en, the other day, this same South Carolina
lowered the colors of the United States, and unfurled the Palmetto flag,
Mr. Buchanan himself proclaimed (how could he do otherwise?) the
flagrant illegality of such an act; it is true, that, after having
declared it illegal, he took care to disavow all intention of putting
the law in force.

And this same conduct of Mr. Buchanan is the precise explanation of the
prodigious haste which the South Carolinians have used in their
proceedings. They knew that the President in power could not, if he
would, act with vigor against his own party. His inaction was assured;
there were two months of interregnum, of which it was important to make
the most; so that Mr. Lincoln, on coming into office, might find himself
checked, or at least harassed, by the power of a deed accomplished.

It seems as though Mr. Buchanan was anxious himself to give the signal
of revolt. The message that was issued by him, after the election of Mr.
Lincoln, is really the most extraordinary document ever written by the
head of a great State; he doubtless declares in it that a regular
election cannot of itself alone furnish sufficient cause for the
violence of the South; he takes care, however, to add that the South has
reason to complain, that reparation and guarantees are due it, and that
if these are refused, (that is, if the North refuses to replace its head
under the yoke, and to decree at once the ruin and the shame of
America,) it will then he time for action.

The Carolinians thought that they might be excused for being a little
less prudent than the first magistrate of the United States, since,
moreover, they saw their pretensions sanctioned by him. Why not attack
the Confederation while it had a chief who was determined to make as
little defence as possible? The weakness of Mr. Buchanan justified the
confidence of Carolina. He refrained to place in the Federal fortresses
troops destined to protect them against an expected assault; when a
brave man, Major Anderson, took measures to defend the post that had
been confided him, this unexpected resistance by which the programme was
deranged, appeared as ill-timed to Mr. Buchanan as insolent to the
people of Charleston; and the despatch of the 30th of December,
addressed to their commissioners, exculpates him from the crime of
having sent the reinforcements, and makes excuses in pitiful terms for
the conduct of Major Anderson, whom they ought to hear before