Replies

Well, here are a few:

11/1860 President Buchanan declared that he could find no constitutional authority for using force against any state that seceded.

11/20/1860 President Buchanan’s Attorney General J. S. Black issued his opinion on this date to support the President. He wrote that neither the President nor Congress had the authority to conduct aggressive armed conflict. He wrote,

“If Congress shall break up the present Union by unconstitutionally putting strife and enmity and armed hostility between different sections of the country, instead of the domestic tranquility which the Constitution was meant to insure, will not all the States be absolved from their Federal obligations?

3/6/1861 Rumor and speculation of the new president’s actual intentions led to an editorial comment in the New York Herald that said,

“We have no doubt that Mr. Lincoln wants the Cabinet at Montgomery to take the initiative by capturing the two forts in its waters, for it would give him the opportunity of throwing upon the Southern Confederacy the responsibility of commencing hostilities. But the country and posterity will hold him as responsible as if he struck the first blow…”

As a response to Lincoln's question of reinforcing Ft. Sumter, Secretary of State William Seward stated that,

“The attempt to reinforce Fort Sumter will provoke an attack and involve war. The very preparation for such an expedition will precipitate war at that point. I oppose beginning war at that point. I would advise against the expedition to Charleston….I would instruct Major Anderson to retire from Sumter”.

Secretary of War Simon Cameron stated,

“It would be unwise now to make such an attempt” to garrison Ft. Sumter. “The cause of humanity and the highest obligation of the public interest would be best promoted” by abandoning the fort.

Secretary of Navy Gideon Wells said,

“By sending or attempting to send provisions into Ft. Sumter, will not war be precipitated? It may be impossible to escape it under any course of policy that may be pursued, but I am not prepared to advise a course that would provoke hostilities….I do not, therefore, under all circumstances, think it wise to provision Ft. Sumter.”

4/4/1861 Seward made the following statement to a London Times correspondent:

“It would be contrary to the spirit of the American Government to use armed force to subjugate the South. If the people of the South want to stay out of the Union, if they desire independence, let them have it.

4/4/1861 At the same time this was being said, the following letter was being drafted:

HEADQUARTERS OF THE ARMY, Washington, D. C., April 4, 1861.

Lieutenant Colonel HENRY L. SCOTT, A. D. C., New York:

SIR: This letter will be landed to you by Captain G. V. Fox, ex-officer of the Navy, and a gentleman of high standing, as well as possessed of extraordinary nautical ability. He is charged by high authority here with the command of an expedition, under cover of certain ships of war, whose object is to re-enforce Fort Sumter.

To embark with Captain Fox you will cause a detachment of recruits, say about two hundred, to be immediately organized at Fort Columbus, with a competent number of officers, arms, ammunition, and subsistence. A large surplus of the latter-indeed, as great as the vessels of the expedition can take-with other necessaries, will be needed for the augmented garrison of Fort Sumter.

The subsistence and other supplies should be assorted like those which were provided by you and Captain Ward of the Navy for a former expedition. Consult Captain Fox and Major Eaton on the subject, and give all necessary orders in my name to fit out the expedition, except that the hiring of vessels will be left to others.

Some fuel must be shipped. Oil, artillery implements, fuses, cordage, slow-march, mechanical levers, and gins, &c., should also be put on board.

Consult, also, if necessary, confidentially, Colonel Tompkins and Major Thornton.

Respectfully, yours,

WINFIELD SCOTT.

Everyone except Lincoln and his protectionist industrialists wanted peace.