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 Cornell University Library 
 J82 .B7 1888 
 The messaaes, of Pres|den^^ 
 
 3 1924 030 430 569 
 
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 COPTKIOHT, 1888. 
 
 Br J. BUCHANAN HENET. 
 
PEEFAOE, 
 
 The present volume contains all of President Buchanan's 
 annual and special messages to Congress, except those which 
 merely notified that body that he had approved various bills, 
 which thereby became laws. It has been thought their pub- 
 lication in this form would make a convenient and useful book 
 for consultation and reference. 
 
INAUGUEAL ADDRESS. 
 
 Invocation of the Divine assistance. — Prompt submission to the will of 
 the majority as expressed in the election an admirable^ spectacle. — 
 Congress has declared that Kansas shall be admitted to the Union, 
 with or without slavery, as its constitution may prescribe at the time 
 of admission, upon this principle of popular sovereignty. — In the 
 States, under our Constitution, slavery is beyond the reach of any human 
 power except that of the States themselves in which it exists. — The ma- 
 terial value of our Union is incalculable. — The duty of preserving the 
 Government from the taint or suspicion of corruption. — We are embar- 
 rassed by too large a surplus in the Treasury. — No more revenue ought to 
 be collected from the people than necessary for a wise, economical, and 
 efficient administration of the Government. — Our noble inheritance in 
 the public lands should be reserved for actual settlers at moderate prices, 
 for homes for our children and children's children. — The grant of powers 
 in the Constitution should be strictly construed. — All the great and useful 
 powers necessary both for peace or war have been granted expressly or 
 by clear implication. — Under the war-making power Congress can author- 
 ize the building of a military road to our Pacific States to protect them. — 
 Our diplomacy should be direct and frank, neither seeking to obtain 
 more nor accepting less than is our due. — We ought to cultivate peace, 
 commerce, and friendship with all nations in a spirit of Christian benevo- 
 lence. — We should avoid entangling alliances, do justice to all, and exact 
 it for ourselves in return. 
 
 I'ellow-oiUzens : 
 
 I appear before you this day to take the solemn oath " that 
 1 will faithfully execute the office of President of the United 
 States, and will, to the best of my ability, preserve, protect, 
 and defend the Constitution of the United States." 
 
 In entering upon this great oflBce, I most humbly invoke 
 the God of our fathers for wisdom and firmness to execute its 
 high and responsible duties in such a manner as to restore har- 
 mony and ancient friendship among the people of the several 
 States, and to preserve our free institutions throughout many 
 generations. Convinced that I owe my election to the inher- 
 ent love for the Constitution and the Union which still ani- 
 
6 MESSAGES OF PEESIDENT BTJCHAWAK. 
 
 mates the hearts of the American people, let me earnestly ask 
 their powerful support in sustaining all just measures calcu- 
 lated to perpetuate these, the richest political blessings which 
 Heaven has ever bestowed upon any nation. Having deter- 
 mined not to become a candidate for re-election, I shall have 
 no motive to influence my conduct in administering the gov- 
 ernment except the desire ably and faithfully to serve my 
 country, and to live in the grateful memory of my country- 
 men. 
 
 "We have recently passed through a presidential contest in 
 which the passions of our fellow- citizens were excited to the 
 highest degree by questions of deep and vital importance ; but 
 when the people proclaimed their will, the tempest at once 
 subsided, and all was calm. 
 
 The voice of the majority, speaking in the manner pre- 
 scribed by the Constitution, was heard, and instant submission 
 followed. Our own country could alone have exhibited so 
 grand and striking a spectacle of the capacity of man for self- 
 government. 
 
 What a happy conception, then, was it for Congress to 
 apply this simple rule — that the will of the majority shall 
 govern — to the settlement of the question of domestic slavery 
 in the Territories ! Congress is neither " to legislate slavery 
 into any Territory or State, nor to exclude it therefrom, but 
 to leave the people thereof perfectly free to form and regulate 
 their domestic institutions in their own way, subject only to 
 the Constitution of the United States." As a natural conse- 
 quence, Congress has also prescribed that, when the Territory 
 of Kansas shall be admitted as a State, it " shall be receivec? 
 into the Union, with or without slavery, as their constitution 
 may prescribe at the time of their admission." 
 
 ■ A difEerence of opinion has arisen in regard to the point of 
 time when the people of a Territory shall decide this question 
 for themselves. 
 
 This is, happily, a matter of but little practical importance. 
 Besides, it is a judicial question, which legitimately belongs 
 to the Supreme Court of the United States, before whom it is 
 now .pending, and will, it is understood, be speedily and finally 
 settled. To their decision, in common with all good citizens, 
 
MESSAGES OF PRESIDENT BUCHATiTAN. 7 
 
 I shall cheerfully submit, Vhatever this may be, though it has 
 ever been my individual opinion that, under the Nebraska- 
 Kansas act, the appropriate period will be when the number 
 of actual residents in the Territory shall justify the formation 
 of a constitution with a view to its admission as a State into 
 the Union. But be this as i t TT1f1 i |7. i ^'*' i« l^hn impnr ni tirn mr] 
 i ndispensable duty of the g overnment of the United States to 
 s ecure to every resident mJiabitant the iiree and independen t 
 expression of his opinion by his vot e. This sacred right of 
 each individual must be preserved. That bejng accompli shed, 
 n nthinjy ffl" 1^" foivo.. <-v.on i-r, Ipova ihp. pf^n ple of a Territory 
 f ree from all formgn interference, to decide their own destiny 
 f or themselves, subje ct only to the Constitution of the ijmted" 
 Slates! 
 
