dred and fifty troops in the Star of the West to reinforce Anderson, which was in violation of that agreement. The steamer sailed from New York on January 5, reached Charleston harbor on the 9th early in the morning, and was fired upon by order of Governor Pickens, who had been apprised of her coming and was prepared for the attack. She was forced to put out to sea and return to Fortress Mon

roe.

This brings up an illustration of Stanton's foresight. On the 3d of January he said to Holt: "That man from Mississippi [Thompson] is betraying us." Thompson had a large personal influence over the President and was remaining in the cabinet for the purpose of securing valuable information for his Southern friends. On resigning and returning to Mississippi, he made an address to his people in which he confirmed Stanton's opinion of him. "As I was writing my resignation," he said, "I sent a despatch to Judge Longstreet that the Star of the West was coming with reinforcements. The [South Carolina] troops were thus put on their guard and when the Star of the West arrived she received a warm welcome from booming cannon, and soon beat a retreat. I was rejoiced that the vessel was not sunk, but still more rejoiced that the concealed trick conceived by General Scott and adopted by Secretary Holt, but countermanded by the President when too late, proved a failure."

While several of the Southern States that had seceded were organizing and drilling militia and occupying Federal property, secession postmasters continued to make requisitions for supplies and postage stamps. Before honoring these requisitions the Postmaster-General asked Stanton to define the official status of postmasters in seceding States. He advised that the requisitions be honored, "if such postmasters would agree to obey existing postal laws and hold themselves responsible to the Government" as before, and the advice was followed.*

On January 24 the United States steamer Brooklyn sailed for Pensacola from Fortress Monroe with a company of artillery to reinforce Fort Pickens. On February 6 the steamer reached its destination only to meet a document from Secretaries Holt and Toucey. countermanding the original orders and instructing Captain Israel

*The postal service was continued in the seceded States until June, 1861, the insurgents using it freely for the destruction of the Government which was maintaining it.

Vogdes not to land his troops or arms unless the fort should be attacked, or preparations made for an attack. This sudden change of base was due to the influence over Buchanan of Messrs. Mason, Slidell, and Hunter, together with that of Senator Mallory, who promised that Pickens should not be attacked if the President would agree not to reinforce it, and he agreed.

As such a bargain was as advantageous, almost, as an actual surrender of the fort to the secessionists, Stanton "earnestly opposed it." He urged that the South was "merely seeking time for more perfect war preparations; that if Pickens were not reinforced at once it could not be reinforced after hostilities had begun and that the result would be the loss of the fort." His argument was without effect, Buchanan ordering Secretaries Holt and Toucey, in writing, to send the instructions mentioned.

On the 23d of January Ex-President John Tyler arrived in Washington as commissioner from Virginia, bearing the compromise resolutions of his State to the President. Buchanan received him with condescension and promised to make the matter the subject of a special message to Congress. Mr. Tyler asked the privilege of "seeing and discussing the message before its transmission to Congress," and his request was granted!

Stanton was dissatisfied with that portion of it which declared that Congress alone possessed the power and authority to act in the present emergency, calling it an "abdication." Mr. Tyler, who saw the message before it was seen by Stanton or any loyal cabinet officer, also combated the idea that "suddenly the President had become no president-nothing but a figure-head." He said: “My message is to you. You are commander-in-chief of the army and navy in peace as well as in war." Mr. Tyler, however, did not succeed in securing a modification of the "abdication"; but subsequently Stanton did, the President contenting himself with saying that he had no power to tie the hands of Congress, although at the same time he asked that body to "abstain from any and all acts calculated to produce a collision of arms," himself having previously tied his own hands by the agreement of December 9 with the South Carolina congressmen and the subsequent bargain with Senator Mallory relative to Fort Pickens.

In that message he said that it was his "duty at all times to defend and protect the public property within the seceding States, so

UNIV. OF

far as this may be practicable." To the last sentence Stanton, Holt, Dix,* and Black firmly objected. Stanton stated that the enforcement of laws and the defense of public property were "not matters of caprice or of political practicability, but of sworn, mandatory duty." Black was positive in the same direction, and the President drew his pencil through the sentence. When, however, on the 28th, the message, accompanied by the Virginia resolutions, was read in Congress, the objectionable words had been restored!

In moving that these documents be printed, Senator Mason of Virginia said, that any attempt on the part of the Government to collect the revenue in the South would be "an act of war," while with the next breath he declared that the "seizure by the seceding States of the arsenals and forts in the Gulf States was not war but merely an act of necessary prudence." At the same time Senator Iverson of Georgia gave notice that his State had abandoned the Union and warned the Senate and the administration that unless the independence of the seceding States was acknowledged at once "they would keep all the property in their hands and never pay one dcllar of the common public debt." He also declared that "the first Federal gun," no matter for what purpose, "would cancel every public and private debt. We do not care in what form you move against us, no matter whether it be the collection of revenue or any other, we shall treat it as an act of war." Iverson's State was already out of the Union, yet he was participating in the Government from which he had withdrawn and against which he himself and his State were in rebellion!

On the same day Jacob Thompson and Senator Jefferson Davis guaranteed twenty-four thousand dollars for the purchase of arms. The record was now too strong for Stanton. He demanded that the senators and representatives from the States which had repudiated and withdrawn from the Union be arrested and imprisoned. However, the Federal machinery, the Federal courts, and the Federal capital were so thoroughly permeated with secession sentiments, that effective steps to carry out his ideas could not be taken.

On the 8th day of February the secession convention at Montgomery adopted a constitution; on the 9th elected and swore in Jef

*Thurlow Weed says the appointment of John A. Dix, as secretary of the treasury to succeed P. E. Thomas, "was brought about by Edwin M. Stanton, who, alarmed at the state of things in the cabinet, was anxious to bring a loyal Democrat from the North into the Treasury Department."