xecuted," and
stating that there were now no longer any Federal Officers in South
Carolina, through whose agency he could keep that oath, took up the laws
of February 28, 1795, and March 3, 1807, as "the only Acts of Congress
on the Statute-book bearing upon the subject," which "authorize the
President, after he shall have ascertained that the Marshal, with his
posse comitatus, is unable to execute civil or criminal process in any
particular case, to call out the Militia and employ the Army and Navy to
aid him in performing this service, having first, by Proclamation,
commanded the insurgents to 'disperse and retire peaceably to their
respective abodes, within a limited time'"--and thereupon held that
"This duty cannot, by possibility, be performed in a State where no
judicial authority exists to issue process, and where there is no
Marshal to execute it; and where even if there were such an officer, the
entire population would constitute one solid combination to resist him."
And, not satisfied with attempting to show as clearly as he seemed to
know how, his own inability under the laws to stamp out Treason, he
proceeded to consider what he thought Congress also could not do under
the Constitution. Said he: "The question fairly stated, is: Has the
Constitution delegated to Congress the power to coerce into submission a
State which is attempting to withdraw, or has actually withdrawn, from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." And further:
"Congress possesses many means of preserving it (the Union) by
conciliation; but the sword was not placed in their hands to preserve it
by force."

Thus, in President Buchanan's judgment, while, in another part of his
Message, he had declared that no State had any right, Constitutional or
otherwise, to Secede from that Union, which was designed for all time
--yet, if any State concluded thus wrongfully to Secede, there existed no
power in the Union, by the exercise of force, to preserve itself from
instant dissolution! How imbecile the reasoning, how impotent the
conclusion, compared with that of President Jackson, thirty years
before, in his Proclamation against Nullification and Secessio