Chap. III. army and navy of the Confederate States. Revenue officers, in like manner, continued as such under the new Government."1

What, during the progress of the events which have been briefly told, was the attitude of the Federal Government and of the States which remained faithful to the Union ?

The vote of November, momentous as were the consequences attached to it, made no immediate change in the Federal Executive. In the eye of the law that vote did but nominate 303 persons, whose duty it was to elect a President; the election itself took place early in December, and the votes then given were transmitted under seal to Washington, to be opened and counted on a stated day, in the presence of the House of Representatives and the Senate; at the conclusion of this ceremony, which took place on the 13th February, the name of the successful candidate was for the first time publicly announced by the Vice-President, Mr. Breckinridge, and on the 4th of March he entered on the duties of his office. The object which the framers of the Constitution contemplated when they made the election indirect is frustrated, for, except in form, the election is not indirect; the delay which they deemed necessary has been made unnecessary by the increasing swiftness of communications; but the old machinery is retained, and for four months after the choice of the nation has been ascertained the President elect con

1 American Annual Cyclopædia for 1861, P. 1512.

Mr. Davis, in his Message to Congress (29th April, 1861), said, “Since your adjournment all the Courts, with the exception of those of Mississippi and Texas, have been organized by the appointment of marshals and district attorneys, and are now prepared for the exercise of their functions. In the two States just named the gentlemen confirmed as Judges declined to accept the appointment, and no nominations have yet been made to fill the vacancies."-See also Acts and Resolutions of the Provisional Congress of the Confederate States, Tyler & Co., Richmond,

tinues to be a private citizen, and the Government to Chap. III. be administered as before by the person whom he is destined to succeed. When the change of President denotes also a change of policy, this arrangement has its inconveniences, which are liable to become serious should occasion arise for prompt and decided action. Mr. Buchanan then continued until the 4th March, 1861-that is, until the revolt of the Gulf States was complete to be the Chief Magistrate of the Union; and it has been commonly affirmed in America that to his supineness and the disloyalty of his Ministers the calamities of the four ensuing years were largely due. There was disaffection- perhaps there was treachery -in the President's Cabinet, and he was himself irresolute and supine. But in justice to Mr. Buchanan it must be remembered that he had been borne into office as a Democrat and by the Democratic party, that a majority of Americans were, or had been, Democrats, and that to men imbued with these principles the idea of coercing a refractory State-though, as Jackson had shown, not intolerable—was still distasteful in the highest degree. It must be remembered also that the seven middle States were trembling on the verge of revolt, pulled hither and thither by contending influences, protesting vehemently against coercion, and calling out for concessions which they were themselves unable to specify or define. Representatives of these States sat in Congress until after the 1st of March. The Gulf States themselves were represented there until they had formally resolved on secession. Moreover, it cannot be stated too plainly that as to the course which ought to be pursued towards the South, opinion was, and long continued to be, wavering and undecided. The sentiment which predominated throughout the North was a sincere desire to tranquillize and win back the South, if possible, by any reasonable measures of conciliation. And behind this was a feel

Chap. III. ing, not dominant indeed but strong, which found expression in Congress, at public meetings, and in the press, was shared by many Republicans and openly avowed by men of great eminence and unimpeached patriotism, that should conciliation prove hopeless, a peaceable separation ought to be preferred to civil war. It was natural that this should be so. When men are really plunged in such a struggle, when their passions are roused and their nerves braced, and they have come to apprehend thoroughly the value of the interests at stake, the thought of yielding becomes a crime, and to have nourished it passes for a reproach. But they feel otherwise whilst the calamity is still in prospect, and is not known to be inevitable.

The President's own view of the character of the revolt and of his own duties was expressed in his annual Message of the 4th December, 1860, and fortified by a written opinion from Mr. Black, an eminent Pennsylvanian lawyer, then Attorney-General and afterwards Secretary of State. It is unquestionably true, said Mr. Buchanan, that no State has or can have a right to secede from the Union, which was clearly intended to be perpetual. But the Constitution does not arm the President with power to enforce the laws, except through the machinery of the Federal Courts and in aid of process issued by them; there are now no Federal Courts in South Carolina, and it would be impracticable to re-establish them there. Again, it is only by waging war on South Carolina that Congress could "coerce her into submission." But the Constitution gives no such power to Congress. Having satisfied himself that there was no escape from this curious puzzle, Mr. Buchanan resigned himself to inaction. He sat still. He refused, on the one hand, to receive or recognize the two Commissioners whom South Carolina had sent to negotiate for the transfer of public property within the State and an apportionment of the public debt; he refrained, on the

other, from any attempt to re-establish his authority in Chap. III. the South, to collect the revenue or enforce the laws.

