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 expedi

tions 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 unoffending 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."

FROM the very first day of the meet1860. ing of Congress it became eviDec. 3 dent that the distracted country had little to hope from its action. All the members from South Carolina, and most of those from Florida, Alabama, Georgia, and Mississippi, who still re

tained their seats in the national legislature with a formal affectation of allegiance to the Union, showed at once their obstinate determination to dissolve it. They refused to vote on the resolution, "that so much of the President's message as relates to the present

perilous condition of the country be referred to a special committee of one from each State," audaciously declaring, as a reason for their recreancy, that the States to which they owed allegiance had, in their "sovereign" capacity, ordered conventions to consider their relations with the Federal Union, and that they looked to them for an authoritative decision of the question. Some even proclaimed that they were now, and had ever been, opposed to all compromises. The introduction of a resolution expressing fidelity to the Union, and pledging the House to maintain it, was fiercely opposed by the disaffected Southern members, and every indication was given of a predetermined hostility to all efforts at conciliation. Such were the sentiments and action, not only of the Southern members of the less restrained House of Representatives, but of the more composed Senate. Even a senator from North Carolina, a State which was believed to be loyal to the Union, did not hesitate to propose a division of the public property between the North and South, while the senators of Mississippi, Georgia, and Texas declared any attempt on the part of the Federal authorities to resist the progress of insurrection would be opposed by force. The senator from Georgia, after a bold avowal of the projected rebellion, published by anticipation its programme, and flaunted it in the face of the Senate with the declaration, that "before the 4th of March-before your President is inaugurated-there will be five States, if not

Mr. Iverson.

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eight, that will be out of the Union, and will have formed a constitution for a frame of government." He declared that the South wanted no concessions, and would receive none. "You can not," he added, "stop this revolution. It is not the liberty laws, but the mob law, which the South fears. They do not dread these overt acts, for, without the power of the Federal Government, by force, under the Republican rule, their institution would not last ten years, and they know it. They intend to go out of this Union. Before the 4th of March five States will have declared their independence, and I am satisfied that three other States will follow as soon as the action of the people can be had. Arkansas will call her convention, and Louisiana will follow. And though there is a clog in the way in the lone star of Texas, in the person of the governor, who will not consent to call the Legislature, yet the public sentiment is so strong, that even her governor may be over-ridden; and if he will not yield to that public sentiment, some Texan Brutus may arise to rid his country of this old, hoary-headed traitor. There has been a good deal of vaporing and threatening, but they came from the last men who would carry out their threats. Men talk about their eighteen millions, but we hear a few days afterward of these same men being switched in the face, and they tremble like a sheep-stealing dog. There wil be no war. The North, governed by such far-seeing statesmen as the senator from New York, will see the futility of

this. In less than twelve months a Southern confederacy will be formed, and it will be the most successful government on earth. The Southern States, thus banded together, will be able to resist any force in the world. We do not expect war, but we will be prepared for it, and we are not a feeble race of Mexicans either."

This menace of rebellion was received with a cautious but defiant silence on the part of most of the Republicans, and timid expressions from the moderate men of all parties of a hope of still allaying the fierce temper of the South by the persuasives of conciliation and compromise. Crittenden, of Kentucky, the Nestor of the Senate, appealed to the sentiment of Union by an eloquent exposition of its blessings, and the dangers to the country of its dissolution. "This Union was established," he said, "by great sacrifices, and it is worthy of great sacrifices and great concessions for its maintenance. I trust that there is no senator but who is willing to yield and conciliate, and to compromise, in order to preserve the Union to the nation and to the country. I look with dismay, and something like despair, to the condition of this country when the Union is stricken down and we shall be turned loose to speculate on the foundations of a new government. I look at it with fear and trembling, which predispose me to the most solemn consideration that I am capable of feeling, and to search out, if possible, some means for the reconciliation of the different sections and members of this Union,

to see if we can not again restore that harmony and fraternity that belong to the Union which has given us so much blessing and prosperity."

The Senate and House, with brief intervals of adjournment, during which vain attempts were made by caucuses and conferences to appease contention, continued their fruitless deliberations. The representatives of the extreme Southern States became daily more inveterate in their expressions of hostility to the Federal Government, and more outspoken in their expressions of disloyalty. The more moderate men of the South and those of the North seemed bewildered and powerless to counsel or to act.

President Buchanan, surrounded by men whose ill-concealed treason was soon to display itself in open rebellion, showed no disposition to exercise his power in protecting the authority of the Federal Government already boldly defied. His message, manipulated to their purpose by the hands of traitors, had, while it argued against the right of secession, put in a plea for its extenuation on the score of provocation from the North, and by confessing the impotency of the Federal authority to enforce obedience, encouraged the disaffected to rebel, with assurances of impunity. His conduct was in conformity with the assertion in his message, that coercion was unconstitutional, and he studiously withheld every indication of a manifestation of the exercise of executive authority to check the intent or to repress the overt act of rebellion.

The commander-in-chief, LieutenantGeneral Scott, had already at an early Oct. 29, period urged upon the President 1860. the necessity of prompt measures to thwart the action of threatened secession. "From a knowledge of our Southern population," he wrote in a letter to Mr. Buchanan, "it is my solemn conviction that there is some danger of an early act of rashness preliminary to secession, viz., the seizure of some or all of the following forts: Forts Jackson and St. Philip, in the Mississippi, below New Orleans, both without garrisons; Fort Morgan, below Mobile, without a garrison; forts Pickens and McRae, Pensacola harbor, with an insufficient garrison for one; Fort Pulaski, below Savannah, without a garrison; forts Moultrie and Sumter, Charleston harbor, the former with an insufficient garrison, and the latter without any; and Fort Monroe, Hampton Roads, without a sufficient garrison. In my opinion all these works should be immediately so garrisoned, as to make any attempt to take any one of them by surprise or coup de main ridiculous.

"With the army faithful to its allegiance, and the navy probably equally so, and with a Federal Executive for the next twelve months of firmness and moderation, which the country has a right to expect-moderation being an element of power not less than firmness-there is good reason to hope that the danger of secession may be made to pass away without one conflict of arms, one execution, or one arrest for treason."

This timely advice of the veteran

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Scott, always vigilant to preserve the Union, was unheeded by the President, whose feeble will was guided by those who were seeking to destroy it. His traitorous associates in the Government threatened to resign, in case he complied with the suggestions of Scott, and extorted from him the pledge not to reinforce the forts. While thus promoting their traitorous purposes with the sanction and under the protection of the Federal Executive, these plotters of rebellion clung to the Government, whose authority they were daily weakening while they were strengthening their own power of ill.

There had been, however, already some dissension in the cabinet in regard to the subject of reinforcing the Southern forts; and when the expediency of sending an additional force to Major Anderson, in command of a feeble garrison at Fort Moultrie, in Charleston harbor, became manifest, two Northern members, Cass and Toucey, earnestly pleaded for it. They were, however, overborne, and the President, hampered by his pledges and controlled by his Southern advisers, sent not a single soldier to sustain the insulted and threatened authority of the Government. Cass, with patriotic indig- Dec. nation at this remissness of duty, 14. resigned his seat in the cabinet.

While the President was thus yielding, unresistingly, to the promoters of rebellion, Congress was continuing its futile attempts to check it by resolutions. The debates, however, became only more angry and the discord more