150 Years Ago in Charleson, South Carolina

[PetePaolillo]

Re: December 2, 1860

FORT MOULTRIE, S. C., December 2, 1860.
(Received A. G. O., December 5.)
Col. S. COOPER, Adjutant-General:
COLONEL: I have the honor to report that I have seen Captain Foster, and that he says that he told several gentlemen in Charleston yesterday that he intended commencing at once certain repairs at Castle Pinckney. He is satisfied, from the manner in which his remark was received, that no offense will be taken at his putting his workmen in the Castle. I shall, consequently, not interpose any objection to his doing so. He has applied to me for an officer to take charge temporarily of his workmen until an Engineer officer can be sent on, and although I cannot very well spare one, I shall, in consideration of my regarding that detachment as really acting the part of an advance guard for my command take the responsibility of assigning Lieutenant Davis to that duty.

Captain Foster thinks that he will finish the small projection at the northwest salient of this work to-morrow, and he will then repoint the walls of this fort (a work very essential) and commence digging a shallow wet ditch at or near the foot of the wall. The presence of quicksand prevents his digging a regular ditch, but he can dig one that will afford such an obstruction as will, with ordinary precaution, prevent our works being carried by a rush.

When he has finished these works I shall feel that, by the blessing of God, even my little command will be enabled to make such a resistance that the authorities of South Carolina will, though they may surround, hardly venture to attack us. We expect a full supply of provisions about the 10th of this month. I trust that such arrangements will be made as will secure their delivery, as well as that of the supply of ordnance and ordnance stores recently required.

Then, with men merely enough to enable us to keep up a respectable guard without wearing our men out, I would, in humble reliance on Providence, feel ready for any emergency that could reasonably occur.

I am, colonel, very respectfully, your obedient servant,

ROBERT ANDERSON,
Major, First Artillery, Commanding.

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CHARLESTON, S. C., December 2, 1860.
Col. R. E. DE RUSSY,
Commanding Corps of Engineers, U. S. A., Washington, D. C.:
COLONEL: I have the honor to request that application may be made to the War Department to have, Colonel Huger, Ordnance Corps, issue to me four boxes of muskets (smooth-bores), with percussion caps for sixty rounds. Fifty of these muskets are required for Fort Sumter and fifty for Castle Pinckney The cartridge boxes and belts are not absolutely necessary, but I would like to have an equal number issued if it is convenient to do so.

Colonel Huger, whom I consulted upon the subject of the muskets, {p.84} said he could not issue them without authority from Washington, not even for the short time that I want them, and I declined at the time to request him to write for this authority; but after consulting with Major Anderson to-day we axe both agreed that it is best to write for the requisite authority at once, and I therefore make the above request. Very respectfully, your obedient servant,

J. G. FOSTER,
Captain of Engineers.

[Indorsement.]

Handed to Adjutant-General, and by him laid before the Secretary of War on the 6th of December.

Returned by the Adjutant-General on the 7th. Action deferred for the present. (See Captain Foster’s upcoming letter of December 4.)

[PetePaolillo]

December 3, 1860

FORT MOULTRIE, S.C., December 3, 1860.

Col. S. COOPER,

Adjutant-General U. S. A.:

COLONEL: Captains Doubleday and Seymour said to-day that when they gave me their opinions a few days ago on the feasibility of securing reliable men here to perform police and fatigue duty they did not think of some discharged soldiers, who they now say could be hired for that purpose. My opinion, as expressed, that I doubted whether any reliable men could be hired here, was based upon their opinions and upon my knowledge of the deep interest and excitement of the populace here.

I shall be pleased, then, to receive authority and instructions to employ eight or ten men for the purposes suggested. This will give one relief for my guard, garrison, and battery, or interior.

Captain Foster has just reported that he left Lieutenant Davis and twenty of the detachment of laborers, designed to make repairs in Castle Pinckney, in that work, with one month’s supply of provision.

Fourteen men will be added to that party to-morrow. The captain spoke of his having placed Lieutenant Davis and the party in the Castle whilst in the city, and he said that there was not the least appearance of excitement about it.

Lieutenant Davis has been cautioned to act with the greatest discretion and caution.

Hoping that everything may go on smoothly here for some time longer at least, and assuring you that I shall do everything in my power to add to the strength of my defenses,

I am, colonel, respectfully, your obedient servant,

ROBERT ANDERSON,

Major of U. S. Army.

[PetePaolillo]

December 4, 1860

CHARLESTON, S.C., December 4, 1860.

Col. R. E. DE RUSSY,
Commanding Corps of Engineers:

COLONEL: I have been obliged to vary the plan which I indicated in my last letters as the one I intended to follow in order to carry out the wishes of the Department concerning the security of the works under my charge. In consequence of recent developments of the state of feeling among my men, I do not now judge it proper to give them any military instruction, or to place arms in their hands; at least this is the case with reference to the men at Fort Sumter. I do not think that any of them will go so far in the defense of public property as to fight an armed body of the citizens of this State. I ascertained this for the first time, to-day, of the men in Fort Sumter, where I had been confident that I could rely in any emergency, at least upon the Baltimore mechanics, about fifty in number.

But the overseer ascertained last night that they were disinclined to use force to resist an attempt to seize the fort on the part of the citizen soldiers of the State, although willing to resist a mob. The men in Castle Pinckney, placed there as I intended, on the 3d instant, being picked men, may prove more reliable. But the feeling here in regard to secession is become so strong that almost all are entirely influenced by it. I therefore judge it best to suspend all idea of arming them at present. I may mention that I exercised as much care as possible in placing this working party in Castle Pinckney, so as not to give cause for apprehension of arming to the citizens. The greatest prudence was exercised, and the best men placed there, under charge of a prudent and reliable officer, Lieutenant Davis. Every precaution is also taken at Fort Sumter, where Lieutenant Snyder has taken up his quarters. Having done thus much, which is all I can do in this respect, I feel that I have done my duty, and that if any overt act takes place, no blame can properly attach to me. I regret, however, that sufficient soldiers are not in this harbor to garrison these two works. The Government will soon have to decide the question whether to maintain them or to give them up to South Carolina. If it be decided to maintain them, troops must instantly be sent, and in large numbers. If it be decided to give them up, the present arrangement will answer very well; only I should be informed, in order that I may know how to act.

At present I have given orders to Lieutenants Snyder and Davis to resist to the utmost any attempt or any demand on the forts in which they are stationed.

The plan of the leaders in this State appears to be, from all that I can see and hear, first, to demand the forts of the General Government, after secession, and then, if refused, to take them by force of arms. A quite large party is in favor of not waiting to ask the General Government, but to summon the immediate commanders, and, if refused, to attack at once. All of this is not, of course, strictly in the line of my profession; still, I judge it proper to write you fully and plainly, so that you may know exactly how we are placed. Here in Fort Moultrie the two companies of the garrison having dwindled to half their proper size, are so weak that Major Anderson demands all the auxiliary defense that I can give him. I am now digging a wet ditch around the work, which, although necessarily shallow from the quicksand, will more than double the difficulty of scaling the walls. The major also requires a fraise to be placed around the coping, but I cannot commence it until I finish the work in hand.

I shall to-morrow complete the “cut” at the northwest angle, which I have enlarged somewhat in the form of a bastionette, by building straight up from the foundation a wall at the angle extending ten feet from the angle on each face, and then uniting by oblique returns with the very sloping face of the scarp wall. This gives a very excellent position for four or more muskets, to flank the west face of the work. The marginal sketch gives an imperfect idea of it. It is singular that a small cut, as indicated on the map in the Engineer Office, was originally built at this angle, but subsequently, and apparently not many years since, destroyed by breaking off the upper part of the side walls, throwing the débris into the cut, and covering the parapet over it. I completed to-day the bastionette at the southwest angle, except the embrasures, the stones and some of the irons for which have not yet been received. Before taking down the temporary bastionette at the southeast angle and commencing the permanent one, I shall, for the greater security of the small garrison, run out a wooden machicoulis gallery over the angle of the wall, and also complete the pointing of all large crevices in the scarp.

The posterns on the east and west curtains have been bricked up at Major Anderson’s request, as he felt too weak to use them for sorties, and as the doors might be burst in, both the iron and wood work being old and defective.

I have been liberal of assistance in increasing the defensive capacities of the fort, for I felt that the necessity required it. I have about 125 men at work here now, and shall continue the same number for two or three days, until I complete the ditch. On Fort Sumter I have about 115, and at Castle Pinckney 30, making a total of 260 men employed. The first of the embrasure stones for Fort Sumter having been received, the embrasures of the second tier will be immediately commenced.

Very respectfully, yours,
J. G. FOSTER,

Captain of Engineers.

[PetePaolillo]

December 4, 1860

On December 4, 1860 President James Buchanan delivered his last state of the union message to Congress. This message was delivered in written form by a messenger to Congress. It was not read personally by the President. It is a lengthy read but it does capture the tragedy that is about to unfold in America. A horrible 4 years is just ahead. Bloodshed and destruction are imminent.

Fellow-Citizens of the Senate and House of Representatives:

Throughout the year since our last meeting the country has been eminently prosperous in all its material interests. The general health has been excellent, our harvests have been abundant, and plenty smiles throughout the land. Our commerce and manufactures have been prosecuted with energy and industry, and have yielded fair and ample returns. In short, no nation in the tide of time has ever presented a spectacle of greater material prosperity than we have done until within a very recent period.

Why is it, then, that discontent now so extensively prevails, and the Union of the States, which is the source of all these blessings, is threatened with destruction?

The long-continued and intemperate interference of the Northern people with the question of slavery in the Southern States has at length produced its natural effects. The different sections of the Union are now arrayed against each other, and the time has arrived, so much dreaded by the Father of his Country, when hostile geographical parties have been formed.

I have long foreseen and often forewarned my countrymen of the now impending danger. This does not proceed solely from the claim on the part of Congress or the Territorial legislatures to exclude slavery from the Territories, nor from the efforts of different States to defeat the execution of the fugitive-slave law. All or any of these evils might have been endured by the South without danger to the Union (as others have been) in the hope that time and reflection might apply the remedy. The immediate peril arises not so much from these causes as from the fact that the incessant and violent agitation of the slavery question throughout the North for the last quarter of a century has at length produced its malign influence on the slaves and inspired them with vague notions of freedom. Hence a sense of security no longer exists around the family altar. This feeling of peace at home has given place to apprehensions of servile insurrections. Many a matron throughout the South retires at night in dread of what may befall herself and children before the morning. Should this apprehension of domestic danger, whether real or imaginary, extend and intensify itself until it shall pervade the masses of the Southern people, then disunion will become inevitable. Self-preservation is the first law of nature, and has been implanted in the heart of man by his Creator for the wisest purpose; and no political union, however fraught with blessings and benefits in all other respects, can long continue if the necessary consequence be to render the homes and the firesides of nearly half the parties to it habitually and hopelessly insecure. Sooner or later the bonds of such a union must be severed. It is my conviction that this fatal period has not yet arrived, and my prayer to God is that He would preserve the Constitution and the Union throughout all generations.

But let us take warning in time and remove the cause of danger. It can not be denied that for five and twenty years the agitation at the North against slavery has been incessant. In 1835 pictorial handbills and inflammatory appeals were circulated extensively throughout the South of a character to excite the passions of the slaves, and, in the language of General Jackson, "to stimulate them to insurrection and produce all the horrors of a servile war." This agitation has ever since been continued by the public press, by the proceedings of State and county conventions and by abolition sermons and lectures. The time of Congress has been occupied in violent speeches on this never-ending subject, and appeals, in pamphlet and other forms, endorsed by distinguished names, have been sent forth from this central point and spread broadcast over the Union.

How easy would it be for the American people to settle the slavery question forever and to restore peace and harmony to this distracted country! They, and they alone, can do it. All that is necessary to accomplish the object, and all for which the slave States have ever contended, is to be let alone and permitted to manage their domestic institutions in their own way. As sovereign States, they, and they alone, are responsible before God and the world for the slavery existing among them. For this the people of the North are not more responsible and have no more right to interfere than with similar institutions in Russia or in Brazil.

Upon their good sense and patriotic forbearance I confess I still greatly rely. Without their aid it is beyond the power of any President, no matter what may be his own political proclivities, to restore peace and harmony among the States. Wisely limited and restrained as is his power under our Constitution and laws, he alone can accomplish but little for good or for evil on such a momentous question.

And this brings me to observe that the election of any one of our fellow-citizens to the office of President does not of itself afford just cause for dissolving the Union. This is more especially true if his election has been effected by a mere plurality, and not a majority of the people, and has resulted from transient and temporary causes, which may probably never again occur. In order to justify a resort to revolutionary resistance, the Federal Government must be guilty of "a deliberate, palpable, and dangerous exercise" of powers not granted by the Constitution.