 " The whole territorial question being thus settled upon the 
 principle of popular sovereignty — a principle as ancient as free 
 government itself — everything of a practical nature has been 
 decided. No other question remains for adjustment ; because 
 all agree that, under the Constitution, slavery in the States is 
 beyond the reach of any human power, except that of the re- 
 spective States themselves wherein it exists. May we not, 
 then, hope that the long agitation on this subject is approach- 
 ing its end, and that the geographical parties to which it has 
 given birth, so much dreaded by the Father of his Country, 
 will speedily become extinct ? Most happy will it be for the 
 country when the public mind shall be diverted from this 
 question to others of more pressing and practical importance. 
 Throughout the whole progress of this agitation, which has 
 scarcely known any intermission for more than twenty years, 
 whilst it has been productive of no positive good to any 
 human being, it. has been the prolific source of great evils to 
 the master, the slave, and to the whole country. It has alien- 
 ated and estranged the people of the sister States from each 
 other, and has even seriously endangered the very existence 
 of the Union. Nor has the danger yet entirely ceased. Un- 
 der our system there is a remedy for all mere political evils in 
 the soimd sense and sober judgment of the people. Time is 
 a great corrective. Political subjects which but a few years 
 ago excited and exasperated the public mind have passed away 
 
8 MESSAGES OF PRESIDENT BTTCHANA-N. 
 
 and are now nearly forgotten. But this question of domestic 
 slavery is of far graver inaportance than any mere political 
 question, because, should the agitation continue, it may event- 
 ually endanger the personal safety of a large portion of our 
 countrymen where the institution exists. In that event, no 
 form of government, however admirable in itself, and how- 
 ever productive of material benefits, can compensate for the 
 loss of peace and domestic security around the family 
 altar. Let every Union-loving man, therefore, exert his 
 best influence to suppress this agitation, which, since the 
 recent legislation of Congress, is without any legitimate 
 object. 
 
 : It is an evil omen of the times that men have undertaken to 
 calculate the mere material value of the Union. Reasoned 
 estimates have been presented of the pecuniary profits and 
 local advantages which would result to different States and 
 sections from its dissolution, and of the comparative injuries 
 which such an event would inflict on other States and sections. 
 Even descending to this low and narrow view of the mighty 
 question, all such calculations are at fault. The bare refer- 
 ence to a single consideration will be conclusive on this point. 
 We at present enjoy a free trade throughout our extensive and 
 expanding country, such as the world has never witnessed. 
 This trade is conducted on railroads and canals — on noble 
 rivers and arms of the sea — which bind together the north and 
 the south, the east and the west of our confederacy. Anni- 
 hilate this trade, arrest its free progress by the geographical 
 lines of jealous and hostile States, and yon destroy the pros- 
 perity and onward march of the whole and every part, and 
 involve all in one common ruin. But such considerations, 
 important as they are in themselves, sink into insignificance 
 when we refiect on the terrific evils which would result from 
 disunion to every portion of the confederacy — to the north not 
 more than to the south, to the east not more than to the west. 
 These I shall not attempt to portray ; because I feel an hum- 
 ble confidence that the kind Providence which inspired our 
 fathers with wisdom to frame the most perfect form of Gov- 
 ernment and Union ever devised by man will not suffer it to 
 perish until it shall have been peacefully instrumental, by its 
 
MESSAGES OF PEESIDEKT BUCHANAIir. 9 
 
 example, in the extension of civil and religious liberty through- 
 out the world. 
 
 Next in importance to the maintenance of the Constitution 
 and the Union is the duty of preserving the government free 
 from the taint, or even the suspicion, of corruption. Public 
 virtue is the vital spirit of republics ; and history shows that 
 when this has decayed, and the love of money has usurped its 
 place, although the forms of free government may remain for 
 a -season, the substance has departed forever. 
 
 Our present financial condition is without a parallel in his- 
 tory. No nation has ever before been embarrassed from too 
 large a surplus in its treasury. This almost necessarily gives 
 birth to extravagant legislation. It produces wild schemes of 
 expenditure, and begets a race of speculators and jobbers, 
 whose ingenuity is exerted in contriving and promoting ex- 
 pedients to obtain public money. The purity of official 
 agents, whether rightfully or wrongfully, is suspected, and 
 the character of the government suffers in the estimation of 
 the people. This is in itself a very great evil. 
 
