December 15th, 1860, General Cass, who held the portfolio of Secretary of State, resigned, believing that the President was in error in sending reinforcements to Charleston harbor, as he thought that there was then no need to resort to force for the protection of the property of the United States. Two days later, December 17th, 1860, Judge Black was appointed Secretary of State, and held that position for the remainder of the presidential term of Buchanan. On the 20th of December, 1860, the Convention of South Carolina adopted an ordinance of secession, and on the 22d, three commissioners were appointed to treat with the government of the United States. They arrived in Washington on the 26th. The day after they arrived the news reached Washington of the removal of Major Anderson from Fort Moultrie to Fort Sumter, accompanied by the information that the State government had seized Fort Moultrie, Castle Pinckney, the custom house and post-office. It was claimed that President Buchanan had made an agreement with certain members of Congress from South Carolina that the status quo in Charleston harbor, in respect to these forts should not be changed. The South Carolina Commissioners asserted that the removal of Major Anderson to Fort Sumter was a violation of this pledge. The President, relying not only on his recollection, but on his written memoranda of his conversation with the South Carolina members of Congress, which completely refuted the assertion, did not, in the first draft of an answer to the Commissioners, which he prepared with his own hand, repel the assertion as flatly and explicitly as he might have done.26 To three members of his cabinet, Judge Black, Mr. Holt, and Mr. Stanton, this omission was a fatal defect in the paper. Judge Black presented a paper embodying his objections, to the President. He not only referred to the defect mentioned, but also objected to the President's having any negotiations with the Commissioners. It has been thought that these three members of his cabinet believed that the President was on the point of reversing his position, and that he would ultimately admit the right of the states to secede. Mr. Curtis says, "In this it is certain they were mistaken. The President had not contemplated any such change in his position." 2 If they did feel that it was possible that he might so change his position, the necessity of immediate action on their part is apparent. This first draft of an answer to the Commissioners was read to the cabinet on the evening of December 29th.28 1927 That night Judge Black spent in deep reflection. His feeling of personal devotion to Buchanan and his sentiment of duty to the country wrestled together. In the morning his mind was made up. He told Stanton, Holt and Toucey that, regarding the President's purpose as fixed, he had determined to resign. Mr. Toucey informed the President, who sent for Black. This interview may well have been painful 26 Curtis, Life of Buchanan, vol. II, 385. 27 Curtis, Life of Buchanan, vol. II, 383. 28 Rhodes, History of the United States, vol. III, 231. for Judge Black, as it has been represented to have been. Yet, it may be doubted that those who have represented it as a conflict of convictions were wholly right; rather it seems to have been a conflict of policies, in which the President was wise enough to yield to the influence of a mind he knew to be wholly honest, utterly loyal, and as desirous as his own of acting within constitutional rights. And he did yield, giving to Judge Black the draft of the paper that he might make the changes immediately. "Mr. Black went to the Attorney-General's office and there wrote the paper, which Mr. Stanton copied as rapidly as the sheets were thrown to him.29 Mr. Rhodes says: 30 Black showed a perfect comprehension of all the points involved; he understood thoroughly the rights and duties of the federal government; he saw with unerring sagacity the correct policy to be pursued: and all this he expressed with such cogency that this memorandum, constituting as it did the turning point of Buchanan's policy, and preventing an abject compliance with arrogant demands, is worthy of the most careful consideration. and the highest praise. In unanswerable logic he vindicated the national doctrine, justified and commended Major Anderson in the strongest terms, refuted with crushing force the claim of South Carolina, and ended with: "I entreat the President to order the Brooklyn and the Macedonian to Charleston without the least delay, and in the meantime send a trusty messenger to Major Anderson to let him know that his government will not desert him. The re-enforcement of troops from New York or Old Point Comfort should follow immediately. If this be done at 29 Essays and Speeches of J. S. Black, by C. F. Black, 13. once all may yet be not well, but comparatively safe. If not, I can see nothing before us but disaster and ruin to the country." This, the opinion of one of the latest and most careful of our historians, shows the distance we have come from the times in which it was the custom to represent Judge Black as a part of a temporizing and inadequate administration. It does justice to Judge Black at the expense of the President, but Judge Black himself did not desire justice of this sort. In later life the attitude of the press and the politicians toward the administration of which he had been a member, was to him a most bitter injustice. This was what he said in a letter to Mr. Wilson long after the war was over, in regard to President Buchanan and that administration: 31 In the first place Mr. Buchanan was born of Christian parents and educated in a Christian community. All his lifetime, and at the moment of his death, he felt that fear of God which a respectable authority has declared to be, not weakness, but the "beginning of wisdom" and the only source of true greatness. Apart from the religious obligation of his oath, he loved the Constitution of his country on its own account, as the best government the world ever saw. I do not expect you to sympathize with this feeling; your affections are otherwise engaged. The proofs of his great ability and his eminent public services are found on every page of his country's history from 1820 to 1861. During all that long period he steadily, faithfully and powerfully sustained the principles of free constitutional government. This nation never had a truer friend, nor its laws a defender who would more cheerfully have given his life to save them from violation. No man was ever slandered 31 Essays and Speeches of J. S. Black, by C. F. Black, 247, 248, 251. so brutally. His life was literally lied away. In the last months of his administration he devoted all the energies of his mind and body to the great duty of saving the Union, if possible, from dissolution and civil war. . . The accusation of timidity and indecision is most preposterous. He never found it necessary to cross his own path or go back upon his pledges. His judgment was, of course, not infallible; and in 1861 he announced a determination with reference to the South Carolina Commissioners which I and others thought erroneous but unchangeable. Most unexpectedly, and altogether contrary to his usual habit of steadfast self-reliance, he consented to reconsider and materially alter his decision. This change, and all the circumstances which brought it about, were alike honorable to his understanding and heart. The man who could write like this of the man beside whom he struggled for his country's life and honor would accept of no praise which involved the discredit of that man. Together they worked, and together they failed, to save that country from the evils other men could not foresee, or seeing, would not avoid. The memorandum, Stanton and Holt concurring, and the paper, changed in accordance with Judge Black's opinion, were delivered to the commissioners Monday, December 23d. The reply of the Commissioners betrayed their disappointment. They had hoped for an answer in a different tone; they heard the ring of a new voice; the note of a new certainty. The diplomacy of Buchanan, trained diplomat that he was, had a different sound when fused with the phrases of a mind like that of Judge Black. The new note, characteristically, had a sting in it, and they "let their bitter disappointment get the better of |