The late Presidential election, however, has been held in strict conformity with its express provisions. How, then, can the result justify a revolution to destroy this very Constitution? Reason, justice, a regard for the Constitution, all require that we shall wait for some overt and dangerous act on the part of the President elect before resorting to such a remedy. It is said, however, that the antecedents of the President-elect have been sufficient to justify the fears of the South that he will attempt to invade their constitutional rights. But are such apprehensions of contingent danger in the future sufficient to justify the immediate destruction of the noblest system of government ever devised by mortals? From the very nature of his office and its high responsibilities he must necessarily be conservative. The stern duty of administering the vast and complicated concerns of this Government affords in itself a guaranty that he will not attempt any violation of a clear constitutional right.

After all, he is no more than the chief executive officer of the Government. His province is not to make but to execute the laws. And it is a remarkable fact in our history that, notwithstanding the repeated efforts of the antislavery party, no single act has ever passed Congress, unless we may possibly except the Missouri compromise, impairing in the slightest degree the rights of the South to their property in slaves; and it may also be observed, judging from present indications, that no probability exists of the passage of such an act by a majority of both Houses, either in the present or the next Congress. Surely under these circumstances we ought to be restrained from present action by the precept of Him who spake as man never spoke, that "sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof." The day of evil may never come unless we shall rashly bring it upon ourselves.

It is alleged as one cause for immediate secession that the Southern States are denied equal rights with the other States in the common Territories. But by what authority are these denied? Not by Congress, which has never passed, and I believe never will pass, any act to exclude slavery from these Territories; and certainly not by the Supreme Court, which has solemnly decided that slaves are property, and, like all other property, their owners have a right to take them into the common Territories and hold them there under the protection of the Constitution.

So far then, as Congress is concerned, the objection is not to anything they have already done, but to what they may do hereafter. It will surely be admitted that this apprehension of future danger is no good reason for an immediate dissolution of the Union. It is true that the Territorial legislature of Kansas, on the 23d February, 1860, passed in great haste an act over the veto of the governor declaring that slavery "is and shall be forever prohibited in this Territory." Such an act, however, plainly violating the rights of property secured by the Constitution, will surely be declared void by the judiciary whenever it shall be presented in a legal form.

Only three days after my inauguration the Supreme Court of the United States solemnly adjudged that this power did not exist in a Territorial legislature. Yet such has been the factious temper of the times that the correctness of this decision has been extensively impugned before the people, and the question has given rise to angry political conflicts throughout the country. Those who have appealed from this judgment of our highest constitutional tribunal to popular assemblies would, if they could, invest a Territorial legislature with power to annul the sacred rights of property. This power Congress is expressly forbidden by the Federal Constitution to exercise. Every State legislature in the Union is forbidden by its own constitution to exercise it. It can not be exercised in any State except by the people in their highest sovereign capacity, when framing or amending their State constitution. In like manner it can only be exercised by the people of a Territory represented in a convention of delegates for the purpose of framing a constitution preparatory to admission as a State into the Union. Then, and not until then, are they invested with power to decide the question whether slavery shall or shall not exist within their limits. This is an act of sovereign authority, and not of subordinate Territorial legislation. Were it otherwise, then indeed would the equality of the States in the Territories be destroyed, and the rights of property in slaves would depend not upon the guaranties of the Constitution, but upon the shifting majorities of an irresponsible Territorial legislature. Such a doctrine, from its intrinsic unsoundness, can not long influence any considerable portion of our people, much less can it afford a good reason for a dissolution of the Union.

The most palpable violations of constitutional duty which have yet been committed consist in the acts of different State legislatures to defeat the execution of the fugitive-slave law. It ought to be remembered, however, that for these acts neither Congress nor any President can justly be held responsible. Having been passed in violation of the Federal Constitution, they are therefore null and void. All the courts, both State and national, before whom the question has arisen have from the beginning declared the fugitive-slave law to be constitutional. The single exception is that of a State court in Wisconsin, and this has not only been reversed by the proper appellate tribunal, but has met with such universal reprobation that there can be no danger from it as a precedent. The validity of this law has been established over and over again by the Supreme Court of the United States with perfect unanimity. It is rounded upon an express provision of the Constitution, requiring that fugitive slaves who escape from service in one State to another shall be "delivered up" to their masters. Without this provision it is a well-known historical fact that the Constitution itself could never have been adopted by the Convention. In one form or other, under the acts of 1793 and 1850, both being substantially the same, the fugitive-slave law has been the law of the land from the days of Washington until the present moment. Here, then, a clear case is presented in which it will be the duty of the next President, as it has been my own, to act with vigor in executing this supreme law against the conflicting enactments of State legislatures. Should he fail in the performance of this high duty, he will then have manifested a disregard of the Constitution and laws, to the great injury of the people of nearly one-half of the States of the Union. But are we to presume in advance that he will thus violate his duty? This would be at war with every principle of justice and of Christian charity. Let us wait for the overt act. The fugitive-slave law has been carried into execution in every contested case since the commencement of the present Administration, though Often, it is to be regretted, with great loss and inconvenience to the master and with considerable expense to the Government. Let us trust that the State legislatures will repeal their unconstitutional and obnoxious enactments. Unless this shall be done without unnecessary delay, it is impossible for any human power to save the Union.

The Southern States, standing on the basis of the Constitution, have right to demand this act of justice from the States of the North. Should it be refused, then the Constitution, to which all the States are parties, will have been willfully violated by one portion of them in a provision essential to the domestic security and happiness of the remainder. In that event 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.

I have purposely confined my remarks to revolutionary resistance, because it has been claimed within the last few years that any State, whenever this shall be its sovereign will and pleasure, may secede from the Union in accordance with the Constitution and without any violation of the constitutional rights of the other members of the Confederacy; that as each became parties to the Union by the vote of its own people assembled in convention, so any one of them may retire from the Union in a similar manner by the vote of such a convention.

In order to justify secession as a constitutional remedy, 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 as 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 forefathers many years of toil, privation, and blood to establish.

Such a principle is wholly inconsistent with the history as well as the character of the Federal Constitution. After it was framed with the greatest deliberation and care it was submitted to conventions of the people of the several States for ratification. Its provisions were discussed at length in these bodies, composed of the first men of the country. Its opponents contended that it conferred powers upon the Federal Government dangerous to the rights of the States, whilst its advocates maintained that under a fair construction of the instrument there was no foundation for such apprehensions. In that mighty struggle between the first intellects of this or any other country it never occurred to any individual, either among its opponents or advocates, to assert or even to intimate that their efforts were all vain labor, because the moment that any State felt herself aggrieved she might secede from the Union. What a crushing argument would this have proved against those who dreaded that the rights of the States would be endangered by the Constitution! The truth is that it was not until many years after the origin of the Federal Government that such a proposition was first advanced. It was then met and refuted by the conclusive arguments of General Jackson, who in his message of the 16th of January, 1833, transmitting the nullifying ordinance of South Carolina to Congress, employs the following language:

The right of the people of a single State to absolve themselves at will and without the consent of the other States from their most solemn obligations, and hazard the liberties and happiness of the millions composing this Union, can not be acknowledged. Such authority is believed to be utterly repugnant both to the principles upon which the General Government is constituted and to the objects which it is expressly formed to attain.

It is not pretended that any clause in the Constitution gives countenance to such a theory. It is altogether rounded upon inference; not from any language contained in the instrument itself, but from the sovereign character of the several States by which it was ratified. But is it beyond the power of a State, like an individual, to yield a portion of its sovereign rights to secure the remainder? In the language of Mr. Madison, who has been called the father of the Constitution

It was formed by the States; that is, by the people in each of the States acting in their highest sovereign capacity, and formed, consequently, by the same authority which formed the State constitutions. Nor is the Government of the United States, created by the Constitution, less a government, in the strict sense of the term, within the sphere of its powers than the governments created by the constitutions of the States are within their several spheres. It is, like them, organized into legislative, executive, and judiciary departments. It operates, like them directly on persons and things, and, like them, it has at command a physical force for executing the powers committed to it.

It was intended to be perpetual, and not to be annulled at the pleasure of any one of the contracting parties. The old Articles of Confederation were entitled "Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union between the States," and by the thirteenth article it is expressly declared that "the articles of this Confederation shall be inviolably observed by every State, and the Union shall be perpetual." The preamble to the Constitution of the United States, having express reference to the Articles of Confederation, recites that it was established "in order to form a more perfect union." And yet it is contended that this "more perfect union" does not include the essential attribute of perpetuity.

But that the Union was designed to be perpetual appears conclusively from the nature and extent of the powers conferred by the Constitution on the Federal Government. These powers embrace the very highest attributes of national sovereignty. They place both the sword and the purse under its control. Congress has power to make war and to make peace, to raise and support armies and navies, and to conclude treaties with foreign governments. It is invested with the power to coin money and to regulate the value thereof, and to regulate commerce with foreign nations and among the several States. It is not necessary to enumerate the other high powers which have been conferred upon the Federal Government. In order to carry the enumerated powers into effect, Congress possesses the exclusive right to lay and collect duties on imports, and, in common with the States, to lay and collect all other taxes.

But the Constitution has not only conferred these high powers upon Congress, but it has adopted effectual means to restrain the States from interfering with their exercise. For that purpose it has in strong prohibitory language expressly declared that

No State shall enter into any treaty, alliance, or confederation; grant letters of marque and reprisal; coin money; emit bills of credit; make anything but gold and silver coin a tender in payment of debts; pass any bill of attainder, ex post facto law, or law impairing the obligation of contracts. Moreover

No State shall without the consent of the Congress lay any imposts or duties on imports or exports, except what may be absolutely necessary for executing its inspection laws.

And if they exceed this amount the excess shall belong, to the United States. And

No State shall without the consent of Congress lay any duty of tonnage, keep troops or ships of war in time of peace, enter into any agreement or compact with another State or with a foreign power, or engage in war, unless actually invaded or in such imminent danger as will not admit of delay.

In order still further to secure the uninterrupted exercise of these high powers against State interposition, it is provided that

This Constitution and the laws of the United States which shall be made in pursuance thereof, and all treaties made or which shall be made under the authority of the United States, shall be the supreme law of the land, and the judges in every State shall be bound thereby, anything in the constitution or laws of any State to the contrary notwithstanding.

The solemn sanction of religion has been super-added to the obligations of official duty, and all Senators and Representatives of the United States, all members of State legislatures, and all executive and judicial officers, "both of the United States and of the several States, shall be bound by oath or affirmation to support this Constitution."

In order to carry into effect these powers, the Constitution has established a perfect Government in all its forms legislative, executive, and judicial; and this Government to the extent of its powers acts directly upon the individual citizens of every State, and executes its own decrees by the agency of its own officers. In this respect it differs entirely from the Government under the old Confederation, which was confined to making requisitions on the States in their sovereign character. This left it in the discretion of each whether to obey or to refuse, and they often declined to comply with such requisitions. It thus became necessary for the purpose of removing this barrier and "in order to form a more perfect union" to establish a Government which could act directly upon the people and execute its own laws without the intermediate agency of the States. This has been accomplished by the Constitution of the United States. In short, the Government created by the Constitution, and deriving its authority from the sovereign people of each of the several States, has precisely the same right to exercise its power over the people of all these States in the enumerated cases that each one of them possesses over subjects not delegated to the United States, but "reserved to the States respectively or to the people."

To the extent of the delegated powers the Constitution of the United States is as much a part of the constitution of each State and is as binding upon its people as though it had been textually inserted therein.

This Government, therefore, is a great and powerful Government, invested with all the attributes of sovereignty over the special subjects to which its authority extends. Its framers never intended to implant in its bosom the seeds of its own destruction, nor were they at its creation guilty of the absurdity of providing for its own dissolution. It was not intended by its framers to be the baseless fabric of a vision, which at the touch of the enchanter would vanish into thin air, but a substantial and mighty fabric, capable of resisting the slow decay of time and of defying the storms of ages. Indeed, well may the jealous patriots of that day have indulged fears that a Government of such high powers might violate the reserved rights of the States, and wisely did they adopt the rule of a strict construction of these powers to prevent the danger. But they did not fear, nor had they any reason to imagine, that the Constitution would ever be so interpreted as to enable any State by her own act, and without the consent of her sister States, to discharge her people from all or any of their federal obligations.

It may be asked, then, Are the people of the States without redress against the tyranny and oppression of the Federal Government? By no means. The right of resistance on the part of the governed against the oppression of their governments can not be denied. It exists independently of all constitutions, and has been exercised at all periods of the world's history. Under it old governments have been destroyed and new ones have taken their place. It is embodied in strong and express language in our own Declaration of Independence. But the distinction must ever be observed that this is revolution against an established government, and not a voluntary secession from it by virtue of an inherent constitutional right. In short, let us look the danger fairly in the face. Secession is neither more nor less than revolution. It may or it may not be a justifiable revolution, but still it is revolution.