 The natural mode of relief from this embarrassment is to 
 appropriate the surplus in the treasury to great national ob- 
 jects, for which a clear warrant can be found in the Constitu- 
 tion. Among these I might mention the extinguishment of 
 the public debt, a reasonable increase of the navy, which is at 
 present inadequate to the protection of our vast tonnage afloat, 
 now greater than that of any other nation, as well as to the 
 defence of our extended seacoast. 
 
 It is beyond all question the true principle, that no more 
 revenue ought to be collected from the people than the 
 amount necessary to defray the expenses of a wise, economical, 
 and efficient administration of the government. To reach this 
 point, it was necessary to resort to a modification of the tariff ; 
 and this has, I trust, been accomplished in such a manner as 
 to do as little injury as may have been practicable to our do- 
 mestic manufactures, especially those necessary for the defence 
 of the country. Any discrimination against a particular 
 branch, for the purpose of benefiting favored corporations, 
 individuals, or interests, would have been unjust to the rest 
 of the community, and inconsistent with that spirit of fairness 
 
10 MESSAGES OF PEESIDEKT BTJCHAWAlir. 
 
 and equality which ought to govern in the adjustment of a 
 revenue tariff. 
 
 But the squandering of the public money sinks into com- 
 parative insignificance as a temptation to corruption when 
 compared with the squandering of the public lands. 
 
 No nation in the tide of time has ever been blessed with so 
 rich and noble an inheritance as we enjoy in the public lands. 
 In administering this important trust, whilst it may be wise to 
 grant portions of them for the improvement of the remainder, 
 yet we should never forget that it is our cardinal policy to re- 
 serve these lands, as much as may be, for actual settlers, and 
 this at moderate prices. We shall thus not only best promote 
 the prosperity of the new States and Territories by furnishing 
 them a hardy and independent race of honest and industrious 
 citizens, but shall secure homes for our children and our chil- 
 dren's children, as well as for those exiles from foreign shores 
 who may seek in this country to improve their condition, and 
 to enjoy the blessings of civil and religions liberty. Such 
 emigrants have done much to promote the growth and pros- 
 perity of the country. They have proved faithful both in 
 peace and in war. After becoming citizens, they are entitled, 
 under the Constitution and laws, to be placed on a perfect 
 equality with native-born citizens, and in this character they 
 should ever be kindly recognized. 
 
 I The Federal Constitution is a grant from the States to Con- 
 gress of certain specific powers ; and the question whether 
 this grant should be liberally or strictly construed, has, more 
 or less, divided political parties from the beginning. With- 
 out entering into the argument, I desire to state, at the com- 
 mencement of my administration, that long experience and 
 observation have convinced me that a strict construction of 
 the powers of the Government is the only true, as well as the 
 only safe, theory of the Constitution. ' Whenever, in our past 
 history, doubtful powers have been exercised by Congress, 
 these, have never failed to produce injurious and unhappy 
 consequences. Many such instances might be adduced, if this 
 were the proper occasion. Neither is it necessary for the 
 public service to strain the language of the Constitution ; 
 because all the great and useful powers required for a success- 
 
MESSAGES OF PEESIDEXT BTJCHAWAN. 11 
 
 ful administration of the Government, both in peace and in 
 war, have, been granted, either in express terms or by the 
 plainest implication. 
 
 Whilst deeply convinced of these truths, I yet consider it 
 clear that, under the war-making power. Congress may appro- 
 priate money towards the construction of a military road, 
 when this is absolutely necessary for the defence of any State 
 or Territory of the Union against foreign invasion. Under 
 the Constitution, Congress has power " to declare war," " to 
 raise and support armies," " to provide and maintain a navy," 
 and to call forth the militia to " repel invasions." Thus en- 
 dowed, in an ample manner, with the war- making power, the 
 corresponding duty is required that " the United States shall 
 protect each of them [the States] against invasion." Now, 
 how is it possible to afford this protection to California and 
 our Pacific possessions, except by means of a military road 
 through the Territories of the United States, over which men 
 and munitions of war may be speedily transported from the 
 Atlantic States to meet and to repel the invader ? In the 
 event of a war with a naval power much stronger than our 
 own, we should then have no other available access to the 
 Pacific coast, because such a power would instantly close the 
 route across the isthmus of Central America. It is impossible 
 to conceive that, whilst the Constitution has expressly required 
 Congress to defend all the States, it should yet deny to them, 
 by any fair construction, the only possible means by which 
 one of these States can be defended. Besides, the Govern- 
 ment, ever since its origin, has been in the constant practice 
 of constructing military roads. It might also be wise to con- 
 sider whether the love for the Union which now animates our 
 fellow-citizens on the Pacific coast may not be impaired by 
 our neglect or refusal to provide for them, in their remote and 
 isolated condition, the only means by which the power of the 
 States, on this side of the Eocky Mountains, can reach them 
 in sufficient time to "protect" them "against invasion." I 
 forbear for the present from expressing an opinion as to the 
 wisest and most economical mode in which the Government 
 can lend its aid in accomplishing this great and necessary work. 
 I believe that many of the difficulties in the way, which now 
 
12 MESSAGES OP PEESIDENT BtTCHANAN. 
 
 appear formidable, -will, in a great degree, vanish as soon as 
 the nearest and best route shall have been satisfactorily ascer- 
 tained. 
 
