ttempt soon afterward made
to reenforce and provision it, by such a vessel as the Star of the West,
might by the uncharitable be readily construed as a scheme to provoke
hostilities. Yet, from my knowledge of Mr. Buchanan, I do not hesitate
to say that he had no such wish or purpose. His abiding hope was to
avert a collision, or at least to postpone it to a period beyond the
close of his official term. The management of the whole affair was what
Talleyrand describes as something worse than a crime--a blunder.
Whatever treatment the case demanded, should have been prompt; to wait
was fatuity.

The ill-advised attempt secretly to throw reenforcements and provisions
into Fort Sumter, by means of the steamer Star of the West, resulted in
the repulsion of that vessel at the mouth of the harbor, by the
authorities of South Carolina, on the morning of the 9th of January. On
her refusal to heave-to, she was fired upon, and put back to sea, with
her recruits and supplies. A telegraphic account of this event was
handed me, a few hours afterward, when stepping into my carriage to go
to the Senate-chamber. Although I had then, for some time, ceased to
visit the President, yet, under the impulse of this renewed note of
danger to the country, I drove immediately to the Executive mansion, and
for the last time appealed to him to take such prompt measures as were
evidently necessary to avert the impending calamity. The result was even
more unsatisfactory than that of former efforts had been.

On the same day the special message of the President on the state of the
Union, dated the day previous (8th of January), was submitted to
Congress. This message was accompanied by the _first_ letter of the
South Carolina Commissioners to the President, with his answer, but of
course _not_ by their rejoinder, which he had declined to receive. Mr.
Buchanan, in his memoirs, complains that, immediately after the reading
of his message, this rejoinder (which he terms an "insulting letter")
was presented by me to the Senate, and by that body received and entered
upon its journal.[119] The simple truth is, that, regarding it as
essential to a complete understanding of the transaction, and its
publication as a mere act of justice to the Commissioners, I presented
and had it read in the Senate. But its appearance upon the journal as
part of the proceedings, instead of being merely a document introduced
as part of my remarks, was the result of a discourteo