reenforcements to Moultrie, Sumter, and Pinckney, precipitate a
_denouement_, and prematurely ruin all their well-concocted schemes?
There was urgent need to prevent the sailing of the steamer on such an
errand.

[Sidenote] Buchanan to Burnwell, Adams, and Orr, Dec. 31, 1860. W.R.
Vol. I., p. 116.

On Saturday, December 8, four of the Representatives in Congress from
South Carolina requested an interview of President Buchanan, which he
granted them, in which they rehearsed their well-studied prediction of
a collision at Charleston. One of their number has related the
substance of their address with graphic frankness:

[Sidenote] Hon. Wm. Porcher Miles, Statement before the South
Carolina Convention, "Annual Cyclopedia," 1861, pp. 649-50.

"Mr. President, it is our solemn conviction that if you attempt
to send a solitary soldier to these forts, the instant the
intelligence reaches our people (and we shall take care that it
does reach them, for we have sources of information in Washington
so that no orders for troops can be issued without our getting
information) these forts will be forcibly and immediately
stormed.

"We all assured him that if an attempt was made to transport
reenforcements, our people would take these forts, and that we
would go home and help them to do it; for it would be suicidal
folly for us to allow the forts to be manned. And we further said
to him that a bloody result would follow the sending of troops to
those forts, and that we did not believe that the authorities of
South Carolina would do anything prior to the meeting of this
convention, and that we hoped and believed that nothing would be
done after this body met until we had demanded of the general
Government the recession of these forts."

Here was an avowal to the President himself, not only of treason at
Charleston, but of conspiracy in the Executive departments at
Washington; a demand coupled with a menace; a proposal for a ten days'
truce supplemented by a declaration of intention to proceed to
extremities after its expiration. Instead of meeting these with a
stern rebuke and dismissal, the President cowered and yielded to their
demand. The sanctity of the Constitution, the majesty of the law, the
power of the nation, the patriotism of the people, all faded from his
bewildered vision; his irresolute will shrank from his declared
purpose to protect the