Washington City, January 8, 1861.
To the Senate and House of Representatives:
At the opening of your present session I called your
attention to the dangers which threatened the existence of the Union. I
expressed my opinion freely concerning the original causes of those dangers,
and recommended such measures as I believed would have the effect of
tranquilizing the country and saving it from the peril in which it had been
needlessly and most unfortunately involved. Those opinions and recommendations
I do not propose now to repeat. My own convictions upon the whole subject
remain unchanged.
The fact that a great calamity was impending over the nation
was even at that time acknowledged by every intelligent citizen. It had already
made itself felt throughout the length and breadth of the land. The necessary
consequences of the alarm thus produced were most deplorable. The imports fell
off with a rapidity never known before, except in time of war, in the history
of our foreign commerce; the Treasury was unexpectedly left without the means which
it had reasonably counted upon to meet the public engagements; trade was
paralyzed; manufactures were stopped; the best public securities suddenly sunk
in the market; every species of property depreciated more or less, and
thousands of poor men who depended upon their daily labor for their daily bread
were turned out of employment.
I deeply regret that I am not able to give you any
information upon the state of the Union which is more satisfactory than what I
was then obliged to communicate. On the contrary, matters are still worse at
present than they then were. When Congress met, a stronge hope pervaded the
whole public mind that some amicable adjustment of the subject would speedily
be made by the representatives of the States and of the people which might
restore peace between the conflicting sections of the country. That hope has
been diminished by every hour of delay, and as the prospect of a bloodless
settlement fades away the public distress becomes more and more aggravated. As
evidence of this it is only necessary to say that the Treasury notes authorized
by the act of 17th of December last were advertised according to the law and
that no responsible bidder offered to take any considerable sum at par at a
lower rate of interest than 12 per cent. From these facts it appears that in a
government organized like ours domestic strife, or even a well-grounded fear of
civil hostilities, is more destructive to our public and private interests than
the most formidable foreign war.
In my annual message I expressed the conviction, which I
have long deliberately held, and which recent reflection has only tended to
deepen and confirm, that no State has a right by its own act to secede from the
Union or throw off its federal obligations at pleasure. I also declared my
opinion to be that even if that right existed and should be exercised by any
State of the Confederacy the executive department of this Government had no
authority under the Constitution to recognize its validity by acknowledging the
independence of such State. This left me no alternative, as the chief executive
officer under the Constitution of the United States, but to collect the public
revenues and to protect the public property so far as this might be practicable
under existing laws. This is still my purpose. My province is to execute and
not to make the laws. It belongs to Congress exclusively to repeal, to modify,
or to enlarge their provisions to meet exigencies as they may occur. I possess
no dispensing power.
I certainly had no right to make aggressive war upon any
State, and I am perfectly satisfied that the Constitution has wisely withheld
that power even from Congress. But the right and the duty to use military force
defensively against those who resist the Federal officers in the execution of
their legal functions and against those who assail the property of the Federal
Government is clear and undeniable.
But the dangerous and hostile attitude of the States toward
each other has already far transcended and cast in the shade the ordinary executive
duties already provided for by law, and has assumed such vast and alarming
proportions as to place the subject entirely above and beyond Executive
control. The fact can not be disguised that we are in the midst of a great
revolution. In all its various bearings, therefore, I commend the question to
Congress as the only human tribunal under Providence possessing the power to
meet the existing emergency. To them exclusively belongs the power to declare
war or to authorize the employment of military force in all cases contemplated
by the Constitution, and they alone possess the power to remove grievances
which might lead to war and to secure peace and union to this distracted
country. On them, and on them alone, rests the responsibility.
The Union is a sacred trust left by our Revolutionary
fathers to their descendants, and never did any other people inherit so rich a
legacy. It has rendered us prosperous in peace and triumphant in war. The
national flag has floated in glory over every sea. Under its shadow American
citizens have found protection and respect in all lands beneath the sun. If we
descend to considerations of purely material interest, when in the history of
all time has a confederacy been bound together by such strong ties of mutual
interest? Each portion of it is dependent on all and all upon each portion for
prosperity and domestic security. Free trade throughout the whole supplies the
wants of one portion from the productions of another and scatters wealth
everywhere. The great planting and farming States require the aid of the
commercial and navigating States to send their productions to domestic and
foreign markets and to furnish the naval power to render their transportation
secure against all hostile attacks.
