Lewis Cass to James Buchanan, December 12, 1860

Department Of State,

Dec . 12, 1860.

SIR:

The present alarming crisis in our National affairs has engaged your serious consideration, and in your recent message you have expressed to Congress, and through Congress to the Country, the views you have formed respecting the questions, fraught with the most momentous consequences, which are now presented to the American people for solution. With the general principles laid down in that message I fully concur, and I appreciate with warm sympathy its patriotic appeals and suggestions. What measures it is competent and proper for the Executive to adopt under existing circumstances is a subject which has received your most careful attention, and with the anxious hope, as I well know, from having participated in the deliberations, that tranquillity and good feeling may be speedily restored to this agitated and divided Confederacy.

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 reinforce the forts in the harbor of Charleston, with a view to their better defence should they be attacked, and that an armed vessel should likewise be ordered there, to aid, if necessary, in the defence, 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.

I have therefore felt it my duty to tender you my resignation of the office of Secretary of State, and to ask your permission to retire from that official association with yourself and the members of your Cabinet which I have enjoyed during almost four years without the occurrence of a single incident to interrupt the personal intercourse which has so happily existed.

I cannot close this letter without bearing my testimony to the zealous and earnest devotion to the best interests of the Country with which during a term of unexampled trials and troubles you have sought to discharge the duties of your high station.

Thanking you for the kindness and confidence you have not ceased to manifest towards me, and with the expression of my warmest regard both for yourself and the gentlemen of your Cabinet, I am, sir, with great respect,

Your obedient servant,

Lewis Cass.

To the PRESIDENT of the UNITED STATES.

SOURCES: John Bassett More, Editor, The Works of James Buchanan, Volume 11, p. 57-8; Cass Canfield, General Lewis Cass 1782-1866, p. 33-6