Franklin Row, January 22, 1861.
my Dear Mr. President:
A slight attack of rheumatism will prevent me from leaving my room to-day, and
of course I shall not be at the Cabinet meeting. But the deep interest I feel
in the result of your deliberations induces me to write this note, not to be
laid before the heads of Departments, but for your own eye alone. If I am wrong
in my interpretation of the past or in my expectations concerning the future,
you can correct me as well as anybody else, and if I am right the suggestions I
make may possibly be of some value.
You must be aware that the possession of this city is
absolutely essential to the ultimate designs of the Secessionists. They can
establish a Southern Confederacy with the Capital of the Union in their hands,
and without it all the more important part of their scheme is bound to fail. If
they can take it and do not take it, they are fools. Knowing them, as I
do, to be men of ability and practical good sense, not likely to omit that
which is necessary to forward the ends which they are aiming at, I take it for
granted that they have their eye fixed upon Washington. To prove their desire
to take it requires no evidence at all beyond the intrinsic probability of the
fact itself. The affirmative presumption is so strong that he who denies it is
bound to establish the negative. But there are additional and very numerous
circumstances tending to show that a conspiracy to that effect has been
actually formed, and that large numbers of persons are deeply and busily
engaged in bringing the plot to a head at what they conceive to be the proper
time. I do not mean now to enumerate all the facts. They form a body of
circumstantial evidence that is overwhelming and irresistible. I know that you
do not believe this, or did not when I saw you last. Your incredulity seemed
then to be founded upon the assurances of certain outside persons in whom you
confided, that nothing of that kind was in contemplation. The mere opinion of
those persons is worth nothing apart from their own personal knowledge. They
can have no personal knowledge unless they are themselves apart of the
conspiracy. In the latter case fidelity to their fellows makes treachery to you
a sort of moral necessity. In short, the mere declarations of uninformed
persons who are not in the secrets of the Secessionists amount to very little,
and well informed persons who are admitted to their counsels can hardly be
expected to communicate their schemes to the head of the nation.
Suppose it to be doubtful whether any hostile intentions
against the Capital are entertained, what is the duty of the administration?
Shall we be prepared for the worst, or leave the public interests unguarded, so
that the “logic of events” may demonstrate our folly? Preparation can do no
possible harm in any event, and in the event which to me seems most likely, it
is the country's only chance of salvation.
Let us not forget the lessons we have learned in the past
three months. The gross impostures practiced upon us recently ought to make us
very slow about believing assurances or taking advice which comes from the
enemies of the Union. Timeo Danaos. They told us that civil war would be
the result of manning the forts at Charleston. Now they laugh at all who
believed that prophecy. They told us about the eight regiments of artillery in
South Carolina; the twenty thousand other troops; the battery that could take
Castle Pinckney; the impossibility of occupying Fort Sumter; that the Brooklyn
was the only ship of war fit to be sent down there, and that she could not
cross the bar; that the little battery on Morris Island would prevent a ship
from going up the channel; that South Carolina would not make war upon us if we
were weak, but would if we should make ourselves strong — all these things were
taken for true, and you know how disastrous the consequences were, not merely
to the credit of the administration, but to the Union itself,
“Upon whose property
and most dear life a damn'd defeat was made.”
I understand that the Secretary of the Navy has promised the
Secessionists that he will withdraw the ships from the Florida and Alabama
harbors. I hope and believe that he has no authority from you to make such
promise: and if he has done it of his own head, I am sure he will receive a
signal rebuke. You know how much I honor and respect Toucey, but I confess I
find it a little difficult to forgive him for letting it be understood that the
Brooklyn could not get into the harbor of Charleston; and the order
which he gave to that ship, by which her commander felt himself compelled,
after he was in sight of Fort Sumter, not to go in, is making this Government
the laughter and derision of the world.
I hope it will soon be decided what our policy is to be,
with reference to the relief of Major Anderson. There certainly would be no
hurry about it, if it were not for the fact that the South Carolinians are
increasing their means of resistance every day, and this increase may be such
as to make delay fatal to his safety. But how that is I do not pretend to know
at present. Certainly, however, the facts ought to be ascertained.
In the forty days and forty nights yet remaining to this
administration, responsibilities may be crowded greater than those which are
usually incident to four years in more quiet times. I solemnly believe that you
can hold this revolution in check, and so completely put the calculations of
its leaders out of joint that it will subside after a time into peace and
harmony. On the other hand, by leaving the Government an easy prey, the
spoilers will be tempted beyond their power of resistance, and they will get
such an advantage as will bring upon the country a whole illiad of woes. The short
official race which yet remains to us, must be run before a cloud of witnesses,
and to win we must cast aside every weight, and the sin of state-craft which
doth so easily beset us, and look simply upon our duty and the performance of
it as the only prize of our high calling.
I am free to admit that in this hasty note I may have been
much mistaken. I do not claim to be more zealous in the public service nor more
patriotic than my neighbors; certainly not wiser than my colleagues. To your
better judgment I defer implicitly. But my absence from the Council to-day
annoyed me, supposing, as I did, that some of the matters here referred to
might be discussed in it. I took this mode of saying what I probably would have
said if I had been with you.
I am, most respectfully
yours, etc.
The President.
SOURCE: Samuel Wylie Crawford, The Genesis of the
Civil War: The Story of Sumter, 1860-1861, p. 241-3
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