 It may be proper that, on this occasion, I should make some 
 brief remarks in regard to our rights and duties as a member 
 of the great family of nations. In om- intercourse with them 
 there are some plain principles, approved by our own experi- 
 ence, from which we should never depart. We ought to cul- 
 tivate peace, commerce, and friendship with all nations/ ; and 
 this not merely as the best means of promoting our own 
 material interests, but in a spirit of Christian benevolence 
 towards our fellow-men, wherever their lot may be cast. Our 
 diplomacy should be direct and frank, neither seeking to ob- 
 tain more nor accepting less than is oiir due. We ought to 
 cherish a sacred regard for the independence of all nations, 
 and never attempt to interfere in the domestic concerns of 
 any, unless this shall be imperatively required by the great 
 laws of self-preservation. To avoid entangling alliances has 
 been a maxim of our policy ever since the days of Washing- 
 ton, and its wisdom no one will attempt to dispute. In short, 
 we ought to do justice, in a kindly spirit, to all nations, and 
 
 « require justice from them in return. 
 
 L It is our glory that, whilst other nations have extended their 
 dominions by the sword, we have never acquired any territory 
 except by fair purchase, or, as in the case of Texas, by the 
 voluntary determination of a brave, kindred, and independent 
 people to blend their destinies with our own. Even our ac- 
 quisitions from Mexico form no exception. Unwilling to take 
 advantage of the fortune of war against a sister republic, we 
 purchased these possessions, under the treaty of peace, for a 
 sum which was considered at the time a fair equivalenO Our 
 past history forbids that we shall in the future acquire terri- 
 tory, unless this be sanctioned by the laws of justice and honor. 
 Acting on this principle, no nation will have a right to inter- 
 fere or to complain if, in the progress of events, we shaU still 
 further extend our possessions. Hitherto, in all our acquisi- 
 tions, the people, under the protection of the American flag, 
 have enjoyed civil and religious liberty, as well as equal and 
 just laws, and have been contented, prosperous, and happy. 
 
MESSAGES OP PRESIDENT BUOHANAW. 13 
 
 Their trade witli the rest of the world has rapidly increased, 
 and thus every commercial nation has shared largely in their 
 successful progress. 
 
 I shall now proceed to take the oath prescribed by the Con- 
 stitution, whilst humbly invoking the blessing of Divine Prov- 
 idence on this great people. 
 
ANNUAL MESSAGE TO THE TWO HOUSES OF 
 CONGRESS AT THE COMMENCEMENT OF 
 THE FIEST SESSION OF THE THIR- 
 TY-FIFTH CONGRESS. 
 
 Severe financial revulsion of 1857 proceeding from a vicious system of paper 
 currency and bank credits. — The fourteen hundred State banks held less 
 than one dollar in seven of gold and silver in proportion to their circula- 
 tion and deposits. — Buinous expansions and contractions of loans and 
 credits. — The several States must supply the remedy by legislation. — A 
 uniform bankrupt law by Congress, and remedies the States may adopt 
 advantageously, suggested. — Foreign relations satisfactory. — Great Britain. 
 — Clayton-Bulwer treaty. — Conflicting constructions as to the coast of Cen- 
 tral America. — American view. — Negotiations in regard to same between 
 the two Governments. — France. — Russia. — Spain, our relations with her 
 not as peaceful as could be desired. — Firing of the Spanish frigate Perrolana 
 on the American steamer El Dorado. — Treaty with Persia. — Our relations 
 with China — a new minister to same appointed, with special instructions 
 as to revision of treaty. — Brazil.— New Granada. — The Isthmus of Panama. 
 — Authority asked to protect the transit routes. — Filibustering expeditions 
 must be prevented, Congress urged to legislate to that end. — Paraguay. — 
 
 Firing on the United States steamer Water Witch. — Bedress demanded. 
 
 Affairs of Kansas detailed. — The question of slavery to be submitted 
 
 to the decision of the bona-fide people of Kansas. — Utah affairs. 
 
 Arizona. — The building of a railway to the Pacific both constitutional 
 and necessary for the defence of our Pacific States. —Construction of ten 
 small war vessels recommended. — ^Beports of the several Executive De- 
 partments. — Policy as to the pubjio land. — Indian affairs. — ^Expenses of the 
 Government. — The President declares his intention to sign no bUl at the 
 end of the Session of Congress unless he is given time to examine it 
 properly. — District of Columbia commended to the favorable consideration 
 of Congress. 
 
 Fellow-citizens of the Senate and House of Rejpresentatwes : 
 
 In obedience to the command of the Constitution, it has 
 now become my duty " to give to Congress information of the 
 state of the Union, and.recommend to their consideration such 
 measures" as I judge to be " necessary and expedient." 
 
