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CH. XVIII. Lamar, President of the Bank of the Republic, to make an offer to the Secretary for such a number of muskets as we might require. The Secretary at War was reluctant to dispose of them to me, preferring the intermediate agency. Mr. Lamar has consented to act accordingly, and to-day the Secretary has written to the commanding officer [at] Watervliet Arsenal to deliver five or ten thousand muskets (altered from flint to percussion) to Mr. Lamar's order. Mr. Lamar will pay the United States paymaster for them, and rely upon the State to repay him. I have been most fortunate in having been enabled to meet the payments for the arms through Mr. L., for I feel satisfied that without his intervention we could not have effected the purchase at this time. . . I expect to return at daylight to-morrow to New York, for I am very anxious about getting possession of the arms at Watervliet, and forward them to Charleston. The Cabinet may break up at any moment, on differences of opinion with the President as to the rights of secession, and a new Secretary of War might stop the muskets going South, if not already on their way when he comes into office.

I will write to you again by the next mail. The impression here and elsewhere among many Southern men is, that our Senators have been precipitate in resigning; they think that their resignations should have been tendered from their seats after they had announced to the Senate that the State had seceded. Occupying their seats up to this period would have kept them in communicaMS. Con- tion with Senators from the South and assisted very Archives. powerfully in shaping to our advantage coming events.

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If any further quotation be necessary to show the audacity with which at least three Secretaries and one Assistant Secretary of Mr. Buchanan's Cabinet engaged in flagrant conspiracy in the early stages of rebellion, it may be found in an interview of Senator Clingman with the Secretary of the Interior, which the former has recorded in his "Speeches and Writings" as an interesting remi

niscence. It may be doubted whether Secretary CH. XVIII. Thompson correctly reported the President as wishing him success in his North Carolina mission, but the Secretary is, of course, a competent witness to his own declarations and acts.

About the middle of December [1860] I had occasion to see the Secretary of the Interior on some official business. On my entering the room, Mr. Thompson said to me, "Clingman, I am glad you have called, for I intended presently to go up to the Senate to see you. I have been appointed a commissioner by the State of Mississippi to go down to North Carolina to get your State to secede, and I wished to talk with you about your Legislature before I start down in the morning to Raleigh, and to learn what you think of my chance of success." I said to him, "I did not know that you had resigned." He answered, "Oh, no, I have not resigned." "Then," I replied, "I suppose you resign in the morning." "No," he answered, "I do not intend to resign, for Mr. Buchanan wished us all to hold on, and go out with him on the 4th of March." "But," said I, "does Mr. Buchanan know for what purpose you are going to North Carolina?" "Certainly," he said, "he knows my object." Being surprised by this statement, I told Mr. Thompson that Mr. Buchanan was probably so much perplexed by his situation that he had not fully considered the matter, and that as he was already involved in difficulty, we ought not to add to his burdens; and then suggested to Mr. Thompson that he had better see Mr. Buchanan again, and by way of inducing him to think the matter over, mention what I had been saying to him. Mr. Thompson said, "Well, I can do so, but I think he fully understands it." In the evening I met Mr. Thompson at a small social party, and as soon as I approached him, he said, "I knew I could not be mistaken. I told Mr. Buchanan all you said, and he told me that he wished me to go, and hoped I might succeed." I could not help exclaiming, "Was there ever before any potentate who sent out his own Cabinet ministers to excite an insurrection against his Government!" The fact that Mr. Thompson did go on the errand, and

CH. XVIII. had a public reception before the Legislature, and reT. L. Cling- turned to his position in the Cabinet is known, but this "Speeches incident serves to recall it.

man,

and Writings," pp. 526, 527

Jefferson
Davis,
"Rise and
Fall of the

Confeder

ate Govern

ment," Vol.

I., pp. 57, 58,

59.

To this sketch of the Cabinet cabal it is necessary to add the testimony of his participation, by one who, from first to last, was a principal and controlling actor. Jefferson Davis records that:

In November, 1860, after the result of the Presidential election was known, the Governor of Mississippi, having issued his proclamation convoking a special session of the Legislature to consider the propriety of calling a convention, invited the Senators and Representatives of the State in Congress to meet him for consultation as to the character of the message he should send to the Legislature when assembled. . . While engaged in the consultation with the Governor just referred to, a telegraphic message was handed to me from two members of Mr. Buchanan's Cabinet, urging me to proceed "immediately" to Washington. This dispatch was laid before the Governor and the members of Congress from the State who were in conference with him, and it was decided that I should comply with the summons. . . On arrival at Washington, I found, as had been anticipated, that my presence there was desired on account of the influence which it was supposed I might exercise with the President (Mr. Buchanan) in relation to his forthcoming message to Congress. On paying my respects to the President, he told me that he had finished the rough draft of his message, but that it was still open to revision and amendment, and that he would like to read it to me. He did so and very kindly accepted all the modifications which I suggested. The message was, however, afterwards somewhat changed.

In the documents we have presented, though they manifestly form but the merest fragment of the secret correspondence which passed between the chief conspirators, and of the written evidence recorded by them in various forms, then and afterwards, we have a substantial unmasking of the

combined occult influences which presided over CH. XVIII. the initiatory steps of the great American Rebellion-its central council- the master wheel of its machinery — and the connecting relation which caused all its subordinate parts to move in harmonious accord.

With the same mind to dictate a secession message to a Legislature and a non-coercion message to Congress-to assemble insurrectionary troops to seize Federal forts and withhold Government troops from their protection-to incite governors to rebellion and overawe a weak President to a virtual abdication of his rightful authority, history need not wonder at the surprising unity and early success of the conspiracy against the Union.

CHAPTER XIX

FROM THE BALLOT TO THE BULLET

CHAP. XIX.

HE secret circular of Governor Gist, of South Carolina, heretofore quoted, inaugurated the great American Rebellion a full month before a single ballot had been cast for Abraham Lincoln. This was but repeating in a bolder form the action taken by Governor Wise, of Virginia, during the Frémont campaign four years before. But, instead, as in that case, of confining himself to a proposed consultation among slave-State executives, Governor Gist proceeded almost immediately to a public and official revolutionary act.

On the 12th of October, 1860, he issued his proclamation convening the Legislature of South Carolina in extra session, "to appoint electors of President and Vice-President . . . and also that they may, if advisable, take action for the safety and protection of the State." There was no external peril menacing either the commonwealth or its humblest citizen; but the significance of the phrase was soon apparent.

A caucus of prominent South Carolina leaders is said to have been held on October 25, at the residence of Senator Hammond. Their deliberations remained secret, but the determination arrived at

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