to be. Any one could soon & easily get up a compilation of documents & letters with such a statement of facts as might be necessary merely to connect them. But in my opinion that would be utterly unworthy of the subject. Nobody would read it. It should be a compact narrative of what occurred in Congress, in the executive departments, in the country at large; readable, attractive, and interesting to all-comprehensive in its scope, accurate in its detail, vigorous enough to be convincing, and yet impartial enough to prevent the authority of it from being impugned. "Though deep yet clear, though gentle yet not dull, If such a thing could be produced, no matter when, it would be the standard authority for everything that concerns your times and particularly for what concerns yourself. It would be a work which this generation would appreciate, and which even in future times "the world would not willingly let die."— No intelligent man could fail to be interested in the scenes which preceded the downfall of the great republic or in tracing the causes which produced that awful calamity. What could be more useful than a faithful analysis of the factions by which the country has been torn asunder-a true description of those base combinations of demagogues who fought for the spoils of the government while the government itself was perishing? And is there any man who would not be excited more or less by a picture (if well drawn) of an honest Chief Magistrate struggling against the perils of that terrific time, with a wild, fierce throng of slanderers assailing him in front, and hanging on his flank and rear, to defeat every movement he made for the preservation of the Union? But who is to do this?—I certainly do not pretend that I have the qualities which would enable me to execute the plan of which I have given this imperfect outline. Most assuredly I will not undertake it without your approbation, encouragement, and material aid. I feel deeply interested in the subject, to be sure, and think it the best chance for making a literary reputation that I have ever seen or thought of. But I cannot afford to indulge in such ambition; or indeed in ambition of any kind except that of maintaining my family. It will take years to accomplish the work according to my idea of what it should be. It should be a regular biography-starting with your first entrance into life, passing of course lightly over your professional achievements but giving rather a full account of your Congressional and diplomatic career-so that the reader may know what manner of man you were at the time of your election to the Presidency. The objection which will arise in your mind is that this will require so long a time for its completion that one of the objects-an early vindication of your character-will be defeated. But that is provided for in my programme. I propose to prepare that portion of it which may now be needed, at once, and print it whenever it is deemed desirable to do so in any form that may be thought necessary. But I will not consent to publish the whole as a whole until I have time to give it as perfect a form as I can. You know the reasons which compel me to treat this as a matter of business, which otherwise would be a mere labor of love. Now, therefore, let me speak of it as business. You have my note for $2000. Let that stand, and I will pay you the interest on it during your life. But let me have $1500-now or at any time during the present year-and at your death remit me the $2000 debt, and give to my family $3500. If you agree to this I will immediately move to York or Lancaster, and during the present summer and next winter devote most of my time to the business, with all the aid I can command. I fear you will be startled at the magnitude of the sums I have mentioned. But reflect a little before you decide that I am wrong. If business revives and I am engaged in the practice of the law, I will lose more than I will gain by such a contract. If the worst comes to the worst and I am driven to literary labor for a support, I have before me and waiting my acceptance an engagement by which I can take the 100 volumes of Penn. Reports, condense them into 15, and get $1000 per volume. The labor of this would be much less than writing two volumes of biography, because it would consist (nine-tenths of it) in mere clipping and copying. The only trouble about this is that you have no security for the satisfactory completion of the work. I may die, or other causes may prevent the completion of it. I think you ought to trust that much to Providence and me together. But you can, if you think proper, make that part of the contract which is to take effect after your death conditional. Again: We must for obvious reasons be distinctly understood that I am not acting as your mere amanuensis or servant—that it is not an autobiography, but a thing for which I am responsible in my proper person. I am therefore to be the judge of what shall go in and what shall be left out, and to express my own views and opinions. Of course you can have no doubts about my willingness to do you justice. The great danger would be the contrary-that is, that I would do you more than justice. But we might