Wheatland, near
Lancaster, April 19,1861.
My Dear General,
— I need scarcely say I was much gratified with your letter to Major Anderson,
as well as with his answer. You placed in an eloquent and striking light before
him the infamous conduct of General Twiggs and others. His response was manly
and loyal. By-the-bye, I some time since received an insulting letter from
General Twiggs, dated in Mississippi, on the 30th ultimo. Its conclusion is as
follows: “Your usurped right to dismiss me from the army might be acquiesced
in, but you had no right to brand me as a traitor: this was personal, and I
shall treat it as such—not through the papers, but in person. I
shall most assuredly pay a visit to Lancaster for the sole purpose of a personal
interview with you. So, Sir, prepare yourself. I am well assured that
public opinion will sanction any course I may take with you.”
I have paid no attention to this note, and entertain but
little apprehension from the threats of this hoary-headed rebel. My fate,
however, is in some respects hard. After my Annual
Message of the 3d of December, in which I made as able an argument as I
could against secession, and indicated my purpose to collect the revenue and
defend the Federal forts in South Carolina, etc., etc., the Southern friends of
the administration fell away from it. From the line prescribed in this Message
I am not conscious that I have departed a hair's breadth so far as it was
practicable to pursue it. I was ready and willing at all times to attempt to
collect the revenue, and, as a necessary preliminary, I nominated a Collector
to the Senate. You know the result.
After my explosition (sic) with the Commissioners of
South Carolina at the end of December, the Southern Senators denounced me on
the floor of the Senate; but after my Message to Congress of the 8th of
January, one of them at least abused me in terms which I would not repeat. In
that Message I declared that “the right and the duty to use military force
defensively against those who resist the Federal officers in the execution of
their loyal functions, and against those who assail the property of the Federal
Government, is clear and undeniable’ — and more to the same purpose.
Warning was repeatedly given that if the authorities of
South Carolina should assail Fort Sumter this would be the commencement of a
civil war, and they would be responsible for the consequences. The last and
most emphatic warning of this character is contained in the concluding sentence
of Mr. Holt's final and admirable answer to Mr. Hayne of the 6th of February.
It is as follows: “If, with all the multiplied proofs which exist of the
President's anxiety for peace, and of the earnestness with which he has pursued
it, the authorities of that State shall assault Fort Sumter and peril the lives
of the handful of brave and loyal men shut up within its walls, and thus plunge
our common country into the horrors of civil war, then upon them and those they
represent must rest the responsibility.” This letter has been published, but
seems to have been forgotten. I perceive that you are to be President of the
great Union meeting. Would it not be well, in portraying the conduct of South
Carolina in assailing Fort Sumter, to state that this had been done under the
most solemn warnings of the consequences, and refer to this letter of Mr. Holt?
Nobody seems to understand the course pursued by the late administration. A
quotation from Holt's letter would strengthen the hands of the present
administration. You were a member of the Cabinet at its date, and I believe it
received your warm approbation. Hence it would come from you with peculiar
propriety.
Had I known you were about to visit Washington on the
business of the Treasury, I should have urged you to call at Wheatland on your
return. You would then, as you will at all times, be a most welcome visitor.
They talk about keeping secrets. Nobody seems to have
suspected the existence of an expedition to re-enforce and supply Fort Sumter
at the close of our administration.
The present administration had no alternative but to accept
the war initiated by South Carolina or the Southern Confederacy. The North will
sustain the administration almost to a man: and it ought to be sustained at all
hazards.
Miss Hetty feels very much indebted to you, and you are
frequently the subject of kindly remembrance in our small family circle. Please
to present my kind regards to Mrs. Dix.
From your friend
always,
james Buchanan.
General John A. Dix.
SOURCE: Morgan Dix, Memoirs of John Adams Dix,
Volume 2, p. 5-6
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