Chapter 23 The Charleston Conspirators - Abraham Lincoln Vol.2, by Hay & Nicolay

CHAPTER XXIII
THE CHARLESTON CONSPIRATORS
 As President Buchanan might have foreseen, his inconsistent message proved satisfactory to neither friend nor foe. The nation was on the eve of rebellion and had urgent need of remedial acts, not of temporizing theories, least of all theories which at the late Presidential election had been rejected as errors and dangers. The message served as a topic to initiate debate in Congress; but this debate, resting only on the main subject long enough to cover the Chief Magistrate's views and recommendations as a whole, with almost unanimous expressions of dissent, and even of contempt, passed on to words of mutual defiance and open declarations of revolutionary purpose.
The conspirators in the Cabinet had done their work. By the official declarations of the President of the United States, the Government had tied its own hands--had resolved and proclaimed the duty and policy of non-resistance to organized rebellion. Henceforth disunionists, secessionists, nullifiers, and conspirators of every kind had but to combine under alleged State action, and through the instrumentalities of State Legislatures and State conventions cast off without let or hinderance their Federal obligations by resolves and ordinances. The semblance of a vote, a few scratches of the pen, a proclamation, and a new flag, and at once without the existence of a corporal's squad, or the smell of burnt powder, there would appear on the horizon of American politics, if not a _de jure_ at least a _de facto_ State!
If there had hitherto been any doubt or hesitation in the minds of the principal secession leaders of the South, it vanished under the declared policy of inaction of the Federal Administration. The President's message was a practical assurance of immunity from arrest and prosecution for treason. It magnified their grievances, specifically pointed out a contingent right and duty of revolution, acknowledged that mere public sentiment might override and nullify Federal laws, and pointedly bound up Federal authority in narrow legal and Constitutional restrictions. It was blind as a mole to find Federal power, but keen-eyed as a lynx to discover Federal impotence.
The leaders of secession were not slow to avail themselves of the favorable situation. Between the date of the message and the incoming of the new and possibly hostile Administration there intervened three full months. It was the season of political activity--the period during which legislatures meet, messages are written, and laws enacted. It afforded ample time to authorize, elect, and hold State conventions. Excitement was at fever heat in the South, and public sentiment paralyzed, despondent, and divided at the North.
Accordingly, as if by a common impulse, the secession movement sprang into quick activity and united effort. Within two months the States of South Carolina, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas, in the order named, by formal ordinances of conventions, declared themselves separated from the Union. The recommendation of Yancey's "scarlet letter" had been literally carried out; the Cotton States were precipitated into revolution.
In this movement of secession the State of South Carolina was the enthusiastic pioneer. At the date of the President's message she had already provided by law for the machinery of a convention, though no delegates had been elected. Nevertheless, her Legislature at once plunged pell-mell into the task of making laws for the new condition of independent sovereignty which by common consent the convention was in a few days to declare. Questions of army and navy, postal communication, and foreign diplomacy, for the moment eclipsed the baser topics of estray laws or wolf-scalp bounties, and the little would-be Congress fully justified the reported sarcasm of one of her leading citizens that "the Palmetto State was too small for a republic and too large for a lunatic asylum."
But, with all their outward fire and zeal for nationality, her politicians were restrained by an undercurrent of prudence. A revolution even under exceptional advantages is a serious thing.
  [Sidenote] Speech of Mr. Magrath in the South Carolina Convention,   Dec. 19, 1860. "Annual Cyclopedia," 1861, p. 619.
Therefore the agitators of South Carolina scanned the President's message with unconcealed eagerness. In that paradox of assertions and denials, of purposes to act and promises to refrain, they found much to assure them, but also something to cause doubt. "As I understand the message of the President of the United States," explained Mr. Magrath to the South Carolina Convention, "he affirms it as his right, and constitutional duty, and high obligation to protect the property of the United States within the limits of South Carolina, and to enforce the laws of the Union within the limits of South Carolina. He says he has no constitutional power to coerce South Carolina, while at the same time he denies to her the right of secession. It may be, and I apprehend it will be, Mr. President, that the attempt to coerce South Carolina will be made under the pretense of protecting the property of the United States within the limits of South Carolina. I am disposed, therefore, at the very threshold to test the accuracy of this logic, and test the conclusions of the President of the United States."
