ton at the feast; the Federal flag, invisible among CHAP. XIX. the city banners, and absent from the gay bunting and decorations of the harbor shipping, still floated

far down the bay over a faithful commander and loyal garrison in Fort Moultrie.

CHAPTER XX

MAJOR ANDERSON

CHAP. XX.

PRES

RESIDENT BUCHANAN and his Administration could not, if they would, shut their eyes to the treasonable utterances and preparations at Charleston and elsewhere in the South; but so far neither the speeches nor bonfires nor palmetto flags, nor even the secession message of Governor Gist or the Convention bill of the South Carolina Legislature, constituted a statutory offense. For twelve years the threat of disunion had been in the mouths of the Southern slavery extremists and their Northern allies the most potent and formidable weapon of national politics. It was declaimed on the stump, elaborated in Congressional speeches, set out in national platforms, and paraded as a solemn warning in executive messages.

Mr. Buchanan had profited by the disunion cry both as politician and functionary; and now when disunion came in a practical and undisguised shape he was to a degree powerless to oppose it, because he was disarmed by his own words and his own acts. The disunionists were his partisans, his friends, and confidential counselors; they constituted a remnant of the once proud and successful party which, by his compliance and coöperation in

their interest, he had disrupted and defeated. Their CHAP. XX. programme hitherto had been the policy upon which he had staked the success or failure of his Administration, so that in addition to every other tie he was bound to them by the common sorrow of political disaster.

Being in such intimate relations and intercourse with the leaders of the Breckinridge wing of the Democratic party during the progress of the Presidential canvass, and that party being made up so exclusively of the extreme Southern Democrats, the President must have had constant information of the progress and development of the disunion sentiment and purpose in the South. He was not restricted as the other parties and the general public were to imperfect reports and doubtful rumors current in the newspapers.

But in addition there now came to him an official warning which it was a grave error to disregard. On October 29, one week before the election, the veteran Lieutenant-General Winfield Scott, General-in-Chief of the Army, communicated to him in writing his serious apprehensions of coming danger, and suggested such precautions as were then in the power of the Administration. Beginning life as a farmer's boy, collegian, and law student, General Scott from choice became a soldier, devoting himself to the higher aims of the profession of arms, and in a brilliant career of half a century had achieved world-wide renown as a great military captain. In the United States, however, the military is subordinated to the civic ambition, and Scott all his life retained a strong leaning to diplomacy and statesmanship, and on several important VOL. II.-22