ider it." There followed mutual protestations that
the whole transaction was voluntary, informal, and in the nature of a
mediation; that neither party possessed any delegated authority or
binding power. They were not frank enough to explain to one another
that the true object of each was delay--of the President, "that time
might be gained for reflection"; of the Members, that time might be
gained for the unmolested meeting of the convention, for passing the
ordinance of secession, for further organizing public sentiment, and
pushing forward military preparations at Charleston.

[Sidenote] Buchanan to Commissioners, Dec. 31, 1860. W.R. Vol. I.,
p. 117.

The mask of official propriety worn over this pernicious intrigue, the
disclaimers, the implications and mental reservations of which it was
made up--all became absurd in view of the results it produced. The
President, indeed, explains that it was no pledge or agreement. "But I
acted," he naively admits, "in the same manner as I would have, done
had I entered into a positive and formal agreement with parties
capable of contracting, although such an agreement would have been, on
my part, from the nature of my official duties, impossible. The world
knows that I have never sent any reenforcements to the forts in
Charleston harbor, and I have certainly never authorized any change to
be made in their 'relative military status.'"

While the conspirators were thus taking effectual steps to bind the
future acts of the Executive in respect to the forts in Charleston
harbor, and to make sure that the rising insurrection in South
Carolina should not be crippled or destroyed by any surprise or sudden
movement emanating from Washington, they were not less watchful to
counteract and prevent any possible hostile movement against them on
the part of Major Anderson and his handful of officers and troops in
Fort Moultrie, undertaken on his own discretion. Their boast of secret
sources of information in Washington, coupled with subsequent events,
furnish presumptive evidence that Mr. Floyd, Secretary of War, though
yet openly opposing disunion, was already in their confidence and
councils, and was lending them such active cooperation as might be
disguised or perhaps still excused to his own conscience as tending to
avert collision and bloodshed.

Shortly before, or about the time of the truce we have described,
Secretary Floyd sent an officer of the War Department to Fort Moultrie