, your long experience, and your unblemished character; but they failed to convince us of the necessity and propriety, under existing circumstances, of adopting such a measure. The Secretaries of War and of the Navy, through, whom the orders must have issued to reenforce the forts, did not concur in your views; and whilst the whole responsibility for the refusal rested upon myself, they were the members of the Cabinet more directly interested. You may have judged correctly on this important question, and your opinion is entitled to grave consideration; but under my convictions of duty, and believing as I do that no present necessity exists for a resort to force for the protection of the public property, it was impossible for me to have risked a collision of arms in the harbor of Charleston, and thereby defeated the reasonable hope which I cherish of the final triumph, of the Constitution and of the Union.
Holt, conversation with J.G.N., 1874.
The other Union members of the Cabinet received the rumor of Mr. Cass's resignation with gloomy apprehensions. Postmaster-General Holt, with whom by reason of their kindred opinions he had been on intimate terms, hastened to him to learn whether it were indeed true and whether his determination were irrevocable. Cass confirmed the report, saying that representing the Northern and loyal constituency which he did, he could no longer without dishonor to himself and to them remain in such treasonable surroundings. Holt endeavored to persuade him that under the circumstances it was all the more necessary that the loyal members of the Cabinet should remain at their posts, in order to prevent the country's passing into the hands of the secessionists by mere default. But Cass replied, No; that the public feeling and sentiment of his section would not tolerate such a policy on his part. "For you," he said, "coming from a border State, where a modified, perhaps a divided, public sentiment exists, that is not only a possible course, but it is a true one; it is your duty to remain, to sustain the Executive and counteract the plots of the traitors. But my duty is otherwise; I must adhere to my resignation."
In this honorable close of a long public career, General Cass gave evidence of the spirit which was to actuate many patriotic Democrats when the final ordeal came. It was to be regretted that he had not taken issue with his chief when his paradoxical message was read to the Cabinet, but much is to be allowed to the inertness of a man in his seventy-ninth year. Life-long placeman and unflinching partisan that he was, there was still so much of patriotic conscience in him that he could not stand by and see premeditated dishonor done to the flag he had followed in his youth and as Jackson's Secretary of War upheld in his maturer years. If Mr. Buchanan had been capable of amendment, he might have learned a salutary lesson from the manner in which this veteran politician ended his half century of public service.
[1] Cobb to Buchanan, "Washington Constitution," Dec. 12, 1860. The President's reply says: "I have received your communication of Saturday evening, resigning," etc.
[2] Jefferson Davis in his "Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government," Vol. I., page 215, also lays claim to this artful suggestion:
"The President's objection to this was, that it was his bounden duty to preserve and protect the property of the United States. To this I replied, with all the earnestness the occasion demanded, that I would pledge my life that, if an inventory were taken of all the stores and munitions in the fort, and an ordnance sergeant with a few men left in charge of them, they would not be disturbed."
CHAPTER XXVI THE SENATE COMMITTEE OF THIRTEEN
The President's message provoked immediate and heated controversy in Congress. In the Senate the battle was begun by the radical secessionists, who at once avowed their main plans and purposes. Mr. Clingman, of North Carolina, opening the debate, predicted that the same political organization which had elected Lincoln must soon control the entire Government, and being guided by a sentiment hostile to the Southern States would change the whole character of the Government without abolishing its forms. A number of States would secede within the next sixty days.
Mr. Brown, of Mississippi, said the accumulating wrongs of years had finally culminated in the triumph of principles to which they could not and would not submit. All they asked was to be allowed to depart in peace.
"Globe," Dec. 5 1860, p. 11.
Mr. Iverson, of Georgia, invoking not only secession, but revolution and assassination, announced specifically the hopes of the conspirators. "I am satisfied that South Carolina will resolve herself into a separate sovereign and independent State before the Ides of January; that Florida and Mississippi, whose conventions are soon to meet, will follow the example of South Carolina, and that Alabama ... will go out of the Union on the 7th of January. Then the Georgia Convention follows on the 16th of that month; and if these other surrounding sisters shall take the step, Georgia will not be behind ... I speak what I believe on this floor, that before the 4th of March five of the Southern States at least will have declared their independence; and I am satisfied that three others of the Cotton States will follow as soon as the action of the people can be had. Arkansas, whose Legislature is now in session, will in all probability call a convention at an early day. Louisiana will follow. Her Legislature is to meet; and although there is a clog in the way of the lone star State of Texas, in the person of her Governor, ... if he does not yield to public sentiment, some Texan Brutus will arise to rid his country of the hoary-headed incubus that stands between the people and their sovereign will. We intend, Mr. President, to go out peaceably if we can, forcibly if we must."
"Globe," Dec. 5, 1860, p. 14.
Senator Wigfall, of Texas, took a high revolutionary attitude. "We simply say that a man who is distasteful to us has been elected and we choose to consider that as a sufficient ground for leaving the Union." He said he should "introduce a resolution at an early moment to ascertain what are the orders that have gone from the War Department to the officers in command of those forts" at Charleston. If the people of South Carolina believed that this Government would hold those forts, and collect the revenues from them, after they had ceased to be one of the States of this Union, his judgment was that the moment they became satisfied of that fact they would take the forts, and blood would then begin to flow.
