Upon his motion, the clause was unanimously postponed, and was never, I believe, again presented. Soon afterwards, on the 8th of June, 1787, when incidentally adverting to the subject, he said:-'Any Government for the United States, formed on the supposed practicability of using force against the unconstitutional proceedings of the States, would prove as visionary and fallacious as the Government of Congress'-evidently meaning the then existing Congress of the old Confederation. Without descending to particulars, it may be safely asserted that the power to make war against a State is at variance with the whole spirit and intent of the Constitution. Suppose such a war should result in the conquest of a State, how are we to govern it afterwards? Shall we hold it as a province, and govern it by despotic power? In the nature of things, we could not, by physical force, control the will of the people, and compel them to elect Senators and Representatives to Congress, and to perform all the other duties depending upon their own volition, and required from the free citizens of a free State as a constituent member of the Confederacy. But, if we possessed this power, would it be wise to exercise it under existing circumstances? The object would doubtless be to preserve the Union. War would not only present

the most effectual means of destroying it, but would banish all hope of its peaceable reconstruction. Besides, in the fraternal conflict, a vast amount of blood and treasure would be expended, rendering future reconciliation between the States impossible. In the meantime, who can foretell what would be the sufferings and privations of the people during its existence?"

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Following a suggestion made by Mr. Madison in 1799, when the Virginian Legislature had protested against the Alien and Sedition Acts as palpable and alarming infractions of the Constitution," Mr. Buchanan desired to see an "explanatory amendment" of the Constitution on the subject of slavery. This, he said, might originate either with Congress or with the State Legislatures, and might be confined to a settlement of the true construction of the Constitution on three special points: 1. An express recognition of the right of property in slaves in the States where it then existed, or might afterwards exist. 2. The duty of protecting this right in all the common Territories until they should be admitted as States into the Union, with or without slavery, as their constitutions might prescribe. 3. A like recognition of the right of the master to have his fugitive slave delivered up to him by any State into which he might have fled, and of the validity of the Fugitive

Slave Law enacted for that purpose, together with a declaration that all State laws impairing or defeating the alleged right were violations of the Constitution, and consequently null and void. That in the existing temper of the country any such attempt would be made, or that if made it would succeed, was extremely improbable; and Mr. Buchanan can only have thrown forth his three proposals as a means of saving appearances. He evidently contemplated a speedy dissolution of the Federal compact. For this he had been preparing all through his term of office; and this he suggested, in terms that were scarcely disguised, in his address to Congress.

In an earlier part of the Message he observed that if the coming President did not act vigorously in executing the Fugitive Slave Law against the enactments of Northern State Legislatures, the Constitution would be wilfully violated by one portion of the community, in a provision essential to the domestic security and happiness of the remainder. "In that event," he observed, "the injured States, after having first used all peaceful and Constitutional means to obtain redress, would be justified in revolutionary resistance to the Government of the Union." Mr. Buchanan's ideas of State sovereignty varied with the degree of latitude within which they were applied. Nothing was to interfere with the right of the Southern States to establish and maintain slavery within their own borders; but the Northern States were not to have the right of declaring that a fugitive bondsman who had found refuge on their soil was to enjoy the protection of their laws. Federal interposition in the one case was in the highest degree unconstitutional; in the other, the whole force of the Union might be exerted to over-ride the will of New England Legislatures, and to drag the hunted negro from the cover of a Northern roof. A similar inconsistency was apparent in the tone adopted by the President on the question of the right of seceding. In one breath he asserted that the States had no constitutional right to dissolve the Union, and in the next he said that the Federation had no legal power to hold a rebellious State by force. That which a Government has no legal power to do, it has no right to do; and if the Federation was not entitled to coerce a State which had resolved on separate existence, it was clear that the State so acting would not be violating the Constitution. Rights without corresponding legal powers form no part of the polity of nations. denying the power to coerce, Mr. Buchanan, by implication, admitted the right to rebel, which in terms he had denied. He equivocated with him

In

1860.]

self, that the Union might more readily be shattered.

The President's views with respect to the powers of the Federal Government in this matter of Secession were based on the legal advice of his Attorney-General, Mr. Black, who, in an opinion dated November 20th, argued against the Constitutional right of the Union to restrain any State from separating. But his hesitation pursued him throughout. "In order to justify Secession as a Constitutional remedy," he said, "it must be on the principle that the Federal Government is a mere voluntary association of States, to be dissolved at pleasure by any one of the contracting parties. If this be so, the Confederacy is a rope of sand, to be penetrated and dissolved by the first adverse wave of public opinion in any of the States. In this manner, our thirty-three States may resolve themselves into so many petty, jarring, and hostile Republics, each one retiring from the Union without responsibility, whenever any sudden excitement might impel them to such a course. By this process a Union might be entirely broken into fragments in a few weeks, which cost our fathers many years of toil, privation, and blood to establish." Nothing could be more admirable than

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this; but it was directly contradicted by other parts of the Message, and by the whole tenor of Mr. Buchanan's policy durring the four years that he had filled the Presidential chair.

The utmost that the President would consent to do was to protect the forts and other public property in the States which threatened secession. This was all the provision he would make against a rebellion which every day grew more imminent and more dangerous. The indecision of his Message gave general dissatisfaction. It displeased the South as much as the North; on all hands it was regarded as the utterance of a man who was perplexed and overwhelmed by events which he had not the courage to control. On the whole, however, this singular document leant much more towards the Slave States than towards those which favoured the principle of free labour. Sedition was encouraged; the conspirators against the Union were given to understand that they might safely proceed. It was evident that during the remaining three months of Mr. Buchanan's rule the South would be free to plot openly and undismayed against the Union which it was bent on destroying, and which the President had neither the heart nor the desire to defend.