What, in the meantime, is the responsibility and true position of the Executive? He is bound by solemn oath, before God and the country, "to take care that the laws be faithfully executed," and from this obligation he can not be absolved by any human power. But what if the performance of this duty, in whole or in part, has been rendered impracticable by events over which he could have exercised no control? Such at the present moment is the case throughout the State of South Carolina so far as the laws of the United States to secure the administration of justice by means of the Federal judiciary are concerned. All the Federal officers within its limits through whose agency alone these laws can be carried into execution have already resigned. We no longer have a district judge, a district attorney, or a marshal in South Carolina. In fact, the whole machinery of the Federal Government necessary for the distribution of remedial justice among the people has been demolished, and it would be difficult, if not impossible, to replace it.

The only acts of Congress on the statute book bearing upon this subject are those of February 28, 1795, and March 3, 1807. These authorize the President, after he shall have ascertained that the marshal, with his posse comitatus, is unable to execute civil or criminal process in any particular case, to call forth the militia and employ the Army and Navy to aid him in performing this service, having first by proclamation commanded the insurgents "to disperse and retire peaceably to their respective abodes within a limited time" This duty can not by possibility be performed in a State where no judicial authority exists to issue process, and where there is no marshal to execute it, and where, even if there were such an officer, the entire population would constitute one solid combination to resist him.

The bare enumeration of these provisions proves how inadequate they are without further legislation to overcome a united opposition in a single State, not to speak of other States who may place themselves in a similar attitude. Congress alone has power to decide whether the present laws can or can not be amended so as to carry out more effectually the objects of the Constitution.

The same insuperable obstacles do not lie in the way of executing the laws for the collection of the customs. The revenue still continues to be collected as heretofore at the custom-house in Charleston, and should the collector unfortunately resign a successor may be appointed to perform this duty.

Then, in regard to the property of the United States in South Carolina. This has been purchased for a fair equivalent, "by the consent of the legislature of the State," "for the erection of forts, magazines, arsenals," etc., and over these the authority "to exercise exclusive legislation" has been expressly granted by the Constitution to Congress. It is not believed that any attempt will be made to expel the United States from this property by force; but if in this I should prove to be mistaken, the officer in command of the forts has received orders to act strictly on the defensive. In such a contingency the responsibility for consequences would rightfully rest upon the heads of the assailants.

Apart from the execution of the laws, so far as this may be practicable, the Executive has no authority to decide what shall be the relations between the Federal Government and South Carolina. He has been invested with no such discretion. He possesses no power to change the relations heretofore existing between them, much less to acknowledge the independence of that State. This would be to invest a mere executive officer with the power of recognizing the dissolution of the confederacy among our thirty-three sovereign States. It bears no resemblance to the recognition of a foreign de facto government, involving no such responsibility. Any attempt to do this would, on his part, be a naked act of usurpation. It is therefore my duty to submit to Congress the whole question in all its beatings. The course of events is so rapidly hastening forward that the emergency may soon arise when you may be called upon to decide the momentous question whether you possess the power by force of arms to compel a State to remain in the Union. I should feel myself recreant to my duty were I not to express an opinion on this important subject.

The question fairly stated is, Has the Constitution delegated to Congress the power to coerce a State into submission which is attempting to withdraw or has actually withdrawn from the Confederacy? If answered in the affirmative, it must be on the principle that the power has been conferred upon Congress to declare and to make war against a State. After much serious reflection I have arrived at the conclusion that no such power has been delegated to Congress or to any other department of the Federal Government. It is manifest upon an inspection of the Constitution that this is not among the specific and enumerated powers granted to Congress, and it is equally apparent that its exercise is not "necessary and proper for carrying into execution" any one of these powers. So far from this power having been delegated to Congress, it was expressly refused by the Convention which framed the Constitution.

It appears from the proceedings of that body that on the 31st May, 1787, the clause "authorizing an exertion of the force of the whole against a delinquent State" came up for consideration. Mr. Madison opposed it in a brief but powerful speech, from which I shall extract but a single sentence. He observed:

The use of force against a State would look more like a declaration of war than an infliction of punishment, and would probably be considered by the party attacked as a dissolution of all previous compacts by which it might be bound.

Upon his motion the clause was unanimously postponed, and was never, I believe, again presented. Soon afterwards, on the 8th 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 vanish 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?

The fact is that our Union rests upon public opinion, and can never be cemented by the blood of its citizens shed in civil war. If it can not live in the affections of the people, it must one day perish. Congress possesses many means of preserving it by conciliation, but the sword was not placed in their hand to preserve it by force.

But may I be permitted solemnly to invoke my countrymen to pause and deliberate before they determine to destroy this the grandest temple which has ever been dedicated to human freedom since the world began? It has been consecrated by the blood of our fathers, by the glories of the past, and by the hopes of the future. The Union has already made us the most prosperous, and ere long will, if preserved, render us the most powerful, nation on the face of the earth. In every foreign region of the globe the title of American citizen is held in the highest respect, and when pronounced in a foreign land it causes the hearts of our countrymen to swell with honest pride. Surely when we reach the brink of the yawning abyss we shall recoil with horror from the last fatal plunge.

By such a dread catastrophe the hopes of the friends of freedom throughout the world would be destroyed, and a long night of leaden despotism would enshroud the nations. Our example for more than eighty years would not only be lost, but it would be quoted as a conclusive proof that man is unfit for self-government.

It is not every wrong nay, it is not every grievous wrong which can justify a resort to such a fearful alternative. This ought to be the last desperate remedy of a despairing people, after every other constitutional means of conciliation had been exhausted. We should reflect that under this free Government there is an incessant ebb and flow in public opinion. The slavery question, like everything human, will have its day. I firmly believe that it has reached and passed the culminating point. But if in the midst of the existing excitement the Union shall perish, the evil may then become irreparable.

Congress can contribute much to avert it by proposing and recommending to the legislatures of the several States the remedy for existing evils which the Constitution has itself provided for its own preservation. This has been tried at different critical periods of our history, and always with eminent success. It is to be found in the fifth article, providing for its own amendment. Under this article amendments have been proposed by two-thirds of both Houses of Congress, and have been "ratified by the legislatures of three-fourths of the several States," and have consequently become parts of the Constitution. To this process the country is indebted for the clause prohibiting Congress from passing any law respecting an establishment of religion or abridging the freedom of speech or of the press or of the right of petition. To this we are also indebted for the bill of rights which secures the people against any abuse of power by the Federal Government. Such were the apprehensions justly entertained by the friends of State rights at that period as to have rendered it extremely doubtful whether the Constitution could have long survived without those amendments.

Again the Constitution was amended by the same process, after the election of President Jefferson by the House of Representatives, in February, 1803. This amendment was rendered necessary to prevent a recurrence of the dangers which had seriously threatened the existence of the Government during the pendency of that election. The article for its own amendment was intended to secure the amicable adjustment of conflicting constitutional questions like the present which might arise between the governments of the States and that of the United States. This appears from contemporaneous history. In this connection I shall merely call attention to a few sentences in Mr. Madison's justly celebrated report, in 1799, to the legislature of Virginia. In this he ably and conclusively defended the resolutions of the preceding legislature against the strictures of several other State legislatures. These were mainly rounded upon the protest of the Virginia legislature against the "alien and sedition acts," as "palpable and alarming infractions of the Constitution." In pointing out the peaceful and constitutional remedies and he referred to none other to which the States were authorized to resort on such occasions, he concludes by saying that

The legislatures of the States might have made a direct representation to Congress with a view to obtain a rescinding of the two offensive acts, or they might have represented to their respective Senators in Congress their wish that two-thirds thereof would propose an explanatory amendment to the Constitution; or two-thirds of themselves, if such had been their option, might by an application to Congress have obtained a convention for the same object.

This is the very course which I earnestly recommend in order to obtain an "explanatory amendment" of the Constitution on the subject of slavery. This might originate with Congress or the State legislatures, as may be deemed most advisable to attain the object. The explanatory amendment might be confined to the final 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 now exists or may hereafter exist.

2. The duty of protecting this right in all the common Territories throughout their Territorial existence, and until they shall be admitted as States into the Union, with or without slavery, as their constitutions may prescribe.

3. A like recognition of the right of the master to have his slave who has escaped from one State to another restored and "delivered up" to him, and of the validity of the fugitive-slave law enacted for this purpose, together with a declaration that all State laws impairing or defeating this right are violations of the Constitution, and are consequently null and void. It may be objected that this construction of the Constitution has already been settled by the Supreme Court of the United States, and what more ought to be required? The answer is that a very large proportion of the people of the United States still contest the correctness of this decision, and never will cease from agitation and admit its binding force until clearly established by the people of the several States in their sovereign character. Such an explanatory amendment would, it is believed, forever terminate the existing dissensions, and restore peace and harmony among the States.

It ought not to be doubted that such an appeal to the arbitrament established by the Constitution itself would be received with favor by all the States of the Confederacy. In any event, it ought to be tried in a spirit of conciliation before any of these States shall separate themselves from the Union.

When I entered upon the duties of the Presidential office, the aspect neither of our foreign nor domestic affairs was at all satisfactory. We were involved in dangerous complications with several nations, and two of our Territories were in a state of revolution against the Government. A restoration of the African slave trade had numerous and powerful advocates. Unlawful military expeditions were countenanced by many of our citizens, and were suffered, in defiance of the efforts of the Government, to escape from our shores for the purpose of making war upon the offending people of neighboring republics with whom we were at peace. In addition to these and other difficulties, we experienced a revulsion in monetary affairs soon after my advent to power of unexampled severity and of ruinous consequences to all the great interests of the country. When we take a retrospect of what was then our condition and contrast this with its material prosperity at the time of the late Presidential election, we have abundant reason to return our grateful thanks to that merciful Providence which has never forsaken us as a nation in all our past trials.

Our relations with Great Britain are of the most friendly character. Since the commencement of my Administration the two dangerous questions arising from the Clayton and Bulwer treaty and from the right of search claimed by the British Government have been amicably and honorably adjusted.

The discordant constructions of the Clayton and Bulwer treaty between the two Governments, which at different periods of the discussion bore a threatening aspect, have resulted in a final settlement entirely satisfactory to this Government. In my last annual message I informed Congress that the British Government had not then "completed treaty arrangements with the Republics of Honduras and Nicaragua in pursuance of the understanding between the two Governments. It is, nevertheless, confidently expected that this good work will ere long be accomplished." This confident expectation has since been fulfilled. Her Britannic Majesty concluded a treaty with Honduras on the 28th November, 1859, and with Nicaragua on the 28th August, 1860, relinquishing the Mosquito protectorate. Besides, by the former the Bay Islands are recognized as a part of the Republic of Honduras. It may be observed that the stipulations of these treaties conform in every important particular to the amendments adopted by the Senate of the United States to the treaty concluded at London on the 17th October, 1856, between the two Governments. It will be recollected that this treaty was rejected by the British Government because of its objection to the just and important amendment of the Senate to the article relating to Ruatan and the other islands in the Bay of Honduras.

It must be a source of sincere satisfaction to all classes of our fellow-citizens, and especially to those engaged in foreign commerce, that the claim on the part of Great Britain forcibly to visit and search American merchant vessels on the high seas in time of peace has been abandoned. This was by far the most dangerous question to the peace of the two countries which has existed since the War of 1812. Whilst it remained open they might at any moment have been precipitated into a war. This was rendered manifest by the exasperated state of public feeling throughout our entire country produced by the forcible search of American merchant vessels by British cruisers on the coast of Cuba in the spring of 1858. The American people hailed with general acclaim the orders of the Secretary of the Navy to our naval force in the Gulf of Mexico "to protect all vessels of the United States on the high seas from search or detention by the vessels of war of any other nation." These orders might have produced an immediate collision between the naval forces of the two countries. This was most fortunately prevented by an appeal to the justice of Great Britain and to the law of nations as expounded by her own most eminent jurists.

The only question of any importance which still remains open is the disputed title between the two Governments to the island of San Juan, in the vicinity of Washington Territory. As this question is still under negotiation, it is not deemed advisable at the present moment to make any other allusion to the subject.

The recent visit of the Prince of Wales, in a private character, to the people of this country has proved to be a most auspicious event. In its consequences it can not fail to increase the kindred and kindly feelings which I trust may ever actuate the Government and people of both countries in their political and social intercourse with each other.

With France, our ancient and powerful ally, our relations continue to be of the most friendly character. A decision has recently been made by a French judicial tribunal, with the approbation of the Imperial Government, which can not fail to foster the sentiments of mutual regard that have so long existed between the two countries. Under the French law no person can serve in the armies of France unless he be a French citizen. The law of France recognizing the natural right of expatriation, it follows as a necessary consequence that a Frenchman by the fact of having become a citizen of the United States has changed his allegiance and has lost his native character. He can not therefore be compelled to serve in the French armies in case he should return to his native country. These principles were announced in 1852 by the French minister of war and in two late cases have been confirmed by the French judiciary. In these, two natives of France have been discharged from the French army because they had become American citizens. To employ the language of our present minister to France, who has rendered good service on this occasion. "I do not think our French naturalized fellow-citizens will hereafter experience much annoyance on this subject."

