[strictly Confidential.]*
columbia, December 17, 1860.
My Dear Sir:
With a sincere desire to prevent a collision of force, I have thought proper to
address you directly and truthfully on points of deep and immediate interest.
I am authentically informed that the forts in Charleston harbor
are now being thoroughly prepared to turn, with effect, their guns upon the
interior and the city.
Jurisdiction was ceded by this State expressly for the
purpose of external defense from foreign invasion, and not with any view they
should be turned upon the State.
In an ordinary case of mob rebellion, perhaps it might be
proper to prepare them for sudden outbreak. But when the people of the State,
in sovereign convention assembled, determine to resume their original powers of
separate and independent sovereignty, the whole question is changed, and it is
no longer an act of rebellion.
I, therefore, most respectfully urge that all work on the
forts be put a stop to for the present, and that no more force may be ordered
there.
The regular Convention of the people of the State of South
Carolina, legally and properly called, under our constitution, is now in
session, deliberating upon the gravest and most momentous questions, and the
excitement of the great masses of the people is great, under a sense of deep
wrongs and a profound necessity of doing something to preserve the peace and
safety of the State.
To spare the effusion of blood, which no human power may be
able to prevent, I earnestly beg your immediate consideration of all the points
I call your attention to. It is not improbable that, under orders from the
commandant, or, perhaps, from the commander-in-chief of the army, the
alteration and defenses of those posts are progressing without the knowledge of
yourself or the Secretary of War.
The arsenal in the city of Charleston, with the public arms,
I am informed, was turned over, very properly, to the keeping and defense of
the State force at the urgent request of the Governor of South Carolina. I
would most respectfully, and from a sincere devotion to the public peace,
request that you would allow me to send a small force, not exceeding
twenty-five men and an officer, to take possession of Fort Sumter immediately,
in order to give a feeling of safety to the community. There are no United
States troops in that fort whatever, or perhaps only four or five at present,
besides some additional workmen or laborers, lately employed to put the guns in
order.
If Fort Sumter could be given to me as Governor, under a
permission similar to that by which the Governor was permitted to keep the
arsenal, with the United States arms, in the city of Charleston, then I think
the public mind would be quieted under a feeling of safety, and as the
Convention is now in full authority, it strikes me that it could be done with
perfect propriety. I need not go into particulars, for urgent reasons will
force themselves readily upon your consideration. If something of the kind be
not done, I cannot answer for the consequences.
I send this by a private and confidential gentleman, who is
authorized to confer with Mr. Trescot fully, and to receive through him any
answer you may think proper to give to this.
I have the honor to be, most respectfully,
Yours truly,
(Signed.)
F. W. Pickens.
To the President Of
The United States.
_______________
* Correspondence No. 1. Governor Pickens to President
Buchanan. The Record of Fort Sumter. Columbia, S. C, 1862.
SOURCE: Samuel Wylie Crawford, The Genesis of the
Civil War: The Story of Sumter, 1860-1861, p. 81-3
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