Abraham Lincoln: a History Volume Ii Part 29

CHAPTER XXIV

MR. BUCHANAN'S TRUCE

[Sidenote] 1860.

The concession yielded by Mr. Buchanan, instead of tending to conciliate the conspirators only brought upon him additional demands.

It so happened that the princ.i.p.al Federal ships of war were absent from the harbors of the Atlantic coast on service in distant waters.

But now, as a piece of good fortune amid many untoward occurrences, the steam sloop-of-war _Brooklyn_, a new and formidable vessel of twenty-five guns, which had been engaged in making preliminary surveys in the Chiriqui Lagoon to test the practicability of one of the proposed interoceanic ship ca.n.a.ls, unexpectedly returned to the Norfolk navy yard on the 28th of November, less than a week before the meeting of Congress. She had until recently been under the command of Captain Farragut, afterwards famous in the war of the rebellion, and was, with trifling exceptions, ready for sea.

In the Cabinet, where the feasibility of collecting the customs revenue at Charleston on shipboard had already been discussed as a possible contingency, and especially where the forcible protection of the public property had also received serious consideration, this sudden appearance of the _Brooklyn_ must have furnished a conclusive reason in favor of both these propositions. Be this as it may, when the President affirmed these duties in his message, the conspirators realized that he held the means of practical enforcement at instantaneous command. With a ship of war ready at Norfolk, with troops at Fortress Monroe, might not a careless _emeute_ at Charleston bring the much-dreaded reenforcements to Moultrie, Sumter, and Pinckney, precipitate a _denouement_, and prematurely ruin all their well-concocted schemes?

There was urgent need to prevent the sailing of the steamer on such an errand.

[Sidenote] Buchanan to Burnwell, Adams, and Orr, Dec. 31, 1860. W.R.

Vol. I., p. 116.

On Sat.u.r.day, December 8, four of the Representatives in Congress from South Carolina requested an interview of President Buchanan, which he granted them, in which they rehea.r.s.ed their well-studied prediction of a collision at Charleston. One of their number has related the substance of their address with graphic frankness:

[Sidenote] Hon. Wm. Porcher Miles, Statement before the South Carolina Convention, "Annual Cyclopedia," 1861, pp. 649-50.

"Mr. President, it is our solemn conviction that if you attempt to send a solitary soldier to these forts, the instant the intelligence reaches our people (and we shall take care that it does reach them, for we have sources of information in Washington so that no orders for troops can be issued without our getting information) these forts will be forcibly and immediately stormed.

"We all a.s.sured him that if an attempt was made to transport reenforcements, our people would take these forts, and that we would go home and help them to do it; for it would be suicidal folly for us to allow the forts to be manned. And we further said to him that a b.l.o.o.d.y result would follow the sending of troops to those forts, and that we did not believe that the authorities of South Carolina would do anything prior to the meeting of this convention, and that we hoped and believed that nothing would be done after this body met until we had demanded of the general Government the recession of these forts."

Here was an avowal to the President himself, not only of treason at Charleston, but of conspiracy in the Executive departments at Washington; a demand coupled with a menace; a proposal for a ten days'

truce supplemented by a declaration of intention to proceed to extremities after its expiration. Instead of meeting these with a stern rebuke and dismissal, the President cowered and yielded to their demand. The sanct.i.ty of the Const.i.tution, the majesty of the law, the power of the nation, the patriotism of the people, all faded from his bewildered vision; his irresolute will shrank from his declared purpose to protect the public property and enforce the revenue laws.

He saw only the picture of strife and bloodshed which the glib tongues of his persecutors conjured up, and failed to detect the theatric purpose for which it was employed.

[Sidenote] Buchanan to Commissioners, Dec. 31, 1860. W.R. Vol. I., p. 117.

He hastened to a.s.sure his visitors that it was his determination "not to reenforce the forts in the harbor, and thus produce a collision, until they had been actually attacked," or until he had "certain evidence that they were about to be attacked." Though this was only another concession, much like the first in outward semblance, it was nevertheless in its vital essence a fatal hurt to the rapidly shrinking Federal authority. The conspiracy had won the choice of position; when the combat should come it was in the att.i.tude necessary to deal the first blow.

[Ill.u.s.tration: LEWIS Ca.s.s.]