  [Sidenote] "Mr. Buchanan's Administration," p. 126.
President Buchanan had indeed declared in his message that the Constitution gave the Federal Government no power to coerce a State. He had further said that the laws gave him no authority to execute civil or criminal process or suppress an insurrection with the help of the militia, or the army and navy, "in a State where no judicial authority exists to issue process, and where there is no marshal to execute it, and where, even if there were such an officer, the entire population would constitute one solid combination to resist him."
So far as mere political theories could go, this was certainly an important concession to the conspirators. In virtue of these doctrines, they could proceed, without danger to life and property, to hold conventions, pass secession ordinances, resign and refuse Federal offices, repudiate Northern debts, and effectively stop all Federal mails at the State line. But reading another passage in this paradoxical message of President Buchanan, they found these other propositions and purposes, involving a flat contradiction, and which with sufficient reason excited the apprehensions of Mr. Magrath and his fellow-conspirators. Said the message:
    "The same insuperable obstacles do not lie in the way of     executing the laws for the collection of the customs. The revenue     still continues to be collected as heretofore at the custom-house     in Charleston, and should the collector unfortunately resign, a     successor may be appointed to perform this duty."
  [Sidenote] "Mr. Buchanan's Administration," p. 126.
    "Then in regard to the property of the United States in South     Carolina. This has been purchased for a fair equivalent 'by the     consent of the Legislature of the State,' 'for the erection of     forts, magazines, arsenals,' etc., and over these the authority     'to exercise exclusive legislation' has been expressly granted by     the Constitution to Congress. It is not believed that any attempt     will be made to expel the United States from this property by     force; but if in this I should prove to be mistaken, the officer     in command of the forts has received orders to act strictly on     the defensive. In such a contingency the responsibility for     consequences would rightfully rest upon the heads of the     assailants."
It was, of course, in vain that Mr. Magrath and other South Carolina constitutional expounders protested against this absurd want of logic. It was in vain that they could demonstrate that protecting the property of the Union was but another name for coercion; that if the President could lawfully from another State appoint a successor to the Federal collector, he could in the same manner appoint a successor to the Federal judge, district attorney, and marshal; that if he could execute the revenue laws he could execute the steamboat laws, the postal laws, or the criminal laws; that if, with Federal bayonets, he could stop a mob at the door of the custom-house, he could do the same at the door of the court-room; that it would be no more offensive war to employ a regiment to protect a bonded warehouse than a jail; a shipping dock than a post-office; a dray-load of merchandise passing across a street than a mail car _in transitu_ across a State; that coercing a Charleston belle to pay the custom duties on her silk gown, and a Palmetto orator to suffer the imposition of foreign tribute on his champagne was in fact destroying the whole splendid theory of exclusive State sovereignty.
It followed, therefore, that the issue was not one of constitutional theory, but of practical administration; not of legislation, but of war. The argument of the President's message was palpably illogical and ridiculous, but there in black and white stood his intention to collect the revenue and protect the public property; yonder in the bay were Pinckney, Moultrie, and Sumter; under the flag of the Union was a devoted band of troops and a brave officer, with orders to hold the fort.
For the present, then, the wall of Fort Moultrie was the iron collar around the neck of the coveted "sovereignty" of South Carolina. How to break that fetter was the narrow, simple problem. A half-finished inclosure of brick walls, standing in the midst of sand-hills which gave commanding elevations, and buildings which effectually masked the approach of an assaulting column, and containing, all told, but sixty men to guard 1500 feet of rampart. The street rabble of Charleston could any night clamber over the thinly defended walls, and at least a score of companies of minute men, drilled and equipped, could be brought by rail from the interior of the State to garrison and hold it. But what then? That would bring Federal troops in Federal ships of war, and in a short, quick struggle the substantial standing preparations of the Government would overcome the extemporized preparations of the State, and the insurrection would be hopelessly quelled.