differ on some points about other men-and I say again I must have as large a charter as the wind to blow on whom I please. One thing more: If ill health or other misfortune should prevent me from finishing it, I must be permitted to designate some competent person to close it, so that my family may not lose what I shall have done. I hope the length of this letter will not vex you. If you approve what it contains, a single line to that effect will reach me at Washington, and I will conduct myself accordingly. Any other arrangement which you may think better will of course be received in the best spirit. I have no fears indeed that you will think of anything which I do not approve of. In any event, I hope you will speak frankly. If I am wrong, tell me so, and I will mend myself as well as I can. Ever your friend J. S. BLACK. [With the foregoing letter, among the Buchanan Papers, is the following piece, marked, in pencil, "Judge Black-Events of 1860-61."] It is perhaps not to be expected that in times like these justice will be done to the characters of individuals. In the tempest of passion the voice of reason must be content for a while to remain unheard. Nevertheless, it appears somewhat extraordinary that a man who has filled so large a space in the public eye as the late President of the United States should be so grossly and perseveringly misrepresented. I do not see the motive or the reason, nor can I perceive what good to any person or party can come out of it. On the contrary, it must be manifest that every falsification of history is calculated to do evil. Mr. Buchanan is charged with having caused this war. What act of his had any agency in producing it? He did not elect Mr. Lincoln; he had no hand in making the Chicago platform; he did not inaugurate the irrepressible conflict between the North and South; he did not advise the formation of a sectional party. So far, therefore, as these things may have tended to produce strife and ill blood between different parts of the country, he is guiltless. When Southern men professed to be aggrieved by the supposed hostility of their Northern brethren, did Mr. Buchanan encourage them in their false resentment? When they declared themselves the objects of a lawless and unconstitutional persecution, did he foster their delusion? When they claimed the right of secession, did he concede the justice of their reasoning? No, verily. His message of December, 1860, contains the most earnest appeal that ever was made to the heart and mind of the South against the madness of the secession doctrine. The records of this government contain no paper which so completely exhausts the arguments in favor of the Union. Then it is not by concessions to the South nor by the want of his influence in opposition to their measures that he has caused the public troubles. But (say some) he ought to have stopped the secession movement by force. I admit that if he had had a military power at his command sufficient to quell the insurrection, if he could lawfully have used that power, and if being used it would have had the effect of preserving the Union of the States, then he did come short of his duty, and deserves at least some of the abuse which has been poured upon his head. But I deny utterly the premises from which alone this conclusion can be drawn. It will hardly be pretended that he ought to have garrisoned all the forts and placed a guard around each of the arsenals, navy yards, and custom houses of the Southern States. That would have taken an army of at least 30,000 men. Our army, in fact, contained about 12,000 men, and more than nine tenths of them were on the distant frontiers. The general in command about the first of November reported only five companies as being available for this Southern service. Even so late as February, when the capital was supposed to be in danger, not more than 635 men of the regular army could be got there, though the general was not limited by any order of the President, and though he expressed the belief that 10,000 might be necessary. No reasonable man can doubt that if Mr. Buchanan had attempted to call out the militia of the States without any law for that purpose, or if he had increased the regular army by unauthorised enlistments, these acts would have been denounced as tyrannical and high-handed usurpations. He was obliged, then, to confine himself to the use of five companies. But it is said he might with these five companies have so strengthened the garrisons of the forts in Charleston Harbor that the rebellion there would have been extinguished and never would have made any further progress. Is this true? men. There were three forts in that harbor. There was one company there already. Five more would have made in all between four and five hundred Neither Castle Pinckney nor Fort Moultrie (certainly not the latter) could have been held by less than a thousand men each, for both of them were not only accessible but almost undefended on the land side. A defence of them with five hundred men against a serious attack would have been ridiculous. Even if the force had been sufficient for purposes of mere defence, how would that have "crushed the rebellion"? It would