Nor, feeble and unsatisfactory as the Message was deemed by the Republican party, does this inertness appear to have provoked in either House of Congress remonstrance or complaint. No extraordinary appropriations were made for the army or navy. The Session which began on the 3rd December, 1860, and closed on the 4th March, 1861, was chiefly spent in long and desultory debates on various projects of conciliation. During the latter part of this period a voluntary Convention of 135 persons, assembled at Washington on the request of the Virginian Legislature, and representing all the States not actually in revolt, were engaged, under the presidency of Mr. Tyler, in the same fruitless labour. These discussions produced no substantial result. Proposal after proposal was eloquently debated, only to be set aside in its turn when the moment came for action. It was in the evening of Sunday the 3rd March, "at an unusual hour at the close of a peaceful day," that the Senate met for the last time to decide on the recommendations presented by the Peace Conference, on another elaborate and important series known as Mr. Crittenden's, and on a further proposition emanating from the minority of a committee of its own body. The debate, which lasted far into the night, ended in the rejection of them all. The House of Representatives, on the 27th February, after the members for the seceding States had withdrawn, agreed, by a majority of 136 against 53, to the following string of Resolutions, which have importance only as showing how the Republican party, at that time rising into the ascendant, were prepared to deal with the slavery question immediately before the commencement of the war :

"Resolved, That all attempts on the part of the Legislatures of any of the States to obstruct or hinder the recovery and surrender of fugitives from service or labour are in derogation of the Constitution of the

Chap. III. United States, inconsistent with the comity and good neighbourhood that should prevail among the several States, and dangerous to the peace of the Union.

"Resolved, That the several States be respectfully requested to cause their statutes to be revised, with a view to ascertain if any of them are in conflict with or tend to embarrass or hinder the execution of the laws of the United States, made in pursuance of the second section of the fourth article of the Constitution of the United States, for the delivering up of persons held to labour by the laws of any State and escaping therefrom; and the Senate and House of Representatives earnestly request that all enactments having such tendency be forthwith repealed, as required by a just sense of constitutional obligations, and by a due regard for the peace of the Republic; and the President of the United States is requested to communicate these resolutions to the Governors of the several States, with a request that they will lay the same before the Legislatures thereof respectively.

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Resolved, That we recognize slavery as now existing in fifteen of the United States by the usages and laws of those States; and we recog. nize no authority, legally or otherwise, outside of a State where it so exists, to interfere with slaves or slavery in such States, in disregard of the rights of their owners or the peace of society.

"Resolved, That we recognize the justice and propriety of a faithful execution of the Constitution, and laws made in pursuance thereof, on the subject of fugitive slaves, or fugitives from service or labour, and discountenance all mobs or hindrances to the execution of such laws, and that citizens of each State shall be entitled to all the privileges and immunities of citizens in the several States.

“Resolved, That we recognize no such conflicting elements in its composition, or sufficient cause from any source, for a dissolution of this Government; that we were not sent here to destroy, but to sustain and harmonize the institutions of the country, and to see that equal justice is done to all parts of the same; and finally, to perpetuate its existence on terms of equality and justice to all the States.

"Resolved, That a faithful observance, on the part of all the States, of all their constitutional obligations to each other and to the Federal Government, is essential to the peace of the country.

Resolved, That it is the duty of the Federal Government to enforce the Federal laws, protect the Federal property, and preserve the Union of these States.

“Resolved, That each State be requested to revise its statutes, and, if necessary, so to a nend the same as to secure, without legislation by Congress, to citizens of other States travelling therein, the same protection as citizens of such State enjoy; and also to protect the citizens of other States travelling or sojourning therein against popular violence or illegal summary punishment, without trial in due form of law, for imputed crimes.

"Resolved, That each State be also respectfully requested to enact