sue and argument were wholly false and irrelevant. No State had
yet seceded. Execute such laws of the United States as were in
acknowledged vigor, and disunion would be impossible. Buchanan needed
only to do what he afterwards so truthfully asserted Lincoln had
done.[8] But through his inaction, and still more through his declared
want of either power or right to act, disunion gained two important
advantages--the influence of the Executive voice upon public opinion,
and especially upon Congress; and the substantial pledge of the
Administration that it would lay no straw in the path of peaceful,
organized measures to bring about State secession.

[Sidenote] Correspondence, N.Y. "Evening Post".

[Sidenote] Washington "Constitution" of December 19, 1860.

[Sidenote] London "Times," Jan. 9, 1851.

The central dogma of the message, that while a State has no right to
secede, the Union has no right to coerce, has been universally
condemned as a paradox. The popular estimate of Mr. Buchanan's
proposition and arguments was forcibly presented at the time by a
jesting criticism attributed to Mr. Seward. "I think," said the New
York Senator, "the President has conclusively proved two things: (1)
That no State has the right to secede unless it wishes to; and (2)
that it is the President's duty to enforce the laws unless somebody
opposes him." No less damaging was the explanation put upon his
language by his political friends. The recognized organ of the
Administration said: "Mr. Buchanan has increased the displeasure of
the Lincoln party by his repudiation of the coercion theory, and his
firm refusal to permit a resort to force as a means of preventing the
secession of a sovereign State." Nor were intelligent lookers-on in
foreign lands less severe in their judgment: "Mr. Buchanan's message,"
said the London "Times," a month later, "has been a greater blow to
the American people than all the rant of the Georgian Governor or the
'ordinances' of the Charleston Convention. The President has
dissipated the idea that the States which elected him constitute one
people."

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[1] There were 3,832,240 opposition popular votes against 847,953 for
Breckinridge and Lane, the Presidential ticket championed by Mr.
Buchanan and his adherents.

[2] Printed in "The Early Life, Campaigns, and Public Services of
Robert E. Lee, with a record of the campaigns and heroic deeds of his
companions in arms, by a distinguished Southern j