I venture to predict that the time is not far distant when the other continental powers will adopt the same wise and just policy which has done so much honor to the enlightened Government of the Emperor. In any event, our Government is bound to protect the rights of our naturalized citizens everywhere to the same extent as though they had drawn their first breath in this country. We can recognize no distinction between our native and naturalized citizens.

Between the great Empire of Russia and the United States the mutual friendship and regard which has so long existed still continues to prevail, and if possible to increase. Indeed, our relations with that Empire are all that we could desire. Our relations with Spain are now of a more complicated, though less dangerous, character than they have been for many years. Our citizens have long held and continue to hold numerous claims against the Spanish Government. These had been ably urged for a series of years by our successive diplomatic representatives at Madrid, but without obtaining redress. The Spanish Government finally agreed to institute a joint commission for the adjustment of these claims, and on the 5th day of March, 1860, concluded a convention for this purpose with our present minister at Madrid.

Under this convention what have been denominated the "Cuban claims," amounting to $128,635.54, in which more than 100 of our fellow-citizens are interested, were recognized, and the Spanish Government agreed to pay $100,000 of this amount "within three months following the exchange of ratifications." The payment of the remaining $28,635.54 was to await the decision of the commissioners for or against the Amistad claim; but in any event the balance was to be paid to the claimants either by Spain or the United States. These terms, I have every reason to know, are highly satisfactory to the holders of the Cuban claims. Indeed, they have made a formal offer authorizing the State Department to settle these claims and to deduct the amount of the Amistad claim from the sums which they are entitled to receive from Spain. This offer, of course, can not be accepted. All other claims of citizens of the United States against Spain, or the subjects of the Queen of Spain against the United States, including the Amistad claim, were by this convention referred to a board of commissioners in the usual form. Neither the validity of the Amistad claim nor of any other claim against either party, with the single exception of the Cuban claims, was recognized by the convention. Indeed, the Spanish Government did not insist that the validity of the Amistad claim should be thus recognized, notwithstanding its payment had been recommended to Congress by two of my predecessors, as well as by myself, and an appropriation for that purpose had passed the Senate of the United States.

They were content that it should be submitted to the board for examination and decision like the other claims. Both Governments were bound respectively to pay the amounts awarded to the several claimants "at such times and places as may be fixed by and according to the tenor of said awards."

I transmitted this convention to the Senate for their constitutional action on the 3d of May, 1860, and on the 27th of the succeeding June they determined that they would "not advise and consent" to its ratification.

These proceedings place our relations with Spain in an awkward and embarrassing position. It is more than probable that the final adjustment of these claims will devolve upon my successor.

I reiterate the recommendation contained in my annual message of December, 1858, and repeated in that of December, 1859, in favor of the acquisition of Cuba from Spain by fair purchase. I firmly believe that such an acquisition would contribute essentially to the well-being and prosperity of both countries in all future time, as well as prove the certain means of immediately abolishing the African slave trade throughout the world. I would not repeat this recommendation upon the present occasion if I believed that the transfer of Cuba to the United States upon conditions highly favorable to Spain could justly tarnish the national honor of the proud and ancient Spanish monarchy. Surely no person ever attributed to the first Napoleon a disregard of the national honor of France for transferring Louisiana to the United States for a fair equivalent, both in money and commercial advantages.

With the Emperor of Austria and the remaining continental powers of Europe, including that of the Sultan, our relations continue to be of the most friendly character.

The friendly and peaceful policy pursued by the Government of the United States toward the Empire of China has produced the most satisfactory results. The treaty of Tien-tsin of the 18th June, 1858, has been faithfully observed by the Chinese authorities. The convention of the 8th November, 1858, supplementary to this treaty, for the adjustment and satisfaction of the claims of our citizens on China referred to in my last annual message, has been already carried into effect so far as this was practicable. Under this convention the sum of 500,000 taels, equal to about $700,000, was stipulated to be paid in satisfaction of the claims of American citizens out of the one-fifth of the receipts for tonnage, import, and export duties on American vessels at the ports of Canton, Shanghai, and Fuchau, and it was "agreed that this amount shall be in full liquidation of all claims of American citizens at the various ports to this date." Debentures for this amount, to wit, 300,000 taels for Canton, 100,000 for Shanghai, and 100,000 for Fuchau, were delivered, according to the terms of the convention, by the respective Chinese collectors of the customs of these ports to the agent selected by our minister to receive the same. Since that time the claims of our citizens have been adjusted by the board of commissioners appointed for that purpose under the act of March 3, 1859, and their awards, which proved satisfactory to the claimants, have been approved by our minister. In the aggregate they amount to the sum of $498,694.78. The claimants have already received a large proportion of the sums awarded to them out of the fund provided, and it is confidently expected that the remainder will ere long be entirely paid. After the awards shall have been satisfied there will remain a surplus of more than $200,000 at the disposition of Congress. As this will, in equity, belong to the Chinese Government, would not justice require its appropriation to some benevolent object in which the Chinese may be specially interested?

Our minister to China, in obedience to his instructions, has remained perfectly neutral in the war between Great Britain and France and the Chinese Empire, although, in conjunction with the Russian minister, he was ever ready and willing, had the opportunity offered, to employ his good offices in restoring peace between the parties. It is but an act of simple justice, both to our present minister and his predecessor, to state that they have proved fully equal to the delicate, trying, and responsible positions in which they have on different occasions been placed.

The ratifications of the treaty with Japan concluded at Yeddo on the 29th July, 1858, were exchanged at Washington on the 22d May last, and the treaty itself was proclaimed on the succeeding day. There is good reason to expect that under its protection and influence our trade and intercourse with that distant and interesting people will rapidly increase.

The ratifications of the treaty were exchanged with unusual solemnity. For this purpose the Tycoon had accredited three of his most distinguished subjects as envoys extraordinary and ministers plenipotentiary, who were received and treated with marked distinction and kindness, both by the Government and people of the United States. There is every reason to believe that they have returned to their native land entirely satisfied with their visit and inspired by the most friendly feelings for our country. Let us ardently hope, in the language of the treaty itself, that "there shall henceforward be perpetual peace and friendship between the United States of America and His Majesty the Tycoon of Japan and his successors."

With the wise, conservative, and liberal Government of the Empire of Brazil our relations continue to be of the most amicable character.

The exchange of the ratifications of the convention with the Republic of New Granada signed at Washington on the 10th of September, 1857, has been long delayed from accidental causes for which neither party is censurable. These ratifications were duly exchanged in this city on the 5th of November last. Thus has a controversy been amicably terminated which had become so serious at the period of my inauguration as to require me, on the 17th of April, 1857, to direct our minister to demand his passports and return to the United States.

Under this convention the Government of New Granada has specially acknowledged itself to be responsible to our citizens "for damages which were caused by the riot at Panama on the 15th April, 1856." These claims, together with other claims of our citizens which had been long urged in vain, are referred for adjustment to a board of commissioners. I submit a copy of the convention to Congress, and recommend the legislation necessary to carry it into effect.

Persevering efforts have been made for the adjustment of the claims of American citizens against the Government of Costa Rica, and I am happy to inform you that these have finally prevailed. A convention was signed at the city of San Jose on the 2d July last, between the minister resident of the United States in Costa Rica and the plenipotentiaries of that Republic, referring these claims to a board of commissioners and providing for the payment of their awards. This convention will be submitted immediately to the Senate for their constitutional action.

The claims of our citizens upon the Republic of Nicaragua have not yet been provided for by treaty, although diligent efforts for this purpose have been made by our minister resident to that Republic. These are still continued, with a fair prospect of success.

Our relations with Mexico remain in a most unsatisfactory condition. In my last two annual messages I discussed extensively the subject of these relations, and do not now propose to repeat at length the facts and arguments then presented. They proved conclusively that our citizens residing in Mexico and our merchants trading thereto had suffered a series of wrongs and outrages such as we have never patiently borne from any other nation. For these our successive ministers, invoking the faith of treaties, had in the name of their country persistently demanded redress and indemnification, but without the slightest effect. Indeed, so confident had the Mexican authorities become of our patient endurance that they universally believed they might commit these outrages upon American citizens with absolute impunity. Thus wrote our minister in 1856, and expressed the opinion that "nothing but a manifestation of the power of the Government and of its purpose to punish these wrongs will avail."

Afterwards, in 1857, came the adoption of a new constitution for Mexico, the election of a President and Congress under its provisions, and the inauguration of the President. Within one short month, however, this President was expelled from the capital by a rebellion in the army, and the supreme power of the Republic was assigned to General Zuloaga. This usurper was in his turn soon compelled to retire and give place to General Miramon.

Under the constitution which had thus been adopted Senor Juarez, as chief justice of the supreme court, became the lawful President of the Republic, and it was for the maintenance of the constitution and his authority derived from it that the civil war commenced and still continues to be prosecuted.

Throughout the year 1858 the constitutional party grew stronger and stronger. In the previous history of Mexico a successful military revolution at the capital had almost universally been the signal for submission throughout the Republic. Not so on the present occasion. A majority of the citizens persistently sustained the constitutional Government. When this was recognized, in April, 1859, by the Government of the United States, its authority extended over a large majority of the Mexican States and people, including Vera Cruz and all the other important seaports of the Republic. From that period our commerce with Mexico began to revive, and the constitutional Government has afforded it all the protection in its power.

Meanwhile the Government of Miramon still held sway at the capital and over the surrounding country, and continued its outrages against the few American citizens who still had the courage to remain within its power. To cap the climax, after the battle of Tacubaya, in April, 1859, General Marquez ordered three citizens of the United States, two of them physicians, to be seized in the hospital at that place, taken out and shot, without crime and without trial. This was done, notwithstanding our unfortunate countrymen were at the moment engaged in the holy cause of affording relief to the soldiers of both parties who had been wounded in the battle, without making any distinction between them.

The time had arrived, in my opinion, when this Government was bound to exert its power to avenge and redress the wrongs of our citizens and to afford them protection in Mexico. The interposing obstacle was that the portion of the country under the sway of Miramon could not be reached without passing over territory under the jurisdiction of the constitutional Government. Under these circumstances I deemed it my duty to recommend to Congress in my last annual message the employment of a sufficient military force to penetrate into the interior, where the Government of Miramon was to be found, with or, if need be, without the consent of the Juarez Government, though it was not doubted that this consent could be obtained. Never have I had a clearer conviction on any subject than of the justice as well as wisdom of such a policy. No other alternative was left except the entire abandonment of our fellow-citizens who had gone to Mexico under the faith of treaties to the systematic injustice, cruelty, and oppression of Miramon's Government. Besides, it is almost certain that the simple authority to employ this force would of itself have accomplished all our objects without striking a single blow. The constitutional Government would then ere this have been established at the City of Mexico, and would have been ready and willing to the extent of its ability to do us justice.

In addition and I deem this a most important consideration European Governments would have been deprived of all pretext to interfere in the territorial and domestic concerns of Mexico. We should thus have been relieved from the obligation of resisting, even by force should this become necessary, any attempt by these Governments to deprive our neighboring Republic of portions of her territory a duty from which we could not shrink without abandoning the traditional and established policy of the American people. I am happy to observe that, firmly relying upon the justice and good faith of these Governments, there is no present danger that such a contingency will happen.

Having discovered that my recommendations would not be sustained by Congress, the next alternative was to accomplish in some degree, if possible, the same objects by treaty stipulations with the constitutional Government. Such treaties were accordingly concluded by our late able and excellent minister to Mexico, and on the 4th of January last were submitted to the Senate for ratification. As these have not yet received the final action of that body, it would be improper for me to present a detailed statement of their provisions. Still, I may be permitted to express the opinion in advance that they are calculated to promote the agricultural, manufacturing, and commercial interests of the country and to secure our just influence with an adjoining Republic as to whose fortunes and fate we can never feel indifferent, whilst at the same time they provide for the payment of a considerable amount toward the satisfaction of the claims of our injured fellow-citizens.

At the period of my inauguration I was confronted in Kansas by a revolutionary government existing under what is called the "Topeka constitution." Its avowed object was to subdue the Territorial government by force and to inaugurate what was called the "Topeka government" in its stead. To accomplish this object an extensive military organization was formed, and its command intrusted to the most violent revolutionary leaders. Under these circumstances it became my imperative duty to exert the whole constitutional power of the Executive to prevent the flames of civil war from again raging in Kansas, which in the excited state of the public mind, both North and South, might have extended into the neighboring States. The hostile parties in Kansas had been inflamed against each other by emissaries both from the North and the South to a degree of malignity without parallel in our history. To prevent actual collision and to assist the civil magistrates in enforcing the laws, a strong detachment of the Army was stationed in the Territory, ready to aid the marshal and his deputies when lawfully called upon as a posse comitatus in the execution of civil and criminal process. Still, the troubles in Kansas could not have been permanently settled without an election by the people.

