the hollow reed of a
secession ordinance could inflict a fatal wound!

[Illustration: JAMES BUCHANAN.]

[Sidenote] Appendix, "Globe," Dec. 3, 1860, p. 3.

The President proceeds, therefore, to discuss the second head of the
disunion question, by an attempt to formulate and define the powers
and duties of Congress with reference to the threatened rebellion. He
would not only roll the burden from his own shoulders upon the
National Legislature, but he would by volunteer advice instruct that
body how it must be borne and disposed of. Addressing Congress, he
says in substance: "You may be called upon to decide the momentous
question, whether you possess the power by force of arms to compel a
State to remain in the Union.... The question, fairly stated, is: Has
the Constitution delegated to Congress the power to coerce a State
into submission which is attempting to withdraw, or has actually
withdrawn, from the Confederacy! If answered in the affirmative, it
must be on the principle that the power has been conferred upon
Congress to declare and make war against a State. After much serious
reflection I have arrived at the conclusion that no such power has
been delegated to Congress, or to any other department of the Federal
Government.... It may be safely asserted that the power to make war
against a State is at variance with the whole spirit and intent of the
Constitution.... But if we possessed this power, would it be wise to
exercise it under existing circumstances?... Our Union rests upon
public opinion, and can never be cemented by the blood of its citizens
shed in civil war.... Congress possesses many means of preserving it
by conciliation; but the sword was not placed in their hand to
preserve it by force."

Why did the message thus leap at one bound without necessary connection
or coherence from the discussion of executive to those of legislative
powers? Why waste words over doubtful theories when there was pressing
need to suggest practical amendments to the statute whose real or
imaginary defects Mr. Buchanan had pointed out? Why indulge in
lamentations over the remote possibility that Congress might violate
the Constitution, when the occasion demanded only prompt preventive
orders from the Executive to arrest the actual threatened violation of
law by Charleston mobs? Why talk of war against States when the duty
of the hour was the exercise of acknowledged authority against
insurrectionary citizens?

The is