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anything that is within the scope of the legislative powers of the Constitution. 2. The coercion of individuals to obey the laws of the United States constitutes the great difference between our present Constitution and the Articles of Confederation. 3. The right to use force to execute the laws of the United States, by removing all obstructions to their execution, not only results from the power to legislate on the particular subject, but it is expressly recognized by the Constitution. The character of that force and the modes in which it may be employed, depend both on direct constitutional provision, and on the legislative authority over all the people of the United States in respect to certain subjects and relations. All this will be conceded to be true, so long as a State remains in the Union. Does it cease to be true, when a State interposes her sovereign will, and says that the laws of the United States shall not be executed within her limits, because she has withdrawn the powers which she deposited with the General Government? What does this make, but a new case of obstruction to the execution of the Federal laws, to be removed by acting on the individuals through whom the obstruction is practically tried? And if, in the removal of the obstruction, the use of military power becomes necessary, is war made upon the State? It is not, unless we go the whole length of saying that the interposition of the sovereign will of the State ipso facto makes her an independent power, erects her into a foreign nation, and makes her capable of being dealt with as one enemy is dealt with by another. To deny the right of the United States to execute its laws, notwithstanding what is called the secession of a State, is to impale one's self upon the other horn of the dilemma: for if that right does not exist, it must be because the State has become absolutely free and independent of the United States, and may be made a party to an international war. Mr. Buchanan saw and constantly and consistently acted upon the true distinction between making war upon a State, and enforcing the laws of the United States upon the inhabitants of a State.

CHAPTER XVI.

1860-December.

THE PRESIDENT'S ANNUAL MESSAGE OF DECEMBER 3, 1860.

THE

HE Constitution makes it the duty of the President, from time to time, to give to the Congress information of the state of the Union, and to recommend to their consideration such measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient. Cus-. tom has made the commencement of each session of Congress a regular occasion for the discharge of this duty, and has also established the propriety of performing it at other times, whenever the President deems it necessary. It was the purpose of this provision of the Constitution to make the President a special guardian of the interests of the Union, by making him the official witness of its condition to the legislative department, and by giving to his recommendation of measures a high claim upon its consideration. The performance of this duty involves a wide range of observation over the whole condition of the country at a given time, and it imposes upon Congress the correlative duty of giving serious heed and prompt attention to any recommendations which the President may make. No other functionary in the Government is in a position to know so well as the President what the interests of the Union from time to time demand at the hands of Congress, and no other is clothed with this power of making official and therefore weighty recommendations of measures requiring legislative action. No state of parties, no objects of party policy, can excuse the individual members of a Congress from the duty of giving immediate attention to whatever suggestions the President may make in the exercise of this great function as the constitutional adviser of the legislature, and as guardian of the interests of

the Union. At the same time, it is to be remembered that this function is only an advisory one; that it in no way enlarges the powers of the Executive; and that the President can at no time exercise any powers but those with which he has been clothed by the Constitution or by the laws which have been passed in pursuance of its provisions.

Never was there an occasion when it was more necessary that this duty should be performed by the President firmly, intelligibly, boldly, conscientiously, than it was in the crisis existing at the commencement of the session of Congress in December, 1860. Never was it more imperatively necessary that Congress should at once take into its "consideration" the measures recommended by the President. The force of that term, as it is used in the Constitution, is not limited to a mere reference of the President's recommendations to committees. It implies action, prompt and decisive action, one way or the other, in proportion to the gravity of that condition of the Union which the President has brought to the attention of the Legislature. The President is entitled to know, and to know speedily, whether the Congress concurs with or differs from him. The country is entitled to know whether its Chief Magistrate is to be clothed with the further powers for which he may have asked in order to meet a given emergency; whether the Congress accepts, or refuses to accept, his construction of the Constitution in regard to new and difficult questions that have arisen; and whether, if the Congress does not concur with the President, it has any other policy to propose and carry out, adequate to the dangers that may be impending over the Union. An examination of the course of President Buchanan in the crisis to which we have now arrived conducts to the inquiry whether he performed his duty, as he should have done, and whether the Congress performed theirs according to the obligation that rested upon them.

