uence of these advisers Mr.
Buchanan composed for the Thirty-sixth Congress a message which carried
consternation among all Unionists. It was of little consequence that he
declared the present situation to be the "natural effect" of the
"long-continued and intemperate interference" of the Northern people
with slavery. But it was of the most serious consequence that, while he
condemned secession as unconstitutional, he also declared himself
powerless to prevent it. His duty "to take care that the laws be
faithfully executed" he knew no other way to perform except by aiding
federal officers in the performance of their duties. But where, as in
South Carolina, the federal officers had all resigned, so that none
remained to be aided, what was he to do? This was practically to take
the position that half a dozen men, by resigning their offices, could
make the preservation of the Union by its chief executive
impossible![116] Besides this, Mr. Buchanan said that he had "no
authority to decide what should be the relations between the Federal
government and South Carolina." He afterward said that he desired to
avoid a collision of arms "between this and any other government." He
did not seem to reflect that he had no right to recognize a State of the
Union as being an "other government," in the sense in which he used the
phrase, and that, by his very abstention from the measures necessary for
maintaining unchanged that relationship which had hitherto existed, he
became a party to the establishment of a new relationship, and that,
too, of a character which he himself alleged-to be unconstitutional. In
truth, his chief purpose was to rid himself of any responsibility and to
lay it all upon Congress. Yet he was willing to advise Congress as to
its powers and duties in the business which he shirked in favor of that
body, saying that the power to coerce a seceding State had not been
delegated to it, and adding the warning that "the Union can never be
cemented by the blood of its citizens shed in civil war." So the nation
learned that its ruler was of opinion that to resist the destruction of
its nationality was both unlawful and inexpedient.

If the conclusions of the message aroused alarm and indignation, its
logic excited ridicule. Senator Hale gave a not unfair synopsis: The
President, he said, declares: 1. That South Carolina has just cause for
seceding. 2. That she has no right to secede. 3. That we have no right
to prevent her f