MESSAGES OE PRESIDENT BITCHANAN. 15 
 
 But first, and above all, our thanks are due to Almighty 
 God for the numerous benefits which He has bestowed upon 
 this people ; and our united prayers ought to ascend to Him 
 that He would continue to bless our great republic in time to 
 come as He has blessed it in time past. Since the adjourn- 
 ment of the last Congress our constituents have enjoyed an 
 unusual degree of health. The earth has yielded her fruits 
 abundantly, and has bountifully rewarded [the toil of the hus- 
 bandman. Our great staples have commanded high prices, 
 and, up till within a brief period, our manufacturing, min- 
 eral, and mechanical occupations have largely partaken of the, 
 general prosperity. We have possessed all the elements of 
 material wealth in rich abundance, and yet, notwithstanding 
 all these advantages, our country, in its monetary interests, is 
 at the present moment in a deplorable condition. In the 
 midst of unsurpassed plenty in all the productions of agricul- 
 ture, and in all the elements of national wealth, we find our 
 manufactures suspended, our public works retarded, our pri- 
 vate enterprises of different kinds abandoned, and thousands 
 of useful laborers thrown out of employment and reduced to 
 want. The revenue of the government, which is chiefly de- 
 rived from duties on imports from abroad, has been greatly 
 reduced, whilst the appropriations made by Congress at its 
 last session for the current fiscal year are very large in amount. 
 
 Under these circumstances a loan may be required before 
 the close of your present session ; but this, although deeply 
 to be regretted, would prove to be only a slight misfortune 
 when compared with the suffering and distress prevailing 
 among the people. With this the government cannot fail 
 deeply to sympathize, though it may be without the power to 
 extend relief. 
 
 It is our duty to inquire what has produced such unfortu- 
 nate results, and whether their recurrence can be prevented ? 
 In all former revulsions the blame might have been fairly 
 attributed to a variety of co-operating causes ; but not so upon 
 the present occasion. It is apparent that our existing misfor- 
 tunes have proceeded solely from our extravagant and vicious 
 system of paper currency and bank credits, exciting the people 
 to wild speculations and gambling in stocks. These revul- 
 
16 MESSAGES OF PRESIDENT BUOHATiirAIT. 
 
 sions must continue to recur at successive intervals so long as 
 the amount of the paper currency and bank loans and dis- 
 counts of the country shall be left to the discretion of fourteen 
 hundred irresponsible banking institutions, which, from the 
 very law of their nature, will consult the interest of their 
 stockholders rather than the public welfare. 
 
 The framers of the Constitution, when they gave to Con- 
 gress the power " to coin money and to regulate the value 
 thereof," and prohibited the States from coining money, 
 emitting bills of credit, or making anything but gold and 
 silver coin a tender in payment of debts, supposed they had 
 protected the people against the evils of an excessive and irre- 
 deemable paper currency. They are not responsible for the 
 existing anomaly that a government endowed with the sover- 
 eign attribute of coining money and regulating the value 
 thereof should have no power to prevent others from driving 
 this coin out of the country and filling up the channels of cir- 
 culation with paper which does not represent gold and silver. 
 
 It is one of the highest and most responsible duties of gov- 
 ernment to insure to the people a sound circulating medium, 
 the amount of which ought to be adapted with the utmost 
 possible wisdom and skill to the wants of internal trade and 
 foreign exchanges. If this be either greatly above or greatly 
 below the proper standard, the marketable value of every 
 man's property is increased or diminished in the same propor- 
 tion, and injustice to individuals as well as incalculable evils 
 to the community are the consequence. 
 
 Unfortunately, under the construction of the Federal Con- 
 stitution, which has now prevailed too long to be changed, 
 this important and delicate duty has been dissevered from the 
 coining power, and virtually transferred to naore than fourteen 
 hundred State banks, acting independently of each other, and 
 regulating their paper issues almost exclusively by a regard to 
 the present interest of their stockholders. Exercising the 
 sovereign power of providing a paper currency instead of coin 
 for the country, the first duty which these banks owe to the 
 public is to keep in their vaults a sufficient amount of gold and 
 silver to insure the convertibility of their notes into coin at all 
 times and under all circumstances. !N"o bank ought ever to 
 
