January 3, 1861, The New York Herald
Mr. Buchanan’s administration is coming out of this fiery ordeal of revolution as fine gold from the furnace. His reply to the South Carolina Commissioners, as indicated in our Washington despatches, brings him forward in full relief as the man who rightly comprehends his position, his responsibilities and the expectations of the American people.
The three South Carolina Commissioners in question presented themselves to the President as ambassadors from a foreign government. Mr. Buchanan tells them that he can only recognize them as distinguished citizens of the United States from South Carolina. They demanded, as the first preliminary step to their contemplated negotiations, the withdrawal of the federal troops from the forts at Charleston. Mr. Buchanan tells them that he not only intends to collect the revenue and execute the federal laws in South Carolina as in other ports of the Union, but that he will defend the property of the federal government with all the power at his command. Thus, as Chief Magistrate of the United States, sworn to support the constitution thereof, Mr. Buchanan rises to the full standard of his official obligations to the country.
We are gratified that our confidence in him, as a statesman and a patriot, is thus vindicated before the world. Had he made his own well considered views and opinions upon public affairs the laws of his Cabinet from the beginning, it would have saved him a world of trouble. He should never have permitted his late Secretary of the Treasury, for instance, to urge upon Congress a tariff policy in direct conflict with that of the head of the government. If the unity of the Cabinet upon that subject demanded the removal of Mr. Cobb, he should have been removed at once. Mr. Floyd, too, as Secretary of War, should have been dismissed upon the discovery that he had been dabbling in army transportation jobs and fort site speculations to the prejudice of the administration. Had Mr. Buchanan, resisting his own generous feelings, followed the examples of Gen. Jackson in this matter of a loyal Cabinet, even to the extent, if necessary, for the first year or two, of a new Cabinet every six months, there would have been no ministerial imbecilities and desertions and no astounding discoveries of frauds in the executive departments now in the hour of trial and danger.
But, returning to the main question, the inquiry naturally arises, does this ultimatum of Mr. Buchanan to South Carolina inaugurate a civil war? We hope not. The President desires to avoid an appeal to arms. He will seek, as he has sought by all available means of conciliation and forbearance, to preserve peace. The South Carolina Convention, on the receipt of his ultimatum to their Commissioners, may proceed to extreme measures. It is probable, however, that the strength of Fort Sumter will suggest the expediency of delay in that quarter, and that a vessel of war or two will be able to look after the federal revenues at Charleston, without any warlike collision with the local authorities. Under a rigid interpretation of the constitution, the President might proceed to the arrest, not only of the South Carolinians in occupation of federal property in a warlike attitude, but to the seizure of those three Commissioners, on charges of treason. The President, however, acting under the fraternal considerations of good will and reconciliation, will overlook everything in this business except the overt act of war against the United States.
We would therefore kindly admonish our fellow citizens of South Carolina to the exercise on their part of the saving virtues of reflection and forbearance. They may yet secure all that is necessary for their protection and safety, as a community, whether in or out of the Union, without war. On the other hand, a resort to war may be more disastrous to South Carolina, from her exposed situation, than to any other State of the Union. The people of that State, in common with our Southern brethren generally, have just causes of complaint against the ant-slavery spirit and power of the North. But there is a way of redress, even in the resort to secession, without resorting to war. Let all the Southern States, for instance, meet together in convention and adopt such amendments to the federal constitution as they may think indispensable to their future security and welfare, and upon this basis let them for a new Union. Let it at first be limited to the Southern States, but open to all the other States on the condition of the adoption by each of this new constitution, and we will answer for the best results. We believe that a Southern movement of this comprehensive character would soon bring the Central States and the Western States into a happy accord with the Southern States. The New England States might hold out, and the best thing that could be done with them would probably be to assist them in the experiment of a little Puritanical confederacy all to themselves. Despairing of any relief for the Union from this factious and incompetent Congress, and of any seasonable propositions in behalf of peace and harmony from the President elect – who seems to understand neither his position nor the condition of our public affairs – we present to the Southern States our proposition for a Southern National Convention, a new constitution, and a reconstruction of the Union upon a new Southern basis.
To this end we appeal to the local authorities and to the people of South Carolina to delay yet a little longer the ruinous alternative of the sword. There is a limit beyond which the President cannot forbear; he has indicated it. Let not that limit be hastily passed by those to whom it is addressed, if they would escape the sweeping disasters of civil war.