Welles (Secretary of the Navy) later wrote that until the afternoon of April 6, 1861, both he and the President understood only that the policy of the Buchanan administration was to "do-nothing," in return for which the secessionists would permit his administration "to expire without being molested." Source
We'll see.
Walt
Welles (Secretary of the Navy) later wrote that until the afternoon of April 6, 1861, both he and the President understood only that the policy of the Buchanan administration was to "do-nothing," in return for which the secessionists would permit his administration "to expire without being molested."
You're wrong as usual. I am sure I've posted this to you before. Yes, I had it saved as a file.
You will tell any kind of lie.
"The still unsettled question of Buchanan's reyly to the South Carolina commissioners now provoked a final Cabinet crisis. On Saturday night [Dec 30, 1860] the body met again. The President showed his six remaining ministers a draft answer. The paper has disappeared from his records. That it conceded much more than was proper is evident from the debate which it provoked. The flaccid Toucey approved it. Thompson and Thomas opposed it only because it did not yield South Carolina an instant removal of all bayonets. Black, Stanton, and Holt however, condemned it as excessively complaisant, and Black and Stanton at least were wrought up to a high pitch of indignation.
"These gentlemen," exclaimed Stanton, "claim to be ambassadors, It is preposterous! They cannot be ambassadors, they are lawbreakers, traitors. They should be arrested. You cannot negotiate with them, and yet it seems by this paper that you have been led into doing that very thing. With all respect to you Mr. President, I must say that the Attorney-General, under his oath of office dares not be cognizant of the pending proceedings. Your reply to these so-called ambassadors must not be transmitted as the reply of the President. It is wholly unlawful and improper; its language is unguarded and to send it as an official document will bring the President to the verge of usurpation."
Once more the heat of the exchanges produced much plain speaking. When the President reserved the subject for further consideration, Black went home to spend a sleepless night. He knew to what a degree the President was still under the influence of Davis, Mason, and other Southern leaders. He was told by both Stanton and Ben Butler, two men as clearheaded as they were aggressive, that any President who negotiated with Southern conspirators upon the segregation of govemment property and the alienation of American territory would be open to impeachment. He held this view himself. Before dawn on the thirtieth he had reached a determination.
...At no fewer than seven points did Black and Stanton traverse Buchanan's letter. They objected to his implied acknowledgment of the right of South Carolina to send diplomatic officers to treat with the United States. They objected to his expression of regret that the commissioners were unwilling to go on with the negotiation; there could be no negotiation, willing or unwilling. They objected above all to his intimated readiness to make some arrangement regarding the national forts; they were not subject to any arrangement whatever. They objected to his statement of belief that the government had no right to coerce a State to stay in the Union; the government certainly had a right to coerce those who attacked national property. They objected to his implied assent to the commissioner's statement that he had made an agreement on the forts; instead, he should make a flat denial of any bargain, pledge, or agreement. They objected to phrases casting doubt upon the propriety of Major Andersen's behavior. They objected to Buchanan's tolerance of the idea that the removal from Moultrie to Sumter did possible wrong to South Carolina. If these radical amendments were adopted, wrote Black and Stanton, the whole paper would have to be recast.”
The two heads concluded with some positive words upon the need for forceful action at Charleston. The warships Brooklyn and Macedonian should be ordered thither without delay. A messenger should be hurried to Anderson with word that the government would not desert him. Troops from New York or Old Point Comfort should immediately follow. "If this be done at once all may yet . . . be comparatively safe. If not, I can see nothing before us hut disaster and ruin to the country." And the memorandum contained a stinging sentence upon "the fatal error which the Administration have committed in not sending down troops enough to hold all the [Charleston] forts."
Thus was finis written to appeasement. With Cobb and Floyd gone, with Thompson helpless, and with Black, Stanton, and Holt enforcing their views on the irresolute President by their readiness to resign if he retreated, the revolotion in the executive branch was completed.
As for ten years past, the United States had no President in the full sense of the word. A directory stood in the place of a single clear-sighted, strong-willed Chief Magistrate. But that directory was now made up of granite-constant Union men, aware of what the crisis demanded. Henceforth, Buchanan largely adopted the ideas of his stern-fronted fellow Pennsylvanians, Black and Stanton.
This was manifest in his courteous but firm reply to the commissioners, delivered December 30, essentially following Black's suggestions. He restated his desire to have Congress deal with the situation in such fashion as to avoid war over the Charleston forts. He explained away his alleged pledge to preserve the status of the forts. When he had learned of Anderson's transfer, he stated, his impulse had been to order him back to Moultrie; but the South Carolinians had immediately seized Moultrie, Pinckney, and other national property, radically altering the state of affairs. Now he was asked, under penalty of a possible attack on Sumter, to remove all the country's forces from the harbor, "This I cannot do; this I will not do," he wrote, in language at last befitting a successor of Washington and Jackson.
Major Anderson would be left where he was; his act [moving from Moultrie to Sumter] would not be disowned "against hostile attacks from whatever quarter they may come."
The remodeled executive department quickly showed its spirit in other ways. When the commissioners sent an insolent response to the president's letter, accusing him of breaking his pledge and choosing the path to war, it was returned with a brief endorsement that he refused to receive it. Jefferson Davis printed the response in the Congressional Globe with a cutting attack of his own on Buchanan, which several fellow-senators echoed. The moment he saw the commissioners' insulting note, Buchanan's hesitations over sthrengthening of Anderson vanished. He exclaime, "It is now all over and reinforcements must be sent." On December 31, he instructed the War and Navy departments to take steps, under which orders were issued that day to send the sloop-of-war Brooklyn to Charleston with troops, ammunition, and stores."
"A new page had been turned. The third phase in Buchanan's policy, the phase in which he asserted the right to maintain possession of the forts and other property of the govrnment even if this meant open war, and in which he turned a severe face on secessionists, had been entered upon; and it was to contnue until Lincoln came into power with a policy essential identical."
Emergence of Lincoln pp.376-79 by Allan Nevins
That's what I said yesterday, remember? This has been posted to you before -- but you'll tell any kind of lie.
Walt
This wouldn't explain why The Star of the West was dispatched in January with 250 troops on board, would it?
As I said in my previous note, there is no difference between Bucnanan's policy after New Years' 1861 and Lincoln's policy. They were seamless.
This has all been discussed before.
But you'll tell any kind of lie.
Walt