MESSAGES OF PRESIDENT BTJCHAETAN. 17 
 
 be chartered witliout such restrictions on its business as to 
 secure this result. All other restrictions are comparatively 
 vain. This is the only true touchstone, the only efficient 
 regulator of a paper currency — the only one which can guard 
 the public against over issues and bank suspensions. As a 
 collateral and eventual security it is doubtless wise, and in all 
 cases ought to be required, that banks shall hold an amount of 
 United States or State securities equal to their notes in circu- 
 lation and pledged for their redemption. This, however, fur- 
 nishes no adequate security against over issues. On the con- 
 trary, it may be perverted to influte the currency. Indeed, it 
 is possible by this means to convert all the debts of the United 
 States and State governments into bank notes, without refer- 
 ence to the specie required to redeem them. However valu- 
 able these securities may be in themselves, they cannot be 
 converted into gold and silver at the moment of pressure, as 
 our experience teaches, in sufficient time to prevent bank sus- 
 pensions and the depreciation of bank notes. In England, 
 which is to a considerable extent a paper money country, 
 though vastly behind our own in this respect, it was deemed 
 advisable, anterior to the act of Parliament of 1844:, which 
 wisely separated the issue of notes from the banking depart- 
 ment, for the bank of England always to keep on hand gold 
 and silver equal to one-third of its combined circulation and 
 deposits. If this proportion was no more than sufficient to 
 secure the convertibility of its notes, with the whole of Great 
 Britain, and to some extent the continent of Europe, as a field 
 for its circulation, rendering it almost impossible that a sudden 
 and immediate run to a dangerous amount should be made 
 upon it, the same proportion would certainly be insufficient 
 under our banking system. Each of our fourteen hundred 
 banks has but a limited circumference for its circulation, and 
 in the course of a very few days the depositors and note- 
 holders might demand from such a bank a sufficient amount 
 in specie to compel it to suspend, even although it had coin 
 in its vaults equal to one-third of its immediate liabilities. 
 And yet I am not aware, with the exception of the banks of 
 Louisiana, that any State bank throughout the Union has been 
 required by its charter to keep this or any other proportion of 
 2' 
 
18 MESSAGES OP PRESIDENT BTJCHAIfAH-. 
 
 gold and silver compared with the amount of its combined cir- 
 culation and deposits. What has been the consequence ? In 
 a recent report made by the Treasury Department on the con- 
 dition of the banks throughout the different States, according 
 to returns dated nearest to January, 1857, the aggregate 
 amount of actual specie in their vaults is $58,349,838, of their 
 circulation $214,778,822, and of their deposits $230,351,352. 
 Thus it appears that these banks, in the aggregate, have con- 
 siderably less than one dollar in seven of gold and silver com- 
 pared with their circulation and deposits. It was palpable, 
 therefore, that the very first pressure must drive them to sus- 
 pension, and deprive the people of a convertible currency with 
 all its disastrous consequences. It is truly wonderful that they 
 should have so long continued to preserve their credit, when 
 a demand for the payment of one-seventh of their immediate 
 liabilities would have driven them into insolvency. And this 
 is the condition of the banks, notwithstanding that four hun- 
 dred minions of gold from California have, flowed in upon us 
 within the last eight years, and the tide still continues to flow. 
 Indeed, such has been the extravagance of bank credits that 
 the banks now hold a considerably less amount of specie, either 
 in proportion to their capital or to their circulation and de- 
 posits combined, than they did before the discovery of gold in 
 California. Whilst in the year 1848 their specie, in propor- 
 tion to their capital, was more than equal to one dollar for 
 four and a half, in 1857 it does not amount to one dollar for 
 every six dollars and thirty-three cents of their capital. In 
 the year 1848 the specie was equal within a very small fraction 
 to one dollar in five of their circulation and deposits ; in 1857 
 it is not equal to one dollar in seven and a half of their circu- 
 lation and deposits. 
 
 From this statement it is easy to account for our financial 
 history for the last forty years. It lias been a history of ex- 
 travagant expansions in the business of the country, followed 
 by ruinous contractions. At successive intervals the best and 
 most enterprising men have been tempted to their ruin by ex- 
 cessive bank loans of mere paper credit, exciting them to ex- 
 travagant importations of foreign goods, wild speculations, 
 and ruinous and demoralizing stock gambling. When the 
 
MESSAGES OP PRESIDENT BUOHANAK". 19 
 
 crisis arrives, as arrive it must, the banks can extend no relief 
 to the people. In a vain struggle to redeem their liabilities 
 in specie, they are compelled to contract their loans and their 
 issues ; and, at last, in the hour of distress, when their d!ssist- 
 ance is most needed, they and their debtors together sink into 
 insolvency. 
 
 It is this paper system of extravagant expansion, raising the 
 nominal price of every article far beyond its real value, when 
 compared'With the cost of similar articles in countries whose 
 circulation is wisely regulated, which has prevented us from 
 competing in our own markets with foreign manufacturers, 
 has produced extravagant importations, and has counteracted 
 the effect of the large incidental protection afforded to our 
 domestic manufactures by the present revenue tariff. But for 
 this, the branches of our manufactures composed of raw 
 materials, the production of our own country — such as cotton, 
 iron, and woolen fabrics — would not only have acquired 
 almost exclusive possession of the home market, but would 
 have created for themselves a foreign market throughout the 
 world. 
 
 Deplorable, however, as may be our present financial con- 
 dition, we may yet indulge in bright hopes for the future. 
 No other nation has ever existed which could have endured 
 such violent expansions and contractions of paper credits with- 
 out lasting injury ; yet the buoyancy of youth, the energies of 
 our population, and the spirit which never quails before difiS- 
 culties, will enable us soon to recover from onr present finan- 
 cial embarrassment, and may even occasion us speedily to for- 
 get the lesson which they have taught. 
 