Should the Union perish in the midst of the present
excitement, we have already had a sad foretaste of the universal suffering
which would result from its destruction. The calamity would be severe in every
portion of the Union and would be quite as great, to say the least, in the Southern
as in the Northern States. The greatest aggravation of the evil, and that which
would place us in the most unfavorable light both before the world and
posterity, is, as I am firmly convinced, that the secession movement has been
chiefly based upon a misapprehension at the South of the sentiments of the
majority in several of the Northern States. Let the question be transferred
from political assemblies to the ballot box, and the people themselves would
speedily redress the serious grievances which the South have suffered. But, in
Heaven's name, let the trial be made before we plunge into armed conflict upon
the mere assumption that there is no other alternative. Time is a great
conservative power. Let us pause at this momentous point and afford the people,
both North and South, an opportunity for reflection. Would that South Carolina
had been convinced of this truth before her precipitate action! I therefore
appeal through you to the people of the country to declare in their might that
the Union must and shall be preserved by all constitutional means. I most
earnestly recommend that you devote yourselves exclusively to the question how
this can be accomplished in peace. All other questions, when compared to this,
sink into insignificance. The present is no time for palliations. Action,
prompt action, is required. A delay in Congress to prescribe or to recommend a
distinct and practical proposition for conciliation may drive us to a point
from which it will be almost impossible to recede.
A common ground on which conciliation and harmony can be
produced is surely not unattainable. The proposition to compromise by letting
the North have exclusive control of the territory above a certain line and to
give Southern institutions protection below that line ought to receive
universal approbation. In itself, indeed, it may not be entirely satisfactory,
but when the alternative is between a reasonable concession on both sides and a
destruction of the Union it is an imputation upon the patriotism of Congress to
assert that its members will hesitate for a moment.
Even now the danger is upon us. In several of the States
which have not yet seceded the forts, arsenals, and magazines of the United
States have been seized. This is by far the most serious step which has been
taken since the commencement of the troubles. This public property has long
been left without garrisons and troops for its protection, because no person
doubted its security under the flag of the country in any State of the Union.
Besides, our small Army has scarcely been sufficient to guard our remote
frontiers against Indian incursions. The seizure of this property, from all
appearances, has been purely aggressive, and not in resistance to any attempt
to coerce a State or States to remain in the Union.
At the beginning of these unhappy troubles I determined that
no act of mine should increase the excitement in either section of the country.
If the political conflict were to end in a civil war, it was my determined
purpose not to commence it nor even to furnish an excuse for it by any act of
this Government. My opinion remains unchanged that justice as well as sound
policy requires us still to seek a peaceful solution of the questions at issue
between the North and the South. Entertaining this conviction, I refrained even
from sending reenforcements to Major Anderson, who commanded the forts in
Charleston Harbor, until an absolute necessity for doing so should make itself
apparent, lest it might unjustly be regarded as a menace of military coercion,
and thus furnish, if not a provocation, at least a pretext for an outbreak on
the part of South Carolina. No necessity for these reenforcements seemed to
exist. I was assured by distinguished and upright gentlemen of South Carolina
that no attack upon Major Anderson was intended, but that, on the contrary, it
was the desire of the State authorities as much as it was my own to avoid the
fatal consequences which must eventually follow a military collision.
And here I deem it proper to submit for your information
copies of a communication, dated December 28, 1860, addressed to me by R. W.
Barnwell, J. H. Adams, and James L. Orr, “commissioners” from South Carolina,
with the accompanying documents, and copies of my answer thereto, dated
December 31.
In further explanation of Major Anderson's removal from Fort
Moultrie to Fort Sumter, it is proper to state that after my answer to the
South Carolina “commissioners” the War Department received a letter from that
gallant officer, dated on the 27th of December, 1860, the day after this
movement, from which the following is an extract:
I will add as my opinion that many
things convinced me that the authorities of the State designed to proceed to a
hostile act.
Evidently referring to the orders, dated December 11, of the
late Secretary of War.
Under this impression I could not
hesitate that it was my solemn duty to move my command from a fort which we
could not probably have held longer than forty-eight or sixty hours to this
one, where my power of resistance is increased to a very great degree.
It will be recollected that the concluding part of these orders
was in the following terms:
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.
It is said that serious apprehensions are to some extent
entertained (in which I do not share) that the peace of this District may be
disturbed before the 4th of March next. In any event, it will be my duty to
preserve it, and this duty shall be performed.
In conclusion it may be permitted to me to remark that I
have often warned my countrymen of the dangers which now surround us. This may
be the last time I shall refer to the subject officially. I feel that my duty
has been faithfully, though it may be imperfectly, performed, and, whatever the
result may be, I shall carry to my grave the consciousness that I at least
meant well for my country.
JAMES BUCHANAN.
SOURCE: James Daniel Richardson, A Compilation of the
Messages and Papers of the President, 1789-1908, Volume 5, p. 655-9
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