The ballot box is the surest arbiter of disputes among freemen. Under this conviction every proper effort was employed to induce the hostile parties to vote at the election of delegates to frame a State constitution, and afterwards at the election to decide whether Kansas should be a slave or free State.

The insurgent party refused to vote at either, lest this might be considered a recognition on their part of the Territorial government established by Congress. A better spirit, however, seemed soon after to prevail, and the two parties met face to face at the third election, held on the first Monday of January, 1858, for members of the legislature and State officers under the Lecompton constitution. The result was the triumph of the antislavery party at the polls. This decision of the ballot box proved clearly that this party were in the majority, and removed the danger of civil war. From that time we have heard little or nothing of the Topeka government, and all serious danger of revolutionary troubles in Kansas was then at an end.

The Lecompton constitution, which had been thus recognized at this State election by the votes of both political parties in Kansas, was transmitted to me with the request that I should present it to Congress. This I could not have refused to do without violating my clearest and strongest convictions of duty. The constitution and all the proceedings which preceded and followed its formation were fair and regular on their face. I then believed, and experience has proved, that the interests of the people of Kansas would have been best consulted by its admission as a State into the Union, especially as the majority within a brief period could have amended the constitution according to their will and pleasure. If fraud existed in all or any of these proceedings, it was not for the President but for Congress to investigate and determine the question of fraud and what ought to be its consequences. If at the first two elections the majority refused to vote, it can not be pretended that this refusal to exercise the elective franchise could invalidate an election fairly held under lawful authority, even if they had not subsequently voted at the third election. It is true that the whole constitution had not been submitted to the people, as I always desired; but the precedents are numerous of the admission of States into the Union without such submission. It would not comport with my present purpose to review the proceedings of Congress upon the Lecompton constitution. It is sufficient to observe that their final action has removed the last vestige of serious revolutionary troubles. The desperate hand recently assembled under a notorious outlaw in the southern portion of the Territory to resist the execution of the laws and to plunder peaceful citizens will, I doubt not be speedily subdued and brought to justice.

Had I treated the Lecompton constitution as a nullity and refused to transmit it to Congress, it is not difficult to imagine, whilst recalling the position of the country at that moment, what would have been the disastrous consequences, both in and out of the Territory, from such a dereliction of duty on the part of the Executive.

Peace has also been restored within the Territory of Utah, which at the commencement of my Administration was in a state of open rebellion. This was the more dangerous, as the people, animated by a fanatical spirit and intrenched within their distant mountain fastnesses, might have made a long and formidable resistance. Cost what it might, it was necessary to bring them into subjection to the Constitution and the laws. Sound policy, therefore, as well as humanity, required that this object should if possible be accomplished without the effusion of blood. This could only be effected by sending a military force into the Territory sufficiently strong to convince the people that resistance would be hopeless, and at the same time to offer them a pardon for past offenses on condition of immediate submission to the Government. This policy was pursued with eminent success, and the only cause for regret is the heavy expenditure required to march a large detachment of the Army to that remote region and to furnish it subsistence.

Utah is now comparatively peaceful and quiet, and the military force has been withdrawn, except that portion of it necessary to keep the Indians in check and to protect the emigrant trains on their way to our Pacific possessions.

In my first annual message I promised to employ my best exertions in cooperation with Congress to reduce the expenditures of the Government within the limits of a wise and judicious economy. An overflowing Treasury had produced habits of prodigality and extravagance which could only be gradually corrected. The work required both time and patience. I applied myself diligently to this task from the beginning and was aided by the able and energetic efforts of the heads of the different Executive Departments. The result of our labors in this good cause did not appear in the sum total of our expenditures for the first two years, mainly in consequence of the extraordinary expenditure necessarily incurred in the Utah expedition and the very large amount of the contingent expenses of Congress during this period. These greatly exceeded the pay and mileage of the members. For the year ending June 30, 1858, whilst the pay and mileage amounted to $1,490,214, the contingent expenses rose to $2,093,309.79; and for the year ending June 30, 1859, whilst the pay and mileage amounted to $859,093.66, the contingent expenses amounted to $1,431,565.78. I am happy, however, to be able to inform you that during the last fiscal year, ending June 30, 1860, the total expenditures of the Government in all its branches legislative, executive, and judicial exclusive of the public debt, were reduced to the sum of $55,402,465.46. This conclusively appears from the books of the Treasury. In the year ending June 30, 1858, the total expenditure, exclusive of the public debt, amounted to $71,901,129.77, and that for the year ending June 30, 1859, to $66,346,226.13. Whilst the books of the Treasury show an actual expenditure of $59,848,474.72 for the year ending June 30, 1860, including $1,040,667.71 for the contingent expenses of Congress, there must be deducted from this amount the sum of $4,296,009.26, with the interest upon it of $150,000, appropriated by the act of February 15, 1860, "for the purpose of supplying the deficiency in the revenues and defraying the expenses of the Post-Office Department for the year ending June 30, 1859." This sum therefore justly chargeable to the year 1859, must be deducted from the sum of $59,848,474.72 in order to ascertain the expenditure for the year ending June 30, 1860, which leaves a balance for the expenditures of that year of $55,402,465.46. The interest on the public debt, including Treasury notes, for the same fiscal year, ending June 30, 1860, amounted to $3,177,314.62, which, added to the above sum of $55,402,465.46, makes the aggregate of $58,579,780.08.

It ought in justice to be observed that several of the estimates from the Departments for the year ending June 30, 1860, were reduced by Congress below what was and still is deemed compatible with the public interest. Allowing a liberal margin of $2,500,000 for this reduction and for other causes, it may be safely asserted that the sum of $61,000,000, or, at the most, $62,000,000, is amply sufficient to administer the Government and to pay the interest on the public debt, unless contingent events should hereafter render extraordinary expenditures necessary.

This result has been attained in a considerable degree by the care exercised by the appropriate Departments in entering into public contracts. I have myself never interfered with the award of any such contract, except in a single case, with the Colonization Society, deeming it advisable to cast the whole responsibility in each case on the proper head of the Department, with the general instruction that these contracts should always be given to the lowest and best bidder. It has ever been my opinion that public contracts are not a legitimate source of patronage to be conferred upon personal or political favorites, but that in all such cases a public officer is bound to act for the Government as a prudent individual would act for himself.

It is with great satisfaction I communicate the fact that since the date of my last annual message not a single slave has been imported into the United States in violation of the laws prohibiting the African slave trade. This statement is rounded upon a thorough examination and investigation of the subject. Indeed, the spirit which prevailed some time since among a portion of our fellow-citizens in favor of this trade seems to have entirely subsided.

I also congratulate you upon the public sentiment which now exists against the crime of setting on foot military expeditions within the limits of the United States to proceed from thence and make war upon the people of unoffending States with whom we are at peace. In this respect a happy change has been effected since the commencement of my Administration. It surely ought to be the prayer of every Christian and patriot that such expeditions may never again receive countenance in our country or depart from our shores.

It would be a useless repetition to do more than refer with earnest commendation to my former recommendations in favor of the Pacific railroad; of the grant of power to the President to employ the naval force in the vicinity for the protection of the lives and property of our fellow-citizens passing in transit over the different Central American routes against sudden and lawless outbreaks and depredations, and also to protect American merchant vessels, their crews and cargoes, against violent and unlawful seizure and confiscation in the ports of Mexico and the South American Republics when these may be in a disturbed and revolutionary condition. It is my settled conviction that without such a power we do not afford that protection to those engaged in the commerce of the country which they have a right to demand.

I again recommend to Congress the passage of a law, in pursuance of the provisions of the Constitution, appointing a day certain previous to the 4th March in each year of an odd number for the election of Representatives throughout all the States. A similar power has already been exercised, with general approbation, in the appointment of the same day throughout the Union for holding the election of electors for President and Vice-President of the United States. My attention was earnestly directed to this subject from the fact that the Thirty-fifth Congress terminated on the 3d March, 1859, without making the necessary appropriation for the service of the Post-Office Department. I was then forced to consider the best remedy for this omission, and an immediate call of the present Congress was the natural resort. Upon inquiry, however, I ascertained that fifteen out of the thirty-three States composing the Confederacy were without Representatives, and that consequently these fifteen States would be disfranchised by such a call. These fifteen States will be in the same condition on the 4th March next. Ten of them can not elect Representatives, according to existing State laws, until different periods, extending from the beginning of August next until the months of October and November. In my last message I gave warning that in a time of sudden and alarming danger the salvation of our institutions might depend upon the power of the President immediately to assemble a full Congress to meet the emergency.

It is now quite evident that the financial necessities of the Government will require a modification of the tariff during your present session for the purpose of increasing the revenue. In this aspect, I desire to reiterate the recommendation contained in my last two annual messages in favor of imposing specific instead of ad valorem duties on all imported articles to which these can be properly applied. From long observation and experience I am convinced that specific duties are necessary, both to protect the revenue and to secure to our manufacturing interests that amount of incidental encouragement which unavoidably results from a revenue tariff.

As an abstract proposition it may be admitted that ad valorem duties would in theory be the most just and equal. But if the experience of this and of all other commercial nations has demonstrated that such duties can not be assessed and collected without great frauds upon the revenue, then it is the part of wisdom to resort to specific duties. Indeed, from the very nature of an ad valorem duty this must be the result. Under it the inevitable consequence is that foreign goods will be entered at less than their true value. The Treasury will therefore lose the duty on the difference between their real and fictitious value, and to this extent we are defrauded.

The temptations which ad valorem duties present to a dishonest importer are irresistible. His object is to pass his goods through the custom-house at the very lowest valuation necessary to save them from confiscation. In this he too often succeeds in spite of the vigilance of the revenue officers. Hence the resort to false invoices, one for the purchaser and another for the custom-house, and to other expedients to defraud the Government. The honest importer produces his invoice to the collector, stating the actual price at which he purchased the articles abroad. Not so the dishonest importer and the agent of the foreign manufacturer. And here it may be observed that a very large proportion of the manufactures imported from abroad are consigned for sale to commission merchants, who are mere agents employed by the manufacturers. In such cases no actual sale has been made to fix their value. The foreign manufacturer, if he be dishonest, prepares an invoice of the goods, not at their actual value, but at the very lowest rate necessary to escape detection. In this manner the dishonest importer and the foreign manufacturer enjoy a decided advantage over the honest merchant. They are thus enabled to undersell the fair trader and drive him from the market. In fact the operation of this system has already driven from the pursuits of honorable commerce many of that class of regular and conscientious merchants whose character throughout the world is the pride of our country.

The remedy for these evils is to be found in specific duties, so far as this may be practicable. They dispense with any inquiry at the custom-house into the actual cost or value of the article, and it pays the precise amount of duty previously fixed by law. They present no temptations to the appraisers of foreign goods, who receive but small salaries, and might by undervaluation in a few cases render themselves independent.

Besides, specific duties best conform to the requisition in the Constitution that "no preference shall be given by any regulation of commerce or revenue to the ports of one State over those of another." Under our ad valorem system such preferences are to some extent inevitable, and complaints have often been made that the spirit of this provision has been violated by a lower appraisement of the same articles at one port than at another.

An impression strangely enough prevails to some extent that specific duties are necessarily protective duties. Nothing can be more fallacious. Great Britain glories in free trade, and yet her whole revenue from imports is at the present moment collected under a system of specific duties. It is a striking fact in this connection that in the commercial treaty of January 23, 1860, between France and England one of the articles provides that the ad valorem duties which it imposes shall be converted into specific duties within six months from its date, and these are to be ascertained by making an average of the prices for six months previous to that time. The reverse of the propositions would be nearer to the truth, because a much larger amount of revenue would be collected by merely converting the ad valorem duties of a tariff into equivalent specific duties. To this extent the revenue would be increased, and in the same proportion the specific duty might be diminished.

Specific duties would secure to the American manufacturer the incidental protection to which he is fairly entitled under a revenue tariff, and to this surely no person would object. The framers of the existing tariff have gone further, and in a liberal spirit have discriminated in favor of large and useful branches of our manufactures, not by raising the rate of duty upon the importation of similar articles from abroad, but, what is the same in effect, by admitting articles free of duty which enter into the composition of their fabrics.