 In the mean time it is the duty of the government, by all 
 proper means within its power, to aid in alleviating the suffer- 
 ings of the people occasioned by the suspension of the banks, 
 and to provide against a recurrence of the same calamity. 
 Unfortunately, in either aspect of the case, it can do but little. 
 Thanks to the independent treasury, the government has not 
 suspended payment, as it was compelled to do by the failure 
 of the banks in 183Y. It will continue to discharge its liabil- 
 ities to the people in gold and silver. Its disbursements in 
 coin will paas into circulation, and materially assist in restoring 
 
20 MESSAGES OF PRESIDENT BUCHANAN. 
 
 a sound currency. From its high credit, should we be com- 
 pelled to make a temporary loan, it can be effected on advan- 
 tageous terms. This, however, shall, if possible, be avoided ; 
 but, if not, then the amount shall be limited to the lowest 
 practicable sura. 
 
 I have therefore determined, that whilst no useful govern- 
 ment works already in progress shall be suspended, new works, 
 not already commenced, will be postponed, if this can be done 
 without injury to the country. Those necessary for its de- 
 fence shall proceed as though there had been no crisis in our 
 monetary affairs. 
 
 But the federal government cannot do much to provide 
 against a recurrence of existing evils. Even if insurmount- 
 able constitutional objections did not exist against the creation 
 of a JSTational Bank, this would furnish no adequate preventive 
 security. The history of the last Bank of the -United States 
 abundantly proves the truth of this assertion. Such a bank 
 could not, if it would, regulate the issues and credits of four- 
 teen hundred State banks in such a manner as to prevent the 
 ruinous expansions and contractions in our currency which 
 afflicted the country throughout the existence of the late bank, 
 or secure us against future suspensions. In 1825 an effort was 
 made by the Bank of England to curtail the issues of the 
 country banks, under the most favorable circumstances. The 
 paper currency had been expanded to a ruinous extent, and 
 the Bank put forth all its power to contract it in order to re- 
 duce prices and restore the equilibrium of the foreign ex- 
 changes. It accordingly commenced a system of curtailment 
 of its loans and issues, in the vain hope that the joint-stock 
 and private banks of the kingdom would be compelled to fol- 
 low its example. It found, however, that as it contracted 
 they expanded, and at the end of the process, to employ the 
 language of a very high official authority, " whatever reduc- 
 tion of the paper circulation was effected by the Bank of Eng- 
 land (in 1825) was more than made up by the issues of the 
 country banks." 
 
 But a Bank of the United States would not, if it could, re- 
 strain the issues and loans of the State banks, because its duty 
 as a regulator of ,the currency must often be in direct conflict 
 
MESSAGES OP PRESIDENT BUCHAKAN. 21 
 
 with the immediate interest of its stockholders. If we expect 
 one agent to restrain or control another, their interests must, 
 at least in some degree, be antagonistic. But the directors of 
 a Bank of the United States would feel the same interest and 
 the same inclination with the directors of the State banks to 
 expand the currency, to accommodate their favorites and 
 friends with loans, and to declare large dividends. Such has 
 been our experience in regard to the last Bank. 
 
 After all, we must mainly rely upon the patriotism and 
 wisdom of the States for the prevention and redress of the 
 evil. If they will afford us a real specie basis for our paper 
 circulation by increasing the denomination of bank notes, first 
 to twenty, and afterwards to fifty dollars ; if they will require 
 that the banks shall at all times keep on hand at least one 
 dollar of gold and silver for every three dollars of their circu- 
 lation and deposits ; and if they will provide by a self -exe- 
 cuting enactment, which nothing can arrest, that the moment 
 they suspend they shall go into liquidation, I believe that such 
 provisions, with a weekly publication by each bank of a state- 
 ment of its condition, would go far to secure us against future 
 suspensions of specie payments. 
 
 Congress, in my opinion, possesses the power to pass a uni- 
 form bankrupt law applicable to all banking institutions 
 throughout the United States, and I strongly recommend its 
 exercise. This would make it the irreversible organic law of 
 each bank's existence, that a suspension of specie payments 
 shall produce its civil death. The instinct of self-preservation 
 would then compel it to perform its duties in such a manner 
 as to escape the penalty and preserve its life. 
 
 The existence of banks and the circulation of bank paper 
 are so identified with the habits of our people, that they can- 
 not, at this day, be suddenly abolished without much immedi- 
 ate injury to the country. If we could confine them to their 
 appropriate sphere, and prevent them from administering to 
 the spirit of wild and reckless speculation by extravagant loans 
 and issues, they might be continued with advantage to the 
 public. 
 
 But this I say, after long and much reflection : If experi- 
 ence shall prove it to be impossible to enjoy the facilities 
 
22 MESSAGES OF PRESIDENT BUCHANAH'. 
 
 which well-regulated banks might afford, without at the same 
 time suffering the calamities which the excesses of the banks 
 have hitherto inflicted upon the country, it would then be far 
 the lesser evil to deprive them altogether of the power to issue 
 a paper currency, and confine them to the functions of banks 
 of deposit and discount. 
 
 Our relations with foreign governments are, upon the whole, 
 in a satisfactory condition. 
 
 The diplomatic difiBculties which existed between the gov- 
 ernment of the United States and that of Great Britain at the 
 adjournment of the last Congress have been happily termi- 
 nated by the appointment of a British minister to this country, 
 who has been cordially received. 
 