Ibid., Dec. 10, 1860, p. 35.
Mr. Mason, of Virginia, said he looked upon the evil as a war of sentiment and opinion by one form of society against another form of society. The remedy rested in the political society and State councils of the several States and not in Congress. His State and a great many others of the slaveholding States were going into convention with a view to take up the subject for themselves, and as separate sovereign communities to determine what was best for their safety.
Ibid., Dec. 5, 1860, p. 12.
Senator Jefferson Davis, of Mississippi, was more reticent and politic, though no less positive and significant in his brief expressions. As a Senator of the United States he said he was there to perform his functions as such; that before a declaration of war was made against the State of which he was a citizen he expected to be out of the Chamber; that when that declaration was made his State would be found ready and quite willing to meet it.
"Globe," Dec. 5, 1860, p. 9.
The Republican Senators maintained for the greater part a discreet silence. To exult in their triumph would be undignified; to hasten forward officiously with offers of pacification or submission, and barter away the substantial fruits of their victory, would not only make them appear pusillanimous in the eyes of their own party, but bring down upon them the increased contempt of their assailants. There remained therefore nothing but silence and the feeble hope that this first fury of the disunion onset might spend itself in angry words, and be followed by calmer counsels. Nevertheless, it was difficult to keep entirely still under the irritating provocation. On the third day of the session, Senator Hale, of New Hampshire, replied to both the President's message and Clingman's speech. Mr. Hale thought "this state of affairs looks to one of two things; it looks to absolute submission, not on the part of our Southern friends and the Southern States but of the North—to the abandonment of their position; it looks to a surrender of that popular sentiment which has been uttered through the constituted forms of the ballot-box; or it looks to open war. We need not shut our eyes to the fact. It means war, and it means nothing else; and the State which has put herself in the attitude of secession so looks upon it.... If it is preannounced and determined that the voice of the majority expressed through the regular and constituted forms of the Constitution will not be submitted to, then, sir, this is not a Union of equals; it is a Union of a dictatorial oligarchy on the one side, and a herd of slaves and cowards on the other. That is it, sir; nothing more, nothing less."
While the Southern Democratic party and the Republican party thus drifted into defiant attitudes the other two parties to the late Presidential contest naturally fell into the rôle of peacemakers. In this work they were somewhat embarrassed by their party record, for they had joined loudly in the current charge of "abolitionism" against the people of the North, and especially against the Republican party. Nevertheless, they not only came forward to tender the olive branch, and to deprecate and rebuke the threats and extreme measures of the disunionists, but even went so far as to deny and disapprove the staple complaints of the conspirators.
"Globe," Dec. 4, 1860, p. 5.
It must be remembered to the lasting honor of Senator Crittenden that at the very outset of the discussion he repudiated the absurd theory of noncoercion. "I do not agree that there is no power in the President to preserve the Union; I will say that now. If we have a Union at all, and if, as the President thinks, there is no right to secede on the part of any State (and I agree with him in that), I think there is a right to employ our power to preserve the Union."
Ibid., Dec. 11, 1860, pp. 51, 52.
Senator Pugh, of Ohio, saying that he lived on the border of the slave-holding and non-slave-holding States, contended that the fugitive-slave law was executed every day, or nearly every day. It was in constant operation. He would venture to say that the slave-States had not lost $100,000 worth of slave property since they had been in the Union, through negligence or refusal to execute it.
"Globe," Dec. 11, 1860, p. 52.
Senator Douglas, of Illinois, said he supposed the fugitive-slave law was enforced with quite as much fidelity as that in regard to the African slave trade or the laws on many other subjects. "It so happens that there is the greatest excitement upon this question just in proportion as you recede from the line between the free and the slave-States.... If you go North, up into Vermont where they scarcely ever see a slave and would not know how he looked, they are disturbed by the wrongs of the poor slave just in proportion as they are ignorant of the South. When you get down South, into Georgia and Alabama, where they never lose any slaves, they are disturbed by the outrages and losses under the non-fulfillment of the fugitive-slave law just in proportion as they have no interest in it, and do not know what they are talking about."
Ibid., Dec. 10, 1860, p. 24.
Meanwhile, Senator Powell, of Kentucky, having given notice on the 5th, had on the 6th of December introduced a resolution to raise a special committee (afterwards known as the Senate Committee of Thirteen) to concert measures of compromise or pacification, either through legislation or Constitutional amendments. He said, however, he did not believe any legislation would be a remedy. Unequivocal constitutional guarantees upon the points indicated in the resolution under consideration were in his judgment the only remedies that would reach and eradicate the disease, give permanent security, and restore fraternal feeling between the people, North and South, and save the Union from speedy dissolution. "Let us never despair of the republic, but go to work promptly and so amend the Constitution as to give certain and full guarantees to the rights of every citizen, in every State and Territory of the Union."
"Globe," Dec. 10, 1860, p. 25. Ibid.
Ibid., p. 28. Ibid., p. 34.