Under the present system it has been often truly remarked that this incidental protection decreases when the manufacturer needs it most and increases when he needs it least, and constitutes a sliding scale which always operates against him. The revenues of the country are subject to similar fluctuations. Instead of approaching a steady standard, as would be the case under a system of specific duties, they sink and rise with the sinking and rising prices of articles in foreign countries. It would not be difficult for Congress to arrange a system of specific duties which would afford additional stability both to our revenue and our manufactures and without injury or injustice to any interest of the country. This might be accomplished by ascertaining the average value of any given article for a series of years at the place of exportation and by simply converting the rate of ad valorem duty upon it which might be deemed necessary for revenue purposes into the form of a specific duty. Such an arrangement could not injure the consumer. If he should pay a greater amount of duty one year, this would be counterbalanced by a lesser amount the next, and in the end the aggregate would be the same.

I desire to call your immediate attention to the present condition of the Treasury, so ably and clearly presented by the Secretary in his report to Congress, and to recommend that measures be promptly adopted to enable it to discharge its pressing obligations. The other recommendations of the report are well worthy of your favorable consideration.

I herewith transmit to Congress the reports of the Secretaries of War, of the Navy, of the Interior, and of the Postmaster-General. The recommendations and suggestions which they contain are highly valuable and deserve your careful attention.

The report of the Postmaster-General details the circumstances under which Cornelius Vanderbilt, on my request, agreed in the month of July last to carry the ocean mails between our Atlantic and Pacific coasts. Had he not thus acted this important intercommunication must have been suspended, at least for a season. The Postmaster-General had no power to make him any other compensation than the postages on the mail matter which he might carry. It was known at the time that these postages would fall far short of an adequate compensation, as well as of the sum which the same service had previously cost the Government. Mr. Vanderbilt, in a commendable spirit, was willing to rely upon the justice of Congress to make up the deficiency, and I therefore recommend that an appropriation may be granted for this purpose.

I should do great injustice to the Attorney-General were I to omit the mention of his distinguished services in the measures adopted and prosecuted by him for the defense of the Government against numerous and unfounded claims to land in California purporting to have been made by the Mexican Government previous to the treaty of cession. The successful opposition to these claims has saved the United States public property worth many millions of dollars and to individuals holding title under them to at least an equal amount.

It has been represented to me from sources which I deem reliable that the inhabitants in several portions of Kansas have been reduced nearly to a state of starvation on account of the almost total failure of their crops, whilst the harvests in every other portion of the country have been abundant. The prospect before them for the approaching winter is well calculated to enlist the sympathies of every heart. The destitution appears to be so general that it can not be relieved by private contributions, and they are in such indigent circumstances as to be unable to purchase the necessaries of life for themselves. I refer the subject to Congress. If any constitutional measure for their relief can be devised, I would recommend its adoption.

I cordially commend to your favorable regard the interests of the people of this District. They are eminently entitled to your consideration, especially since, unlike the people of the States, they can appeal to no government except that of the Union.

JAMES BUCHANAN.
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[PetePaolillo]

December 6, 1860

FORT MOULTRIE, S. C., December 6, 1860.
(Received A. G. O., December 10.)

Col. S. COOPER,
Adjutant-General U. S. Army:

COLONEL: I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt, on the 4th, of your communication of the 1st instant. In compliance therewith I went yesterday to the city of Charleston to confer with Colonel Huger, and I called with him upon the mayor of the city, and upon several other prominent citizens. All seemed determined, as far as their influence or power extends, to prevent an attack by a mob on our fort; but all are equally decided in the opinion that the forts must be theirs after secession. I shall nevertheless, knowing how excitable this community is, continue to keep on the qui vive, and, as far as in my power, steadily prepare my command to the uttermost to resist any attack that may be made. As the State will probably declare itself out of the Union in less than two weeks, it seems to me that it would be well to discontinue all engineering work on this fort except such as is necessary to increase its strength. I have not pretended to exercise any control over that department, and have found Captain Foster generally disposed to accede to the suggestions I have ventured to make; and the suggestions I now make are not made in any unkind spirit towards him, as he is compelled to carry out the instructions of his department, but such as I feel it my duty to make, as being held responsible for the defense of this work. One of the bastionettes is nearly completed, now awaiting the arrival of the pintle blocks, without which the embrasure cannot be made. The foundation has only been laid for the other. I certainly think that it is now too late to begin the construction of the second one, and that it would be better to substitute some other flanking arrangement, which can be finished in a few days.

Captain Foster is now sodding the exterior slope of the ditch, and putting muck on the glacis. It seems to me that that work had better be discontinued, and the planking, &c., removed, as it might be used by an investing or attacking force.

In other words, I would now apply our science to devising and placing in front of and on our walls every available means of embarrassing and preventing an enemy scaling our low walls. Anything that will obstruct his advance will be of great advantage to our weak garrison.

Our time is short enough for what we have to do. Should the ordnance stores I have called for or re-enforcements not arrive, in the event of our being attacked I fear that we shall not distinguish ourselves by holding out many days.

I have not yet commenced leveling off the sand hills which, within one hundred and sixty yards to the east, command this fort. Would my doing this be construed into initiating a collision? I would think you also to inform me under what circumstances I would be justified in setting fire to or destroying the houses which afford dangerous shelter to an enemy, and whether I would be justified in firing upon an armed body which may be seen approaching our works.

Captain Foster told me yesterday that he found that the men of his Fort Sumter force, who he thought were perfectly reliable, will not fight if an armed force approaches that work; and I fear that the same may be anticipated from the Castle Pinckney force.

I learn that in consequence of the decayed condition of the carriages at Fort Sumter, the guns have not been mounted there as I reported they were to have been. If that work is not to be garrisoned, the guns certainly ought not to be mounted, as they may be turned upon us.

The remark has, I hear, been repeatedly made in the city that if they need heavy guns, they call get them in forty-eight hours. This, I suppose, refers to their being able to bring them from Fort Pulaski, mouth of the Savannah River.

Colonel Huger designs, I think, leaving Charleston for Washington to-morrow night. He is more hopeful of a settlement of impending difficulties without bloodshed than I am. Hoping in God that he may be right in his opinion,

I am, colonel, respectfully, your obedient servant,
ROBERT ANDERSON,

Major, First Artillery, Commanding.

[PetePaolillo]

December 7th, 1860

On December 7, 1860, the Richmond Daily Dispatch reprinted a letter from Secretary of War John B. Floyd. Floyd wrote the letter to the Richmond Enquirer. Floyd is not convinced the South will prosper under the new President and his administration-

The agitation of the slavery question, which has been so long and wantonly persisted in by Northern men has produced the sectional alienation which is about to find its natural result in the destruction of a Confederacy that was voluntary in its origin, and can only be perpetuated by the voluntary assent of its members. When that amity, which is generally found to exist even between nations foreign to each other, ceases to exist between confederated States; when those comities, which enlightened nations delight to extend to each other, are refused to sister States by members of a fraternal Confederacy; when sectional strife and crimination usurp the place of charity and kindness in the hearts of a confederated people; when hatred and defamation mark all the relations between neighbors and partners, then separation becomes not only the natural and rightful, but the inevitable resort. The States of the South, having the right to secede, not only from the very nature of a federal compact, but by express reservation on the part of some of them at the time of entering the Confederacy, are, in five or six instances, preparing to secede from their Union with partner States which have converted the legislative branch of the Federal Government into a more theatre for agitating the slavery question — into a rostrum from which to pour forth over the world denunciations and calumnies against their social institutions. Patrick Henry, one of the wisest amongst the founders of free institutions in this country, feared and predicted their overthrow by the agency of the Federal Government. If he could have foreseen the use which one section of the Confederacy would make of the House of Congress, for assailing the other — employing entire sessions, to the neglect of nearly all other business, in the work of agitation — expending large sums of the public money in the publication of incendiary debates, and burdening the public mails in distributing thousands of inflammatory speeches over the land, until the mere fact of the meeting of Congress is felt by a whole section as a public calamity — he would not only have resisted the establishment of the Federal Government as he did, but he would have defeated it at the cost of precipitating the country into a second revolution, before the echoes of the first had died away.

There is no doubt that Mr. Lincoln was elected by his party as ‘"an extreme antislavery man, and bitter opponent of the South."’ The North has set the example of doing without the South in the election of a common President. The South is about answering this by allowing them to do also without her in the Union. The people acting in mass will not stop in crisis to draw distinctions and split hairs, but rush headlong to extreme conclusions. The Southern peoples' answer to the North will be as demonstrative and defiant, in one direction, as the election of Mr. Lincoln, on the part of the North, was in the other. If all the Southern States shall put it to popular vote, to say what shall be done in the present crisis, the position of probably every one of them will be extreme. If a few secede and all efforts at reconciliation fall, all must sooner of later secede. Virginia would not, other border States could not, stand neutral between North and South.

For one, I am not for secession as long as any honorable effort can be made to preserve the Union on a constitutional basis, guaranteeing equality, justice and protection to the negro property of the South. I shall not undertake, in this place, to particularize all the measures or reform and policy which should be incorporated into a settlement of the present differences between the North and the South. I cannot conceive how harmony can be permanently secured as long as Congress continues to be made a mere debating club for agitation and incendiary appeal. The acts of the several Northern States, nullifying the fugitive slave law, being subversive of the Constitution, violative of the plighted faith of confederates, and in conflict with the comity of States, ought to be repealed; and an amendment to the Constitution must forever prevent their re-enactment.

But even though the principles of a settlement of the present troubles could be agreed upon, there would be very great difficulty in procuring their early ratification by the people of the two sections. The Northern masses cannot be brought at once to recede from the extreme, and aggressive positions they have assumed towards the South; while the South, tired of broken compromises, and smarting from repeated and never-ending insult, will be slow and both to accede to new compacts.--Moreover, every manifestation by the South of a willingness to accept terms of reconciliation, is at once construed by the North into a proof of timidity, and made the occasion of new insult and injury.

I believe, however, that the great material interests of the country demand a reconciliation of the sections, and the preservation of the Union; and I rely much upon the slow, but certain, the silent, but potential influence of this great agency to bring about a settlement of our present troubles. The main study of all should be to prevent any collision between the sections, and most especially the shedding of the first drop of blood. If we can but succeed in averting these calamities, the great, practical business interests of the country may, perchance, sooner or later, bring about a re-construction of the Union and a restoration of harmony between the sections.

It is earnestly to be hoped that these great interests, aided by the disinterested promptings of a sincere patriotism, may rise in their power and with potential authority require of the fanaticism of the North to abandon an agitation which must lead to certain and swift destruction. If this shall be done, who can doubt that a returning sense of confidence will be felt by the injured and exasperated South, and that peace and the Union will be restored.

The American people are eminently practical in their temper and judgment, and also in their action, when they can be brought to deliberate. They must see that no interest — not one in the whole extent of the American continent — can fail to be materially injured, and some of them utterly annihilated, by a dissolution of the Union. If there is nothing in the majestic power of our great Confederacy that can excite a feeling of just pride in the hearts of our people — if our self-interests have ceased to value the solid advantages which accrue to all from the respect and protection that follow our flag over the surface of the whole globe — surely the desolation and misery which the dullest apprehension must see will follow in the track of civil war, and the contempt which such an event will be certain to excite for us in the mind of all Europe, ought at least to prompt to a careful and wise deliberation before a fend is commenced which shall become irreconcilable.

The South should remember, that in dissolving the Union she annihilates a mighty army of true, unselfish and devoted friends at the North, who battle forever for the constitutional rights of the slave States. Without this great and efficient aid, the power of abolition fanaticism would be unbroken and unchecked — would indeed ‘"surround the South with a wall of fire. "’ It would do more. New England would consort with Old England in devising means by which the cruel and inhuman philanthropy practiced by the latter in the West India islands should be repeated here. That religious zeal which turned away from all rational hope of progress in Christian faith half a million of Africans to the savageism of fetish worship, and converted the fairest islands of the sea into a desert and waste — that English justice which seized upon a thousand millions of her subjects' property and vaunted herself before the world for having paid one-tenth of its value — would find surely and speedily ample room, in conjunction with New England abolitionism, for the practice of her pharisaical virtues amidst the fields of Virginia and Louisiana. If the hate of New England abolitionists to the South is sleepless and malignant — if they hope by fraud and indirection, by agitation and theft, to harass the South and to impair the security and value of her slave property — all combined would, in my belief, be justice, honesty and fair dealing compared with the inexorable hate and majestic fanaticism of England directed against the slavery of a dismembered Union and a feared and hated commercial rival.

Twenty-five years more of Union and harmony will concentrate the controlling commercial power of the world in the waters of New York. Then, the decline of England becomes as certain as was that of Alexandria and Venice, and for the same cause. Instead of the first, she becomes a third rate European power. But let disunion take place — let civil war and discord distract this country, and England well knows that the ships of the North must rot at their wharves, and the busy hum of their manufactories must cease forever. Then, indeed, would England feel again that she was mistress of the seas, without a rival, secure in a commerce that no power could ever shake.

