anything but the secession of South Carolina; notwithstanding the failure of the Peace Convention to propose anything that Congress would accept, Virginia, North Carolina, Maryland, Kentucky, even Tennesseee and Missouri, had not seceded, or. taken steps to secede, on the 4th of March, 1861. The same conservative sentiment which still animated the best portion of the people of those States, kept them from the vortex of secession. They did not yet regard the election of Mr. Lincoln by a purely sectional vote of the non-slaveholding States as a sufficient cause for breaking up the Union. They still looked to his administration for measures that would prevent a civil war; still looked to the Federal Government for a redress of all the grievances of which any of the States could complain. So that when Mr. Buchanan laid down and Mr. Lincoln took up the powers of the Executive, the problem which remained for the latter, and which Mr. Buchanan left for him in the best attitude that it could be made to assume, was how still to keep those border States from joining the Southern Confederacy, as they had been kept from it hitherto. This was largely, almost exclusively, a matter for the Executive, unless, indeed, he should think it best to call the new Congress, then legally existing, together immediately, and insist on its doing what the preceding Congress had neglected. This course was not at once adopted, and consequently everything depended upon the dealing of the Executive with the Confederate commissioners, who were then in Washington, respecting the evacuation of Fort Sumter. Mr. Buchanan had in no way trammelled his successor by negotiations with those commissioners. He had, in fact, declined all intercourse with them; and it was entirely optional with Mr. Lincoln to do the same thing, as it was entirely open to him to determine whether he would or would not order the evacuation of that fort, and to shape his measures accordingly. Thus far, an attack upon Major Anderson's position had been prevented by the efforts of Virginia, and by the prudent course pursued by Mr. Buchanan. It was to be expected that the Southern commissioners would be most persistent in their demands; that they would seek the aid of influential persons who might desire to see the peace of the country preserved, and who would be willing to hazard so much of a recognition of the new Confederacy as a de facto power, as would be involved in a compliance with its immediate demands respecting Sumter. But by no act, or word, or omis sion of the outgoing President, had his successor been placed under any obligation to yield to those demands, or even to consider them. That the military situation had become such that Anderson could not be maintained in his position without sending a considerable army to his relief, was not due to President Buchanan's unwillingness to send him reinforcements, but it was a consequence of Anderson's not asking for them until he was so surrounded with fortifications and powerful batteries that he could not be relieved without a force many times greater than all that the Government then had at its command. Mr. Lincoln, therefore, assumed the Government without a single admission by his predecessor of the right of sccession, or of any claim founded on it; without any obligation, other than the duty of preventing a civil war, to hold even an informal negotiation with the Confederate commissioners; with thirteen millions of people in the border States still in the Union, and not likely to leave it, unless blood should be shed. It may be that in one sense it was fortunate that the first gun was fired on and not from Fort Sumter. But into that question it is not needful for me to enter. My province is fulfilled, if I have correctly described the condition in which Mr. Buchanan left the Government to his successor. Excepting on the short drive from the White House to the Capitol, in the same carriage, on the 4th day of March, according to the graceful custom of inaugurating a new President, and in the public ceremony of the day, there is no reason to suppose that Mr. Buchanan and Mr. Lincoln ever met. All that is known is that Mr. Lincoln's demeanor, while in the carriage, produced upon Mr. Buchanan the impression that he had no fears for his personal safety or the safety of the capital. But it does not appear that at that or any other time, Mr. Lincoln sought to know what his predecessor could tell him. It is too much the habit of our public men to live and act and confer only with their party associates. Unless it be in the conflicts of public debate, they learn nothing of the views, purposes, motives, and very little of the acts, of their political opponents. If ever there was an occasion when this habit needed to be broken, it was when one of these men was putting off and the other was assuming the great duties of the Presidency. Mr. Buchanan could not seek a conference with his successor on the state of public affairs; his successor did not seek or apparently desire one. How much there was that Mr. Buchanan could have communicated to Mr. Lincoln, and how much it concerned the interest of the Republic that the latter should learn, must be apparent from what has been gone over in the preceding pages. Such a conference, if it had served no other good purpose, would have fixed Mr. Lincoln's attention upon the extreme importance of so guiding the intercourse between his administration, or any member of it, and the Confederate commissioners, as to prevent all pretext for an assault upon Fort Sumter. Mr. Buchanan was detained by his private affairs in Washington until the 9th day of March. On that day, he departed for Wheatland, accompanied by Miss Lane and the other members of his household. TROOPS AT THE CAPITAL. The anonymous diarist of the North American Review, writing on the 4th day of March, the day of Mr. Lincoln's inauguration, records his great disgust at the presence of troops in Washington, and attributes it to "the mischievous influence of the Blairs." It is to be hoped that the statement which I have made will be considered as sufficient proof of the source from which the first suggestion of this very prudent and proper precaution came. There was no single moment of time and no place in the Union, during the whole period of Mr. Buchanan's Presidency, at which the presence of a military force was more necessary than it was at Washington on the day of Mr. Lincoln's inauguration; for, notwithstanding the absence of any tangible evidence of a conspiracy to seize the city or to interrupt the proceedings, yet, as Judge Black forcibly