The main point secured, there was an exhibition of abundant diplomatic politeness between the parties. The President suggested that "for prudential reasons" it would be best to put in writing what they had said to him verbally. This they readily promised, and on Monday, the 10th, gave him, duly signed by five of the South Carolina Representatives, this important paper:

[Sidenote] W.R. Vol. I., p. 116.

WASHINGTON, December 9, 1860.

In compliance with our statement to you yesterday, we now express to you our strong convictions that neither the const.i.tuted 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 Federal Government, provided that no reenforcements shall be sent into those forts, and their relative military status shall remain as at present.

[Sidenote] Buchanan to Commissioners, Dec. 31, 1860. Ibid.

When President Buchanan came to look at the explicit language of this doc.u.ment, he shrank from the definite programme to which it committed him. "I objected to the word 'provided,' as it 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." There followed mutual protestations that the whole transaction was voluntary, informal, and in the nature of a mediation; that neither party possessed any delegated authority or binding power. They were not frank enough to explain to one another that the true object of each was delay--of the President, "that time might be gained for reflection"; of the Members, that time might be gained for the unmolested meeting of the convention, for pa.s.sing the ordinance of secession, for further organizing public sentiment, and pushing forward military preparations at Charleston.

[Sidenote] Buchanan to Commissioners, Dec. 31, 1860. W.R. Vol. I., p. 117.

The mask of official propriety worn over this pernicious intrigue, the disclaimers, the implications and mental reservations of which it was made up--all became absurd in view of the results it produced. The President, indeed, explains that it was no pledge or agreement. "But I acted," he navely admits, "in the same manner as I would have, done had I entered into a positive and formal agreement with parties capable of contracting, although such an agreement would have been, on my part, from the nature of my official duties, impossible. The world knows that I have never sent any reenforcements to the forts in Charleston harbor, and I have certainly never authorized any change to be made in their 'relative military status.'"

While the conspirators were thus taking effectual steps to bind the future acts of the Executive in respect to the forts in Charleston harbor, and to make sure that the rising insurrection in South Carolina should not be crippled or destroyed by any surprise or sudden movement emanating from Washington, they were not less watchful to counteract and prevent any possible hostile movement against them on the part of Major Anderson and his handful of officers and troops in Fort Moultrie, undertaken on his own discretion. Their boast of secret sources of information in Washington, coupled with subsequent events, furnish presumptive evidence that Mr. Floyd, Secretary of War, though yet openly opposing disunion, was already in their confidence and councils, and was lending them such active coperation as might be disguised or perhaps still excused to his own conscience as tending to avert collision and bloodshed.

Shortly before, or about the time of the truce we have described, Secretary Floyd sent an officer of the War Department to Fort Moultrie with special verbal instructions to Major Anderson, which were duly communicated, and the substance of them reduced to writing and delivered to that officer on the 11th of December, the day following the conclusion of the President's unofficial truce at Washington. The importance of this doc.u.ment renders it worthy of reproduction in complete form.

Memorandum of verbal instructions to Major Anderson, 1st Artillery, commanding at Fort Moultrie, South Carolina:

You are aware of the great anxiety of the Secretary of War that a collision of the troops with the people of this 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.

[Sidenote] Buchanan to Commissioners, Dec. 31, 1860. W.R. Vol. I., p. 117.

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 a.s.sumption of a hostile att.i.tude. 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 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.

D.C. BUELL, a.s.sistant Adjutant-General.

FORT MOULTRIE, S.C., December 11, 1860.

This is in conformity to my instructions to Major Buell.

JOHN B. FLOYD, Secretary of War.

[Sidenote] Doubleday, "Forts Sumter and Moultrie," p. 51.

Upon mere superficial inspection these instructions disclosed only the then dominant anxiety of the Administration to prevent collision. But if we remember that they were sent to Major Anderson without the President's knowledge, and without the knowledge of General Scott,[1]

and especially if we keep in sight the state of public sentiment of both Charleston and Washington and the paramount official influences which had taken definite shape in the President's truce, we can easily read between the lines that they were most artfully contrived to lull suspicion while effectually restraining Major Anderson from any act or movement which might check or control the insurrectionary preparations.

