retary of War, Jacob Thompson of Missouri
for the Interior, and Aaron V. Brown of Tennessee for Postmaster-
General. From the North he had selected Lewis Cass of Michigan
for the State Department, Isaac Toucey of Connecticut for the Navy,
and Jeremiah S. Black of Pennsylvania for Attorney-General. It
seemed extraordinary that out of seven Cabinet officers four should
be given to the South, when the North had a vast preponderance of
population and wealth. It was hardly less than audacious that the
four departments assigned to the South should be those which dealt
most intimately and most extensively with the finances, the
manufactures, and the commerce of the country. The quiet manner
in which the North accepted this inequitable distribution of
political power added only another proof of the complete ascendency
which the South had acquired in the councils of the Democratic
party.

Mr. Buchanan had always looked to the statesmen of the South as a
superior class; and after a political life wholly spent in close
association and constant service with them, it could not be expected
that, even in a crisis threatening destruction to the Union, he
would break away from them in a day. They had fast hold of him,
and against the influence of the better men in his Cabinet they
used him for a time to carry out their own ends. Secessionists
and Abolitionists Mr. Buchanan no doubt regarded as equally the
enemies of the Union. But the Secessionists all came from the
party that elected him President, and the Abolitionists had all
voted against him. The Abolitionists, in which phrase Mr. Buchanan
included all men of anti-slavery conviction, had no opportunity,
even if they had desired, to confer with the President, while the
Secessionists from old and friendly association, were in daily and
intimate relations with him. They undoubtedly persuaded the
President by the most plausible arguments that they were not in
fault; that the whole responsibility lay at the door of the Northern
anti-slavery men; and that, if these disturbers of the peace could
be suppressed, all would be well. It was under these influences,
artfully insinuated and persistently plied, that Mr. Buchanan was
induced to write his mischievous and deplorable message of the
first Monday of December, 1860,--a message whose evil effect can
never be estimated, and whose evil character can hardly be
exaggerated.

The President informed Congress that "the long-continu