remarked in his letter to the President, preparation could do no possible harm, in any event, and in the event which seemed most probable, it was the country's only chance of salvation. If, then, at this most critical time and place, there could be assembled only 653 men of the rank and file of the army, a part of them being the sappers and miners drawn from West Point, what a commentary does this fact afford, upon the charge that President Buchanan neglected his duty, by not garrisoning the Southern forts in the month of October, 1860. At that time, the whole number of seaboard forts of the United States was 57; the proper complement for war garrisons of these forts would require 26,420 men; and their actual garrisons were 1,334 men, 1.308 of whom were at Governor's Island, New York, Fort McHenry, Maryland, Fortress Monroe, Virginia, and Alcantraz Island, San Francisco. The regular army, when recruited to its maximum, was only 18,000 men; actually it was not much over 16,000. At no time could any part of it have been withdrawn from the remote frontiers; and of the 1,308 men distributed at the five points above named, very few could have been transferred to the nine Southern forts mentioned by General Scott in his "views" of October, 1860. The Military Committee of the House of Representatives, in their Report of February 18, 1861, said: "Unless it is the intention of Congress that the forts, arsenals, dock yards and other public property, shall be exposed to capture and spoliation by any lawless bands who may have the inclination to commit depredations upon it, the President must be armed with additional force for their protection." Accordingly, they reported a bill authorizing the President to call out the militia, but it was never acted upon. (See Report, H. R. No. 85, 36th Cong., 2d Session, and Bill No. 1,003.) CHAPTER XXVI. 1861. JOURNEY FROM WASHINGTON TO WHEATLAND-WELCOME FROM FRIENDS AT T my request, a citizen of Lancaster, Mr. W. U. Hensel, has furnished for this work the following account of Mr. Buchanan's journey from Washington to Wheatland : Local pride and personal admiration for Mr. Buchanan had always contributed to his strength at home in popular contests. In the County of Lancaster, which to this day remains one of the strongholds of the anti-Democratic party, Mr. Buchanan received 8731 votes to 6608 for Fremont and 3615 for Fillmore. In the city the utmost hopes of his friends were more than realized by a plurality of 1196, about four times the usual Democratic majority, and a majority over Fillmore and Fremont of 864. In the little township of Lancaster, on the outskirts of the city, in which Mr. Buchanan's suburban home was situated, and which the New York Herald called "The Wheatland district," the average opposition majority of sixty was reduced to four. The interest and affection with which he was regarded at home was testified by the escort of an immense body of citizens of all parties which accompanied him from his house to the railroad station, when he left for Washington on March 2, 1857. The whole population of the city and vicinity seemed to have turned out upon the occasion, and the severity of the weather did not chill their enthusiasm. His immediate escort to the capital consisted of the local military company, the Fencibles, committees of council, representatives of Franklin and Marshall College, of the board of trustees of which institution he was president, and a number of personal friends. On his expected return to Wheatland, after the close of his term, a citizens' meeting appointed a committee of his neighbors and friends to escort him on his way. When those gentlemen arrived in Washington and, through their chairman, Hon. H. M. North, acquainted the President with their mission, he was deeply moved by the manifestation of good feeling toward him. A small military escort accompanied him and his friends to the railroad station in Washington, en route for Lancaster. They stopped over in Baltimore, and during the evening the ex-President received a large number of its citizens. In response to a serenade given him about eleven o'clock in the evening, at Barnum's Hotel, he spoke as follows: "MY FRIENDS :— "I thank you most cordially for this honor, and a long period of time must elapse before memory shall fail to record it. The music is admirable indeed, and the delicious strains cannot fail to gratify the taste of any person whose genius or talents lead him to such a high accomplishment. But the music is nothing at all compared to the motives and feelings which prompted the compliment. I thank you from the bottom of my heart for your kind sentiments therein expressed. "There are some who are ever ready to pay homage to those who are about entering upon the cares of office, influenced doubtless by a principle of selfaggrandizement; but you pay your attentions to an old man going out of office, and now on his way to a retired and peaceful home. For many years I have experienced a deep regard for the interests of Baltimore, have rejoiced in her prosperity, and sympathized in her temporary misfortunes; and now one of the strongest feelings of my heart is, that she may continue an extension of her limits, enjoy an increase of trade and an abundance of labor for her deserving laboring classes. "I must ask you to excuse this brief speech. I could say much more, but the night is advancing, and I forbear to detain you. My public history is before the people of this country, and whilst it does not behoove me to speak of it, I assure you of my willingness that they shall judge me by my kind regard for all the citizens of Baltimore; and that God may prosper and bless them all is the sincere prayer of an honest heart." The Battalion and Baltimore City Guards having been added to his escort, the homeward journey was resumed on the next morning, and at York and other points on the road there were demonstrations of popular welcome. At Columbia, Pa., a town on the Susquehanna River, on the west border of Lancaster County, he was welcomed at the gates of his own county by a committee of about one hundred and fifty citizens of Lancaster, and delegates from Columbia and surrounding towns and villages, who had gathered there to receive him when his foot first fell upon the soil of the district which claimed him as peculiarly its own. As the train which carried him and his friends and the popular escort, now swelled to many hundreds, neared the city, there was firing of cannon, pealing of bells, and the formation of a procession to escort the party through the streets of the city. The cars were stopped at |