The Republicans on this resolution generally offered only verbal criticisms or expressed their full approbation of its provisions. Senator King, of New York, offering an amendment, explained that while we hear occasionally of a mob destroying property, we also hear occasionally of a mob which assails an individual. He thought the security of person as important as that of property, and would therefore extend the inquiry to all these objects, if made at all. Senator Collamer, of Vermont, suggested striking out all about the condition of the country and the rights of property, and simply referring that part of the message which relates to the state of the Union to a special committee. Senator Foster, of Connecticut, said if there was a disposition here to promote the peace and harmony of the country, the resolution was a most appropriate one under which to make the effort. Senator Hale, of New Hampshire, said he was willing to meet any and everybody and say that if there can be pointed out anything in which the State that he represented had come short of her whole constitutional duty in letter and in spirit, she will do what she never did in the face of an enemy, and that is take a backward step. She was ready to perform her whole constitutional duty, and to stand there.
"Globe," Dec. 1860, pp. 25, 26.
Senator Green, of Missouri, while he joined in the general cry of Northern anti-slavery aggression and neglect of constitutional obligations, deemed it his duty to assist in making a united effort to save the Union. If he believed the present state of public sentiment of the North was to be enduring, he would say it is folly to talk about patching up the Union; but he looked forward to a reaction of public sentiment. Amendments to the Constitution, legal enactments, or repeal of personal liberty laws are not worth a straw unless the popular sentiment or the strong arm of the Government goes with them. He proposed to employ adequate physical force to maintain existing constitutional rights. He did not want any additional constitutional rights. He offered a resolution to inquire into the propriety of providing by law for establishing an armed police force, upon all necessary points along the line separating the slave-holding States from the non-slave-holding States, for the purpose of maintaining the general peace between those States; of preventing the invasion of one State by the citizens of another, and also for the efficient execution of the fugitive-slave law.
Ibid., pp. 28-30.
Senator Jefferson Davis, of Mississippi, denounced this proposition as a quack nostrum. He feared it was to rear a monster which would break the feeble chain provided, and destroy the rights it was intended to guard. Establishing military posts along the borders of States conferred a power upon this Federal Government, which it does not now possess, to coerce a State; it was providing, under the name of Union, to carry on war against States. From the history and nature of our government no power of coercion exists in it.
Ibid., p. 33.
Senator Brown, also of Mississippi, was no less emphatic in his condemnation of the scheme. He said, that a Southern Senator representing a State as much exposed as Missouri should deliberately, in times like these, propose to arm the Federal Government for the purpose of protecting the frontier, to establish military posts all along the line, struck him with astonishment. He saw in this proposition the germ of a military despotism. He did not know what was to become of these armies, or what was to be done with these military posts. He feared in the hands of the enemy they might be turned against the South; they would hardly ever be turned against the North.
"Globe," Dec. 10, 1860, pp. 30, 31.
Senator Green, in his reply, justly exposed the whole animus and thinly concealed import of these rough criticisms, by retorting that, to call that a military despotism amounts to just this: we are going out of the Union, right or wrong, and we will misrepresent every proposition made to save the Union. Who has fought the battles of the South for the last twenty-five years, and borne the brunt of the difficulty upon the border? Missouri, Kentucky, Virginia, and Maryland, while Mississippi and Louisiana have been secure; and while you have lost but one boxed-up negro, sent on board a vessel, that I remember, we have lost thousands and thousands. He knew it was unpopular in some sections to say a word for the Union. He hoped that feeling would react. Means to enforce and carry out the Constitution ought not to be ridiculed by calling it a quack remedy.
It is more likely that we may find in the response of Senator Iverson, of Georgia, the true reason which actuated the Cotton-State leaders in driving their people into revolution, regardless of the remonstrances of the border States.
Sir, the border slave-States of this Union complain of the Cotton States for the movement which is now in progress. They say that we have no right to take them out of the Union against their will. I want to know what right they have to keep us in the Union against our will. If we want to go out let us go. If they want to stay let them stay. They are sovereign and independent States, and have a right to decide these questions for themselves. For one, I shall not complain when, where, or how they go. I am satisfied, however, that they will go, when the time comes for them to decide. But, sir, they complain of us that we make so much noise and confusion on the subject of fugitive slaves, when we are not affected by the vitiated public sentiment of the Northern States. They say that we do not lose fugitive slaves; but they suffer the burden. We heard that yesterday. I know that we do not suffer in this respect; it is not the want of good faith in the Northern people, so far as the reclamation of fugitive slaves is concerned, that is causing the Southern States around the Gulf of Mexico and the Southern Atlantic coast to move in this great revolution now progressing. Sir, we look infinitely beyond this petty loss of a few negroes. We know what is coming in this Union. It is universal emancipation and the turning loose upon society in the Southern States of the mass of corruption which will be made by emancipation. We intend to avoid it if we can. These border States can get along without slavery. Their soil and climate are appropriate to white labor; they can live and nourish without African slavery; but the Cotton States cannot. We are obliged to have African slavery to cultivate our cotton, our rice, and our sugar fields. African slavery is essential not only to our prosperity, but to our existence as a people....