WITH every successive day, the aspect of affairs grew darker. We have seen that Howell Cobb, the Secretary of the Treasury, resigned his office on the 8th of December, because, having plotted sufficiently at Washington, he desired to carry on the work of treason at the South. On the 12th of the same month, General Cass, the Secretary of State, gave up his seals to the President, since, finding himself powerless to counteract the sedition which was going on all around him, he resolved to be no longer even a tacit accomplice in the ruin of his country. Cass, though a member of the Democratic party, and therefore disposed to Southern

views, was loyal to the Union, of which, in several respects, he had been an ornament. He was succeeded by Mr. J. S. Black, the AttorneyGeneral, and the place of Mr. Cobb was filled first by Mr. Philip F. Thomas, of Maryland, and afterwards by General John A. Dix, of New York. Mr. Buchanan was troubled in the extreme, and knew not what to do. He therefore, by Proclamation issued on the 14th of December, recommended the observance of the 4th of January ensuing as a day of humiliation, fasting, and prayer, throughout the Union. The actual progress of treason, he either would or could do nothing to curb. General

President's Message as related to the condition of the country to a special committee, consisting of one from each State (thirty-three in all), with power to report at any time. The motion was adopted, on the 4th of December, by 145 votes to 38; but many of the Southern members refused to vote, and others declared that their States contemplated speedy secession. Several gentlemen from the North, whose opposition to slavery was well known, made suggestions pointing to a recognition of some of the most extreme demands of the slave-holders, in the vain hope that the other side might in this way be conciliated, and the Union be saved. Mr. Vallandigham, a member for the State of Ohio, proposed (in February, 1861) that the Federation should be divided into four sections, to be called the North, the West, the Pacific, and the South; but the scheme was so contrived as to give a preponderance to the slave-holding interest. In the Senate, on the 18th of December, 1860, a Committee of Thirteen was appointed to consider the condition of the country, and report some plan, by amendments of the National Constitution or otherwise, for its pacification. Mr. Crittenden, of Kentucky, then offered a series of amendments of the Constitution, the general purport of which was to restore the Missouri Compromise, and by various enactments and provisions to protect the institution of slavery and the property of the slave-holders. In addition to these amendments, Mr. Crittenden offered four resolutions aiming at the more complete enforcement of the Fugitive Slave Law, and at the same time declaring that strong measures ought to be adopted by Congress for the suppression of the African slavetrade. These proposals were much more tender to Southern interests than to Northern demands; but they were swept away by the tide of events.

Incendiary speeches continued to be uttered in South Carolina, which was the chief leader of rebellion. As early as the middle of November, the old banner of the Federation had been taken down from the State House at Charleston, when the Palmetto-flag was hoisted in its place. It was boastingly declared that "the detested rag of the Union" should never again float in the free air of South Carolina; and the new ensign was set up on a high flag-staff in the public streets on the 17th of November, and saluted with the roar of artillery, the shouts of the people, and the playing of the Marseillaise, followed by a Miserere, as a requiem for the Union which it was supposed was now dead and buried.* It does not appear that the negroes

* Lossing's History of the Civil War, Vol. I., chap. 4.

joined in the Marseillaise, and assuredly, if they had ventured to sing it on their own account, their punishment would have been sharp and peremptory enough. Vigilance Committees had been formed, and it was part of their business to prevent any manifestation of opinion on behalf of the North, and to "put down all negro preachings, prayermeetings, and congregations of negroes that might be considered unlawful." The patrol companies thus appointed had power to determine what was unlawful, and to punish all slaves, free negroes, mulattoes, and mestizoes, as they might deem proper. It is therefore very evident that when Charleston was in high festival at the approaching dissolution of the Union, with processions passing through the streets, and banners flaunting defiance to the Federal Government, the black population were not among those who rejoiced, or who looked on the Palmettoflag with feelings of affection.

When the South Carolina Legislature met, which was on the 26th of November, the question of separation from the old Union was almost the only matter that engaged attention. On the 10th of December, Governor Gist was succeeded by Francis W. Pickens; and on the 17th the members of the State Convention assembled in the Baptist Church at Columbia, from which, on the following morning, they removed to Charleston, in consequence of an outbreak of small-pox in the former city. Their sittings being resumed at the capital, they appointed several committees for conducting the preliminary steps of secession, and for opening negotiations with other slave-holding States with a view to the formation of a new Federal Government; and on the 20th of December the committee appointed to prepare an Ordinance of Secession presented their report. The ordinance, the object of which was declared to be "to dissolve the union between the State of South Carolina and other States united with her under the compact entitled 'the Constitution of the United States of America,'" set forth that "We, the people of the State of South Carolina, in convention assembled, do declare and ordain, and it is hereby declared and ordained, that the ordinance adopted by us in convention on the 23rd day of May, in the year of our Lord, 1788, whereby the Constitution of the United States of America was ratified, and also all Acts and parts of Acts of the General Assembly of the State, ratifying amendments of the said Constitution, are hereby repealed; and that the Union now subsisting between South Carolina and other States, under the name of the United States of America, is hereby dissolved." This ordinance was adopted at once and unanimously. The next moment it was an