duty of enforcing the laws and maintaining the supremacy of the Union;
the President placing at his orders the troops and vessels necessary
for this purpose. Scott accepted the trust and went to Charleston, and
while humoring the nullification Quixotism existing there, he executed
the purpose of his mission, by strengthening the defenses and
reenforcing; the Federal forts.[1] His task was accomplished with the
utmost delicacy, but with firmness. The rebellion was indeed abandoned
upon pretense of compromise; but had a conflict occurred at that time
the flag of the Union would probably not have been the first to be
lowered in defeat.

It was, therefore, most fitting that in these new complications
Lieutenant-General Scott should officially admonish President
Buchanan. He addressed to him a paper entitled "Views suggested by the
imminent danger (October 29, 1860) of a disruption of the Union by the
secession of one or more of the Southern States"; and also certain
supplementary memoranda the day after, to the Secretary of War, the
two forming in reality but a single document. General Scott was at
this time residing in New York City, and the missives were probably
twenty-four hours in reaching Washington. This letter of the commander
of the American armies written at such a crisis is full of serious
faults, and is a curious illustration of the temper of the times,
showing as it does that even in the mind of the first soldier of the
republic the foundations of political faith were crumbling away. The
superficial and speculative theories of Scott the politician stand out
in unfavorable contrast to the practical advice of Scott the soldier.

Once break the Union by political madness, reasons Scott the politician,
and any attempt to restore it by military force would establish
despotism and create anarchy. A lesser evil than this would be to form
four new confederacies out of the fragments of the old.[2] And on this
theme he theorizes respecting affinities and boundaries and the folly
of secession.

[Sidenote] "Mr. Buchanan's Administration," Appendix, p. 289.

The advice of Scott the soldier was wiser and more opportune. The
prospect of Lincoln's election, he says, causes threats of secession.
There is danger that certain forts of national value and importance,
six totally destitute of troops, and three having only feeble and
insufficient garrisons, may be seized by insurgents. "In my opinion
all these works should be