The "state of the Union," of which the President had to give Congress official information, was entirely unprecedented. That it was alarming, cannot be doubted. It matters little whether the people of the North felt much alarm. Popular opinion, so far as it was not manifested by the depression of business and of the public funds, did not reflect the gravity of

the crisis. It was not generally believed that an election of a President, conducted in a regular and orderly manner, although it had resulted in the triumph of a party obnoxious to the feelings of the Southern people, because of its supposed hostility to them, would be or could be made the occasion for a permanent disruption of the Union. And this was about the only aspect in which the popular mind of the North regarded the whole matter for a considerable period after the election. It was not generally perceived that an entirely new question had arisen, which made a peril of a new and formidable nature. The alleged constitutional right of a State to withdraw itself from the Union, on its own judgment that its interests or safety were no longer compatible with its continuing as a member of it, although it had long been theoretically discussed in many ways by individuals of more or less importance, was now about to be asserted and acted upon by the people of South Carolina. How was this crisis to be met? That it was entirely out of all previous experience, that it was a situation full of peril, that it entailed the consideration of questions of Federal power never yet solved, because they had never before arisen, was plain. That the President of the United States, the official sentinel on the great watch-tower of the Union, regarded its condition as one of imminent danger, was enough for the Congress to know. That popular opinion in the North did not fully comprehend the danger affords no excuse for any omission of duty, any lack of wisdom or forethought, any failure to act promptly or patriotically, which history may find reason to impute to those who held the legislative power.

Mr. Buchanan, as the reader has seen, so soon as he had reason to believe that South Carolina was about to put in practice its alleged right of withdrawing from the Union, proceeded to take the opinion of his official adviser in regard to his constitu tional powers and duties in such an emergency. Individually, he needed no man's advice upon such questions, for he was as able and well instructed a constitutional jurist as any one who had ever filled the office of President of the United States; familiar with all the teachings and all the precedents of his predecessors, and abundantly learned in the doctrines of the great judicial expounders of the Constitution. But in his offi

cial capacity it was both proper and necessary that he should call to his aid the sound judgment and the copious learning of his Attorney General, before proceeding to discharge his constitutional duty of giving to Congress information of the state of the Union. He began to prepare his annual message immediately after he had received the Attorney General's answers to his questions. The message was read to the cabinet before it was printed in the usual form for communication to Congress. The members of the cabinet, including General Cass, the Secretary of State, and with the exceptions of Mr. Cobb, Secretary of the Treasury, and Mr. Thompson, Secretary of the Interior, warmly and emphatically approved of it.* Messrs. Cobb and Thompson objected to so much of the message as denied the right of secession, and to that part of it which maintained the duty of defending the public property and collecting the revenue in South Carolina. These questions having now become vital, the two dissenting members of the cabinet, soon after the message had been sent to Congress, resigned their places.†

Let it be remembered, then, that this message was prepared to be submitted to Congress before the South Carolina Convention had adopted its ordinance of secession. Surely, therefore, there can be no just ground for imputing to the President any lack of preparation to meet the threatened contingency of a secession of one or more States, according to the measure of his official duty and powers. In examining this message, of which I shall speak in conformity with my most serious convictions, the reader should note that it had to be prospective in its recommendations, in order that Congress might be fully possessed of the methods of action which the President intended to propose as the legitimate, as well as the expedient, course to be pursued. But this was not the whole of the constitutional duty that rested upon the Executive. He had, in discharging his duty of giving to Congress information of the state of the Union, to treat so far of the causes which had brought about that condition as to point out measures of conciliation, as well as measures for the exercise of authority. He had to recognize the

* Judge Black made a criticism, which will be adverted to hereafter.

+ Their resignations will be noted hereafter, as well as that of General Cass, concerning whom see the President's memorandum, post.

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