It is a fatal error to suppose that the interest of England would prompt her to foster the planting interests of the South. From the Prince Consort, who sat silently by and witnessed the deliberate insult of an American minister by a British peer, before the congregated intelligence of all Christendom simply because slavery existed in the United States, down to the wretched cockney himself, forty times the slave to suffering and circumstances beyond what any negro is to law, there is not an Englishman who does not in his heart abhor slavery, if he does not also abhor the country where it exists. England will have margin enough to supply her wants for cotton, even with a large diminution of our present production — if the demand of the North for it is out off, as it would be by disunion and civil war. But England, safe in her commercial ascendancy, does not always follow that line of policy which others might think conducive to her interest. She sacrifices much and largely to gratify a hatred, to vindicate a blunder, or cater to a sentiment. Without caring much about the opinions of others, she values very highly her own, and with a laudable desire to appear righteous in her own eyes, perpetrates any act of cruelty or oppression, under the pious pretence of evangelizing and civilizing the heathen, or reforming the heresies of the Christian. She ravages Chief because they unwittingly brutalize their nation by eating opium. She desolates India because that benighted people are averse to rendering up their independence and their rupees in exchange for Bibles and a crushing military despotism. But it is not the Mongol or Tartar race alone that experience the tender mercies of England in enforcing the blessings of liberty and the saving grace of the Thirty-Nine Articles. It is in vain that Ireland points to the illustrious pages of history--English history — enacted by her sons. It is in vain that the most renowned periods of her senatorial fame have drawn their peculiar lustre from the genius of Ireland, or that the topmost rounds of her military celebrity have been reached under the leadership of the same race; neither of these considerations, nor all combined, have been able to save that unfortunate nation from a perpetual impalement, compared with which the worst forms of African slavery are mercy and a blessing. A few years ago, only a few years ago, England, with her mighty resources, with that empire upon which the sun in his daily course, it is boasted, never ceases to shine stood a calm spectator from her own happy shores and looked with Christian complacency across the Irish Channel at the torture of their people writhing in the agony of starvation; a million of whom, it is computed, died from famine, and its accompanying diseases. During this period, English philanthropy found emissaries and means enough to dispatch to America for the purpose of stirring up the spirit of abolitionism, to overthrow the Union, and incite the negro to insurrection. The shrieks of famishing multitudes of her own subjects have never pierced the heart of England like the fancied wrongs of the African race in the cotton fields of the South--though it may be truly asserted that no slave has ever died of starvation on our continent.

The South can never count upon the friendship of England, or upon her toleration of evils not her own. Once within the reach of her power, she will fix upon us forever the very badge of inferiority which we are now ready to destroy the Union to escape; and will foster our products so far, and so far only, as may be absolutely necessary to supply her wants. England would insist upon making good her record upon the slavery question.--To sacrifice the interests of a class, or even to starve to death a few hundred thousands of her subjects in the laudable task, would constitute a very small obstacle to her policy.

But with all these consequences attending the measure of disunion, and multitudinous others, which readily occur to every mind, no option is left now but, either to choose to encounter them or to secure those guarantees which must stop at once and forever the aggressions and agitation to which the North has been so long addicted, on the subject of slavery. With proper guarantees of this sort, which could be given by amendments to the Constitution, we may go on in a happy and cordial Union, made so from a mutuality of pecuniary interests, and a consciousness which union will give us of power to maintain all our rights and command the respect of the world.

I am of opinion that the Legislature of Virginia should immediately call a convention of the people of the State, with a view of referring all these momentous questions to the arbitrament of a convention of all the States, such as is provided for in the Federal Constitution, and that, in the meantime, Virginia should use all her influence to calm the exasperated feelings of the country, and to prevent, if possible, a hostile collision in any quarter or from any cause.

With high regard, I am, very truly, your obedient servant, John B. Floyd

[PetePaolillo]

Dec.9th 1860

FORT MOULTRIE, S. C., December 9, 1860

(Received A. G. O., December 12.)

Col. S. COOPER Adjutant-General:

[SIR :] I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your letter of the 6th instant, and to state that I have directed the A. A. Q. M. to hire men to perform police and fatigue duty at this post, and to send on a special estimate for funds to pay them.

I hear that the attention of the South Carolinians appears to be turned more toward Fort Sumter than it was, and it is deemed probable that their first act will be to take possession of that work.

The idea of attempting to take this place by a coup de main appears not to be so favorably regarded as it was, and they will perhaps determine to besiege us. To enable them to do this they must procure heavy guns, which they can get (if not from Fort Sumter and Castle Pinckney) from Pulaski or some other southern fort. Anything that can be done which will cause delay in their attack will give time for deliberation and negotiation, and may, by God’s blessing, save the shedding of blood. I would therefore respectfully suggest whether it might not be advisable and prudent to cause the ammunition, except what may be needed for the defense of this fort and the armament of Fort Sumter and Castle Pinckney, to be destroyed or rendered unserviceable before they are permitted to fall into their hands. The same may be advisable at those forts from whence supplies might be brought to Charleston. Fort Sumter is a tempting prize, the value of which is well known to the Charlestonians, and once in their possession, with its ammunition and armament and walls uninjured and garrisoned properly, it would set our Navy at defiance, compel me to abandon this work, and give them the perfect command of this harbor.

Captain Foster having received the pintle stones for his bastionette guns, will now finish the one he has been at work on. Our supply of provisions has not arrived. I hope that it will soon be in. If we do not hear of it in a few days, I shall have to direct the A. A. commissary to make some purchases in Charleston.

I am, colonel, very respectfully, your obedient servant,

ROBERT ANDERSON,

Major, First Artillery, Commanding.

[PetePaolillo]

Re: Dec.9th 1860

FORT MOULTRIE, S.C., December 11, 1860.

Memorandum of verbal instructions to Major Anderson, First Artillery, commanding at Fort Moultrie, S.C.
You are aware of the great anxiety of the Secretary of War that a collision-of the troops with the people of this State shall be avoided, and of his studied determination to pursue a course with reference to the military force and forts in this harbor which shall guard against such a collision. He has therefore carefully abstained from increasing the force at this point, or taking any measures which might add to the present excited state of the public mind, or which would throw any doubt on the confidence he feels that South Carolina will not attempt, by violence, to obtain possession of the public works or interfere with their occupancy. But as the counsel and acts of rash and impulsive persons may possibly disappoint those expectations of the Government, he deems it proper that you should be prepared with instructions to meet so unhappy a contingency. He has therefore directed me verbally to give you such instructions.

You are carefully to avoid every act which would needlessly tend to provoke aggression; and for that reason you are not, without evident and imminent necessity, to take up any position which could be construed into the assumption of a hostile attitude. But you are to hold possession of the forts in this harbor, and if attacked you are to defend yourself to the last extremity. The smallness of your force will not permit you, perhaps, to occupy more than one of the three forts, but an attack on or attempt to take possession of any one of them will be regarded as an act of hostility, and you may then put your command into either of them which you may deem most proper to increase its power of resistance. You are also authorized to take similar steps whenever you have tangible evidence of a design to proceed to a hostile act.
D.C. BUELL,

Assistant Adjutant-General

[PetePaolillo]

December 14, 1860

FORT MOULTRIE, S.C.,
Friday, December 14, 1860.

Col. S. COOPER, Adjutant-General U. S. Army:

DEAR COLONEL: I inclose herewith a slip from the Charleston Mercury of 13th instant, mentioning from Washington correspondent Major Bell’s [Buell's] mission to this place.

I told the major that it was likely they would get an inkling of it. I merely send this to show you the almost impossibility of keeping anything secret. Nothing here worthy of an “official”–a calm before the storm. Many think no attack will be made on me until after they are in position in Fort Sumter, and that they will drive me out with her guns. It is all conjecture. I shall, of course, prepare here for the worst.

All well and in fine spirits.
Yours, truly,

ROBERT ANDERSON.

[Inclosure.]

FROM WASHINGTON.

WASHINGTON, December 10.

Mr. EDITOR:. A Caucus was held here a few nights since of Senators and Representatives from the cotton States. It numbered about twenty-six, and represented the States of Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, and North Carolina, and upon the question of the necessity of the immediate secession of South Carolina there was not a dissenting voice.

Major Bell [Buell] and several other officers of the Army have been sent to Fort Moultrie to look after the forts and keep a sharp lookout upon them. They were sent for no good to us. See that they make no change in the distribution of soldiers, so as to put them all in Fort Sumter. That would be dangerous to us.

Yours,

CHARLES

[PetePaolillo]

December 17, 1860

On this Date 150 years ago, delegates to South Carolina's secession convention met in Columbia, South Carolina. Also, South Carolina's Governor Francis W. Pickens wrote this letter to President of the United States James Buchanan concerning the Forts in and around Charleston.

Columbia, 17th December


Strictly Confidential

My dear Sir,

With a sincere desire to prevent a collision of force, I have thought proper to address you directly and truthfully on points of deep and immediate interest.

I am authentically informed that the Forts in Charleston Harbor are now being thoroughly prepared to turn, with effect, their guns upon the interior and the city jurisdiction was ceded by this State expressly for the purpose of external defence [sic] from foreign invasion, and not with any view that they should be turned upon the State.

In an ordinary case of mob rebellion perhaps it might be proper to prepare them for such an outbreak, but when the people of the State, in sovereign convention assembled, determine to resume their separate and independent powers of sovereignty, the whole question is changed and it is no longer an Act of rebellion. I therefore must respectfully urge that all work on the Forts be put a stop to for the present, and that no more force may be ordered there.

The regular convention of the people of the State of South Carolina, legally and properly called under our constitution, is now in session, deliberating upon the gravest and most momentous questions, and the excitement of the great masses of the people is intense, under a sense of deep wrongs, and a profound necessity of doing something to preserve the peace and safety of the country. To spare the effusion of blood, which no human power may be able to prevent. I earnestly beg you immediate consideration of the points I call your attention to. It is not improbable that, under orders, either from the Commandant, or perhaps from the Commander in Chief of the Army, the alteration and defences [sic] of those Forts are progressing without the knowledge of yourself of the Secretary of War.

The Arsenal in the City of Charleston, with the public arms, I am informed, was very properly trusted to the keeping and defence [sic] of a State force, at the urgent request of the Governor of South Carolina. I would most respectfully, and from a sincere devotion to the public peace, request that you would allow me to send a small force, not exceeding twenty-five men and an officer, to take possession of Fort Sumter immediately, in order to give a feeling of safety to the community. There are no United State troops in that Fort whatever, or perhaps only four or five at present, besides some additional workmen or laborers, lately employed, to put the guns in order. The United States troops are stationed at Fort Moultrie. If Fort Sumter could be given to me as Governor, under a permission similar to that which gave the Governor permission to keep the arsenal, with the United States arms in the city of Charleston, then, I think, the public mind could be quieted, under a feeling of safety, and as the convention is now in full authority, it strikes me it could done with perfect propriety. I need not go into particulars, for urgent reasons will force themselves readily upon your consideration.

If something of the kind be not done, I cannot answer for the consequences. I send this by a private and confidential gentleman who is authorized to confer fully with Mr. Trescott and to receive, through him, any answer you may think proper to give to this.


I have the honor to be –
most respectfully –
Yours truly,
Signed. F. W. Pickens

To the President
of the United States.

[PetePaolillo]

December 19, 1860

To the rector of the church he attended in Trenton, N. J., Major Anderson writes more fully of his position, and of the difficulties that surrounded him ; and in view of his subsequent action, his statements become important. His letter was as follows :

Fort Moultrie, S.C., December 19, 1860.


My dear Friend,

A word or two about my position, and so on. As soon as I had time to inspect my position and ascertain the feeling and temper of the people here, I found that to enable me to comply with my orders to defend this fort, it was absolutely necessary that more troops and ordnance stores must be sent. And I recommended that they should be sent at once. The Government has, as you see it stated, declined for prudential reasons to send them, and I must now do the best I can. This fort is a very weak one in its capacity of being defended ; it is surrounded by houses that I cannot burn or destroy until I am certain that I am to be attacked, and I shall not be certain of it until the South Carolinians are in possession ; but I have so little ammunition that I cannot waste it in destroying houses. And again, within 160 yards from the walls are piles of sand-hills, some of them higher than our fort, which will give the best and safest shelter for sharpshooters, who may pick off in a short time our band of sixty men - all we have.

The genesis of the Civil War: the story of Sumter, 1860-1861 (1887), Crawford, Samuel Wylie

[PetePaolillo]

December 19, 1860

FORT MOULTRIE, S. C., December 19, 1860.

Col. R. E. DE RUSSY,
Commanding Corps of Engineers, U. S. Army, Washington, D.C.:

COLONEL: I have the honor to inform you that I had an interview to-day with General Schnierle (general of division in this vicinity) and several other prominent citizens of Charleston, in relation to the little excitement attending the issue of forty muskets to me at the arsenal on the 17th instant.