He must do nothing to provoke aggression; he must take no hostile att.i.tude without evident and imminent necessity; he must not move his troops into Fort Sumter, unless it were attempted to attack or take possession of one of the forts or such a design were tangibly manifested. Practically, when the attempt to seize the vacant forts might come it would be too late to prevent it, and certainly too late to move his own force into either of them. Practically, too, any serious design of that nature would never be permitted to come to his knowledge. Supplement these literal negations and restrictions by the unrecorded verbal explanations and comments said to have been made by Major Buell, by his disapproval of the meager defensive preparations which had been made, such as his declaration that a few loop-holes "would have a tendency to irritate the people," and we can readily imagine how a faithful officer, whose reiterated calls for help had been refused, felt, that under such instructions, such surroundings, and such neglect "his hands were tied," and that he and his little command were a foredoomed sacrifice.[2]

[1] "The President has listened to him [General Scott] with due friendliness and respect, but the War Department has been little communicative. Up to this time he has not been shown the written instructions of Major Anderson, nor been informed of the purport of those more recently conveyed to Fort Moultrie verbally by Major Buell."--Gen. Scott (by G.W. Lay) to Twiggs, Dec. 28, 1860. W.R. Vol.

I., p. 580.

[2] In a Senate speech, January 10, 1861, "Globe," page 307, Jefferson Davis, commenting on these orders, while admitting that they empowered Major Anderson to go from one post to another, said, "Though his orders were not so designed, as I am a.s.sured."

CHAPTER XXV

THE RETIREMENT OF Ca.s.s

Thus far Mr. Buchanan's policy of conciliation through concession had brought him nothing but disappointment, and whatever faint hope his loyal Cabinet advisers may have had at the outset in its saving efficacy was by practical experiment utterly destroyed. The non-coercion doctrine had been adopted as early as November 20, in the Attorney-General's opinion of that date. The fact was rumored, not only in the political circles of the capital, but in the chief newspapers of the country; and the three secession members of the Cabinet had doubtless communicated it confidentially to all their prominent and influential confederates. Since that time South Carolina had continued her preparation for secession with unremitting industry; Mississippi had authorized a convention and appointed commissioners to visit all the slave-States and propagate disunion, among them Mr.

Thompson, Buchanan's Secretary of the Interior, who afterwards exercised this insurrectionary function while yet remaining in the Cabinet; the North Carolina Legislature had postponed the election of United States Senator; Florida had pa.s.sed a convention bill; Georgia had inst.i.tuted legislative proceedings to bring about a conference of the Southern States at Atlanta; both houses of the National Congress had rung with secession speeches, while frequent caucuses of the conspirators took place at Washington.

[Sidenote] Cobb to Buchanan, "Washington Const.i.tution," Dec. 12, 1860.

Mr. Buchanan's truce with the South Carolina Representatives had as little effect in arresting the secession intrigues as his non-coercion doctrine officially announced in the annual message. On the evening of the day (December 8)[1] on which he received the South Carolina pledge, the Secretary of the Treasury, Howell Cobb, of Georgia, tendered his resignation, announcing in the same letter his intention to embark in the active work of disunion. It had been generally understood that the non-coercion theories of the message were adopted by the President in deference to the wishes and under the influence of Cobb, Thompson, and Floyd, and undoubtedly they had also been largely instrumental in bringing about the unofficial truce at Charleston. If, amid all his fears, Mr. Buchanan retained any sensibility, he must have been profoundly shocked at the cool dissimulation with which Mr.

Cobb, everywhere recognized as a Cabinet officer of great ability, had a.s.sisted in committing the Administration to these fatal doctrines and measures, and then abandoned it in the moment of danger. "My withdrawal," he wrote to the President, "has not been occasioned by anything you have said or done. Whilst differing from your message upon some of its theoretical doctrines, as well as from the hope so earnestly expressed that the Union can be preserved, there was no practical result likely to follow which required me to retire from your Administration. That necessity is created by what I feel it my duty to do; and the responsibility of the act, therefore, rests alone upon myself." Ignoring the fact that the Treasury was prosperous and solvent when he took charge of it, and that at the moment of his leaving it could not pay its drafts, Mr. Cobb, five days later, published a long and inflammatory address to the people of Georgia, concluding with this exhortation: "I entertain no doubt either of your right or duty to secede from the Union. Arouse, then, all your manhood for the great work before you, and be prepared on that day to announce and maintain your independence out of the Union, for you will never again have equality and justice in it."

[Sidenote] G.T. Curtis, "Life of James Buchanan." Vol. II., p. 399.