  [Sidenote] Trescott's Narrative, Samuel Wylie Crawford, "Story of   Sumter." pp. 28-30.
To prevent reënforcement was the vital point, and this had been clearly perceived and acted upon from the beginning. While the preparation of President Buchanan's message was yet under discussion the Cabinet cabal had earnestly deliberated upon the most effective intrigue to be employed to deter the President from sending additional troops to Charleston harbor. In pursuance of the scheme agreed upon by them in caucus, Trescott wrote a letter to Governor Gist suggesting that the Governor should write a letter "assuring the President that if no reënforcements were sent, there would be no attempt upon the forts before the meeting of the convention, and that then commissioners would be sent to negotiate all the points of difference; that their hands would be strengthened, the responsibility of provoking collision would be taken from the State, and the President would probably be relieved from the necessity of pursuing this policy." Governor Gist acted upon the suggestion and wrote, under date of November 29, back to Trescott (giving him liberty to show the letter to the President):
  [Sidenote] Gist to Trescott, Nov. 29, 1860. Crawford, p. 31.
    Although South Carolina is determined to secede from the Federal     Union very soon after her convention meets, yet the desire of her     constituted authorities is, not to do anything that will bring on     a collision before the ordinance of secession has been passed and     notice has been given to the President of the fact; and not then,     unless compelled to do so by the refusal of the President to     recognize our right to secede, by attempting to interfere with     our exports or imports, or by refusal to surrender the forts and     arsenals in our limits. I have found great difficulty in     restraining the people of Charleston from seizing the forts, and     have only been able to restrain them by the assurance that no     additional troops would be sent to the forts, or any munitions of     war.... If President Buchanan takes a course different from the     one indicated and sends on a reënforcement, the responsibility     will rest on him of lighting the torch of discord, which will     only be quenched in blood.
  [Sidenote] Trescott's Narrative, Crawford, pp. 34 (line 16) and 42   (lines 13-16).
Mr. Trescott showed this letter to the President on the evening of Sunday, December 2, and while his narrative does not mention any expression by Mr. Buchanan of either approval or dissent, his subsequent acts show a tacit acquiescence in Governor Gist's propositions.
There immediately followed by the leaders in Charleston, and their agents and spokesmen in Washington, the daily repetition of threats and complaints (thus originated by the latter), which were continued for nearly three and a half months. The purpose was twofold: first, by alternately exciting the fears and hopes of the Government to induce it to withhold reënforcement as a prudential measure of magnanimity and conciliation; secondly, to make it a cloak to hide, as far as might be, their own preparations for war. Had the Federal Government been in a condition of normal health and vigor, the farce would not have been effective for even a single day; but, with capital alarmed, with, parties divided into factions, with three traitors in the Cabinet, and a timid and vacillating Executive, by successive, almost imperceptible, degrees, the farce produced a policy and the policy led to an opening drama of civil war.
Leaving out of view anterior political doctrines and discussions, the first false step had been taken by the Administration in its doctrine of non-coercion, announced in the message; the second false step half logically resulting from the first, in its refusal on the first day of December to send Major Anderson the reënforcements he so urgently demanded. The Charlestonians clung to the concession with a tenacity which demonstrated their full appreciation of its value. Immediately there began to flow in upon Mr. Buchanan and his advisers, on the one hand magnified reports of the daily clamors of the Charleston mob, on the other hand encouraging intimations from the Charleston authorities that they, while adhering to their political heresies and demands, were yet averse to disorder and bloodshed, and to this end desired and invoked the utmost forbearance of the Government. Put in truthful language, their request would have been, "Help us keep the peace while we are preparing to break the law. Let the Government send no ships, men or supplies to the forts, in order that we may without danger or collision build batteries to take them. Armament by the Federal sovereignty is war, armament by State authority is peace." And it will forever remain a marvel that a President of the United States consented to this certain process of national suicide.