The main facts connected with this were communicated in my letter of yesterday.

The interview to-day was satisfactory to me, as I saw that the action of General Schnierle had arisen from his great desire to allay the temporary excitement among some of the citizens. Although I declined to return the muskets until I was directed by the Government so to do, yet I proposed at once to refer the matter to Washington, and accordingly telegraphed to Captain Maynadier, Ordnance Corps, to inquire whether the muskets should be returned to the arsenal or not. Up to this time I have received no answer. The reasons for my doing so are these: General Schnierle asserted that Colonel Huger had assured the governor of this State that no arms should be removed from the arsenal, and Captain Humphreys, military storekeeper, felt himself placed in a peculiar position from having acted contrary to the colonel’s assurance, while on the other hand neither Captain Humphreys or myself had been informed by Colonel Huger that he had made such assurance; neither had we any positive written testimony of the fact. To solve the question, the Ordnance Bureau must be appealed to for a decision, and I did this immediately, in order to allay, as soon as possible, any irritations that might have arisen. I was actuated in all I did by a sincere desire to remove all cause of irritation, so that if the extremists are disposed for violent measures they must force the issue themselves.

I am abating nothing of the activity of preparation in Fort Moultrie and Fort Sumter, and in fact am increasing it.

If the Department becomes aware of any change of policy in regard to this preparation in these forts, or in either of them, I beg that instructions may be given me at once, so that I may vary my operations accordingly, for my present expenses are very heavy. In Fort Sumter the mounting of the guns, laying a flagging of first and second tiers of casemates, forming embrasures of second tier, and finishing the barracks is progressing regularly, and as fast as separately-organized parties can work. The force will be to-morrow 150 men.

On Fort Moultrie 137 men are at work. The wet ditch is nearly completed. The foot-bridge connecting the second stories of the barracks and the guard-house, which is arranged for a citadel, is constructed. Doors are being cut through the partition walls of the barracks of the second floor, and trap-doors in the floors, and ladders made. A machicoulis gallery over the southeast angle is being made of palmetto logs for infantry. All the guns on the east front (facing the sand hills) are being placed in embrasure, by raising high and solid merlons, formed of cement barrels filled with sand, sods, and green hides.

Three high cavalier-like positions are also formed on this front for sharpshooters. The picket fence bordering the ditch is carried more than half around the fort, and is well protected from a destructive fire of cannon by a small glacis in front of it. The flanking howitzers are being mounted in the finished caponiere, and will be tried by firing to-morrow. Nearly all the projecting brick cordon is cut off smooth.

All of this work I have done and am doing myself, because it is necessary to be done, and the garrison is too weak to undertake any work beside the regular drills.

There is another thing which I propose to do, and of which I write to you in season, so that if you disapprove it you can have time to forbid it. I propose to connect a powerful Daniels battery with the magazine at Fort Sumter, by means of wires stretched across under water from Fort Sumter to Fort Moultrie, and to blow up Fort Sumter if it is taken by an armed force, and after Lieutenant Snyder and my men have time to escape from it.

I propose, also, to use the same battery to fire small mines around Fort Moultrie, and to explode a large mine placed in the sand hills. All of these last preparations may seem to be unnecessary, and I hope they may prove to be so in the end, but there are very strong probabilities that they may be required, and, at any rate, I regard a complete state of preparations as the surest safeguard against attack.
Very respectfully, your obedient servant,

J. G. FOSTER,

Captain, Engineers.

_______

DECEMBER 19, 1860.

Maj. ROBERT ANDERSON, &c., Charleston, S. C.:
I have just telegraphed Captain Foster to return any arms that he my have removed from Charleston Arsenal.

J. B. FLOYD

[PetePaolillo]

Dec. 20 1860


A Diary of American Events – December 20, 1860

Dec. 20.—The news from Charleston is very unfavorable this morning.
“Civil war is imminent—peace is impossible,” are the utterances which meet the ear on every side. There is here no longer any more hope of peace than of compromise, say the people. The speeches from northwestern representatives have taken us by surprise. Such flaming tirades against disunion, coupled with direct threats of coercion, were not expected from that quarter. It is not deemed impossible that the rich and saucy Northwest may join forces with the poor and starving East, and give the South some trouble, in the times now pressing upon us. The position of South Carolina is, however, so firmly taken, that though “one rose from the dead” to urge her retreat, she would not take one step backward.—N. Y. Times, Dec. 21.

—The Secession Ordinance passed the Convention of South Carolina to-day by a unanimous vote.
secession Ordinance of South Carolina.
An Ordinance 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:
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 23d 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 this State ratifying the 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.
Done at Charleston the twentieth day of December, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty.
The ordinance was taken up and passed by a unanimous vote of 169 members, at 1 1/4 o'clock.

As soon as its passage was known without the doors of the Convention, it rapidly spread on the street, a crowd collected, and there was immense cheering.

In the House of Representatives at Washington, Mr. Garnet of Virginia announced the fact as follows: “Why, Sir, while your bill is under debate, one of the sovereign States of this Confederacy has, by the glorious act of her people, withdrawn, in vindication of her rights, from the Union, as the telegraph announced at to-day.” [Here some three or four Southern members expressed approval by a slight clapping of hands. There was no other manifestation in the House.]

—There was an enthusiastic meeting at Memphis, Tennessee, this evening, to ratify the secession of South Carolina.

—The Charleston Mercury discusses the necessity of providing for seacoast defence, and proposes to construct a half-sunken battery at the mouth of the river, with a block-house one hundred and fifty feet in the rear.

—The secession of South Carolina was celebrated at Mobile by the firing of a hundred guns, and a military parade. There was great rejoicing. The bells rang merrily, and the people in the streets by hundreds expressed their joy at the secession. Many impromptu speeches were made, and the greatest excitement existed.

—In the midst of a crowd of over three thousand people, collected in Secession Hall at Charleston this evening, the ordinance of secession was duly signed and sealed by the members of the Convention. The occasion was one of the greatest solemnity at some of its periods, and of the wildest excitement at others.—N. Y. Times, Dec. 21.
The Rebellion Record—A Diary of American Events; by Frank Moore

[PetePaolillo]

December 20, 1860

SECESSION HAS PASSED!

FORT MOULTRIE, S. C., December 20, 1860.

Col. S. COOPER,
Adjutant-General:

COLONEL: I had the honor to receive and to answer, at half past 1 o’clock this morning, a telegram from the honorable Secretary of War, dated the 19th instant. Captain Foster has, I presume, reported to the Department his compliance with his order.

The ordinance of secession passed the South Carolina Convention to-day.

We are making good progress in our defensive works on the ramparts. Captain Foster finished to-day mounting the guns in the caponiere (or bastionettes), and [will] commence the other caponiere to-morrow. In my letter (No. 6) of December 6, I had the honor of stating my objections to commencing that work, and suggested that I thought it ought to be replaced by some work which could be built in a shorter time. No reply has been made to that suggestion, and Captain Foster says that as the project was approved by the Engineer Department and by the Secretary of War he does not feel authorized to make a change of the plan.

I regret this very much, for if an attack is made whilst that work is going on, our fort can be very easily carried. As I have stated before, I do not feel authorized to interfere with the operations of the Engineer Department.

Captain Foster informs me that Lieutenant Snyder is mounting guns at Fort Sumter as rapidly as possible. I have already given my reasons why I thought that ought not to be done, and have seen no reason for changing that opinion.

Hoping that events may take such a turn as soon to relieve me from the dangerous position my little command is now in,

I have the honor to be, very respectfully, your obedient servant,
ROBERT ANDERSON,

Major, First Artillery, Commanding.

[PetePaolillo]

December 21, 1860

From the Charleston Mercury December 21, 1860

The 20th Day of December, in the Year of Our Lord, 1860

Inscribed among the calends of the world - memorable in time to come -- the 20th day of December, in the year of our Lord 1860, has become an epoch in the history of the human race. A great Confederated Republic, overwrought with arrogant and tyrannous oppressions, has fallen from its high estate amongst the nations of the earth. Conservative liberty has been vindicated. Mobocratic license has been stricken down. Order has conquered, yet liberty has survived. Right has raised his banner aloft, and bidden defiance to Might. The problem of self-government under the check- balance of slavery, has secured itself from threatened destruction.

South Carolina has resumed her entire sovereign powers, and, unshackled, has become one of the nations of the earth.

On yesterday, the 20th of December, 1860, just before one o'clock, p.m., the Ordinance of secession was presented by the Committee on "the Ordinance," to the Convention of the people of South Carolina. Precisely at seven minutes after one o'clock, the vote was taken upon the Ordinance -- each man's name being called in order. As name by name fell upon the ear of the silent assembly, the brief sound was echoed back, without one solitary exception in that whole grave body -- Aye!

At 1:15 o'clock, p.m. - the last name was called, the Ordinance of Secession was announced to have been passed, and the last fetter had fallen from the limbs of a brave, but too long oppressed people.

The Convention sat with closed doors. But upon the announcement outside, and upon the MERCURY bulletin board, that South Carolina was no longer a member of the Federal Union, loud shouts of joy rent the air. The enthusiasm was unsurpassed. Old men went shouting down the streets. Cannon were fired, and bright triumph was depicted on every countenance.

But before the Great Seal of the State was affixed to the Ordinance of Secession, and the names of the Delegates to the Convention were signed, it was proposed that this ceremony should be postponed until 7 o'clock that evening; when the Convention should reassemble and move in procession from the St. Andrew's Hall, where they then sat, to the great Secession Hall; and that there, before the assembled citizens of the State, the Great Seal of the State should be set, and each signature made. The proposition was favorably received.

At 6 1/2 o'clock p.m., the Convention reassembled at St. Andrew's Hall. At 6 3/4 o'clock p.m., they formed in procession and moved forward in silence to Secession Hall.

The building was filled to overflowing, and they were received by some three thousand people in the Hall.

The Convention was called to order. The scene was one profoundly grand and impressive. There were a people assembled through their highest representatives -- men most of them upon whose heads the snows of sixty winters had been shed -- patriarchs in age -- the dignitaries of the land -- the High Priests of the Church of Christ -- reverend statesmen -- and the wise judges of the law. In the midst of deep silence, an old man, with bowed form, and hair as white as snow, the Rev. Dr. BACHMAN, advanced forward, with upraised hands, in prayer to Almighty God, for His blessing and favor in this great act of his people, about to be consummated. The who assembly at once rose to its feet, and with hats off, listened to the touching and eloquent appeal to the All Wise Dispenser of events. At the close of the prayer the President advanced with the consecrated parchment upon which was inscribed the decision of the State, with the Great Seal attached. Slowly and solemnly it was read unto the last word -- "dissolved" -- when men could contain themselves no longer, and a shout that shook the very building, reverberating, long-continued, rose to Heaven, and ceased only with the loss of breath. In proud, grave silence, the Convention itself waited the end with beating hearts.

The President then requested the Delegates (by previous decision) to step forward as they were called in the alphabetical order of the Districts which they represented, and sign the Ordinance. Two hours were occupied in this solemn ceremony - the crowd waiting patiently the end. As the delegation from St. Phillip's and St. Michael's came forward, again, the hall was filled with applause. And as the Hon. R.B. RHETT advanced to the parchment, the shouts became deafening, long-continued, until he had seated himself, signed and retired. It was a proud and worthy tribute, gracefully paid, and appreciated. The same special compliment was paid to our Ex-Governor GIST, who recommended in his message to the extra session, the immediate secession of South Carolina from the Union.

At the close of the signatures the President, advancing to the front of the platform, announced that the Seal of the State had been set, the signatures of the Convention put to the Ordinance, and he thereby proclaimed the State of South Carolina a separate, independent nationality.

To describe the enthusiasm with which this announcement was greeted, is beyond the power of the pen. The high, burning, bursting heart alone can realize it. A mighty voice of great thoughts and great emotions spoke from the mighty throat of one people as a unit.

The State of South Carolina has recorded herself before the universe. In reverence before God, fearless of man, unawed by power, unterrified by clamor, she has cut the Gordian knot of colonial dependence upon the North - cast her fortune upon her right, and her own right arm, and stands ready to uphold alike her independence and her dignity before the world.

Prescribing to none, she will be dictated to by none willing for peace, she is ready for war. Deprecating blood, she is willing to shed it. Valuing her liberties, she will maintain them. Neither swerved by frowns of foes, nor swayed by timorous solicitations of friends, she will pursue her direct path, and establish for herself and for her posterity, her rights, her liberties and her institutions. Though friends may fail her in her need, though the cannon of her enemies may belch destruction among her people, South Carolina, unawed, unconquerable, will still hold aloft her flag, "ANIMIS OPIBUSQUE PARATI." ["READY IN SPIRIT AND DEEDS"]