not have protected the Custom House and the Post Office and the Arsenal, and it would not have dispersed the Convention, nor changed the hearts of the people who were known to be fatally bent on dissolving the Union, nor would it have deprived South Carolina of the sympathies of the other Slave States. On the contrary, a reinforcement of those places inadequate to a proper defence would have been an invitation for an attack. A hostile collision would have become inevitable, and that would have been the signal for a general uprising of the North and the South in hostility to one another, just as that very cause did produce the present state of things. In other words, the events of April would have been precipitated in December, and the general war which we now have on our hands would have begun three months earlier than it did. Is Mr. Buchanan to be blamed for not taking that decisive and inevitable step? On the contrary, does it not seem like the conduct of a wise man and a true patriot to have paused upon the bank of the Rubicon? The insurrectionary spirit had not then spread beyond the cotton States. There was a deep-seated dissatisfaction but no determination to revolt in the other Southern States. The border States were for compromise, conciliation, and settlement, and the public sentiment of the North was in favor of all reasonable and proper concessions. Under these circumstances it was that Mr. Buchanan received the assurances of the So. Car. delegation that no attack would be made by that State on any of the forts at Charleston. Was he not right to accept that assurance and act upon it? After Maj. Anderson removed into Fort Sumter, he repeatedly declared that no reinforcements nor provisions were necessary, and expressed the wish that none might be sent-as well as the opinion that an attempt to send them would do harm to him and not good. Over and above all these considerations, there is one other, of overwhelming weight. Congress was in session, and was fully informed of every fact which it is supposed ought to have induced a different policy. They were dumb. They too looked forward to a peaceful settlement, and seemed to approve the course of the President. Mr. Buchanan was in a situation of dread responsibility. He saw his country distracted, divided, and torn by political factions. He could have plunged the two sections into a civil war as easily as a man with a match in his hand might explode a magazine of gunpowder. If he had done so, the whole world and all posterity would have regarded him as the author of his country's ruin-as the base traitor who had destroyed the hope of peace at the last moment of his official life, and left to his successor the legacy of a conflict which must send the Union to destruction. At the same time, he must have known that the course he did adopt would be misconstrued, as it has been, and expose him to all the misconstruction which it has received. A mere politician, a demagogue, a self-seeking man, might have found some escape from this dilemma, but a statesman, honest and true, could only do what his conscience dictated and leave the event to his God. FROM MR. STANTON.1 WASHINGTON, June 8, 1861. DEAR SIR: Your friends here are very much gratified by Judge Black's report of improvement in your health. The accounts we have had occasioned a great deal of solicitude concerning you; but I trust that you may now be speedily restored. I have not written to you for some time because there was nothing to communicate that would cheer or gratify you. While every patriot has rejoiced at the enthusiastic spirit with which the nation has aroused to maintain its existence and honor, the peculation and fraud that immediately spring up to prey upon the volunteers, and grasp the public money as plunder and spoil, has created a strong feeling of loathing and disgust. And no sooner had the appearance of imminent danger passed away, and the administration recovered from its panic, than a determination became manifest to give a strict party direction, as far as possible, to the great national movement. After a few Democratic appointments, as Butler & Dix, everything else has been exclusively devoted to black Republican interests. This has already excited a strong reactionary feeling not only in New York, but in the Western States. General Dix informs me that he has been so badly treated by Cameron, and so disgusted by the general course of the administration, that he intends immediately to resign. This will be followed by a withdrawal of financial confidence and support to a very great extent. Indeed, the course of things for the last four weeks has been such as to excite distrust in every Department of the Government. The military movements, or rather inaction, also excite great apprehension. It is believed that Davis & Beauregard are both in this vicinity-one at Harper's Ferry, the other at Manassas Gap— and that they can concentrate over sixty thousand troops. Our whole force does not exceed forty-five thousand. It is also reported that discord exists between the Cabinet & General Scott, in respect to important points of 1 1 Buchanan Papers, Historical Society of Pennsylvania; Curtis's Buchanan, II. 552. |