 Whilst it is greatly to the interest, as I am convinced it is 
 the sincere desire, of the governments and people of the two 
 countries to be on terms of intimate friendship with e9,ch 
 other, it has been our misfortune almost always to have had 
 some irritating, if not dangerous, outstanding question with 
 Great Britain. 
 
 Since the origin of the government we have been employed 
 in negotiating treaties with that power, and afterwards in dis- 
 cussing their true intent and meaning. In this respect, the 
 convention of April 19, 1850, commonly called the Clayton 
 and Bulwer treaty, has been the most unfortunate of all ; be- 
 cause the two governments place directly opposite and contra- 
 dictory constructions upon its first and most important article. 
 Whilst, in the United States, we believed that this treaty 
 would place both powers upon an exact equality by the stipu- 
 lation that neither will ever " occupy, or fortify, or colonize, 
 or assume or exercise any dominion" over, any part of Central 
 America, it is contended by the British government that the 
 true construction of this language has left them in the rightful 
 possession of all that portion of Central America which was 
 in their occupancy at the date of the treaty ; in fact, that the 
 treaty is a virtual recognition on the part of the United States 
 of the right of Great Britain, either as owner or protector, to 
 the whole extensive coast of Central America, sweeping round 
 from the Eio Hondo to the port and harbor of San Juan de 
 Nicaragua, together with the adjacent Bay Islands, except the 
 
MESSAGES OE PRESIDENT BUCHANAN. 23 
 
 comparatively small portion of this between the Sarstoon and 
 Cape Honduras. According to their construction, the treaty 
 does no more than simply prohibit them from extending their 
 possessions in Central America beyond the present limits. It 
 is not too much to assert, that if in the United States the 
 treaty had been. considered susceptible of such a construction, 
 it never would have been negotiated under the authority of 
 the President, nor would it have received the' approbation of 
 the Senate. The universal conviction in the United States 
 was, that when our government consented to violate its tradi- 
 tional and time-honored policy, and to stipulate with a foreign 
 government never to occupy or acquire territory in the Cen- 
 tral American portion of our own continent, the consideration 
 for this sacrifice was that Great Britain should, in this respect 
 at least, be placed in the same position with ourselves. Whilst 
 we have no right to doubt the sincerity of the British govern- 
 ment in their construction of the treaty, it is at the same time 
 my deliberate conviction that this construction is in opposition 
 both to its letter and its spirit. 
 
 Under the late administration negotiations were instituted 
 between the two governments for the purpose, if possible, of 
 removing these difficulties ; and a treaty having this laudable 
 object in view was signed at London on the 17th October, 
 1856, and was submitted by the President to the Senate on 
 the following 10th of December. Whether this treaty, either 
 in its original or amended form, would have accomplished the 
 object intended without giving birth to new and embarrassing 
 complications between the two governments, may perhaps be 
 well questioned. Certain it is, however, it was rendered 
 much less objectionable by the different amendments made to 
 it by the Senate. The treaty, as amended, was ratified by me 
 on the 12th March, 1857, and was transmitted to London for 
 ratification by the British government. That government ex- 
 pressed its willingness to concur in all the amendments made 
 by the Senate with the single exception of the clause relating 
 to iiuatan and the other islands in the Bay of Honduras. The 
 article in the original treaty, as submitted to the Senate, after 
 reciting that these islands and their inhabitants " having been, 
 by a convention bearing date the 27th day of August, 1856, 
 
24 MESSAGES OF PRESIDENT BUCHANAN. 
 
 between her Britannic Majesty and the republic of Honduras, 
 constituted and declared a free territory under the sovereignty 
 of the said republic of Honduras," stipulated that " the two 
 contracting parties do hereby mutually engage to recognize 
 and respect in all future time the independence and rights of 
 the said free territory as a part of the republic of Hondu- 
 ras." 
 
 TJpon an examination of this convention between Great 
 Britain and Honduras of the 27th August, 1856, it was found 
 that, whilst declaring the Bay Islands to be " a free territory 
 under the sovereignty of the republic of Honduras," it de- 
 prived that republic of rights without which its sovereignty 
 over them could scarcely be said to exist. It divided them 
 from the remainder of Honduras, and gave to their inhabitants 
 a separate government of their own, with legislative, execu- 
 tive, and judicial officers, elected by themselves. It deprived 
 the government of Honduras of the taxing power in every 
 form, and exempted the people of the islands from the per- 
 formance of military duty, except for their own exclusive de- 
 fence. It also prohibited that republic from erecting fortifi- 
 cations upon them for their protection — thus leaving them 
 open to invasion from any quarter ; and, finally, it provided 
 " that slavery shall not at any time hereafter be permitted to 
 exist therein." 
 
 Had Honduras ratified this convention, she would have 
 ratified the establishment of a State substantially independent 
 within her own limits, and a State at all times subject to 
 British influence and control. Moreover, had the United 
 States ratified the treaty with Great Britain in its original 
 form, we should have been bound " to recognize and respect 
 in all future time" these stipulations to the prejudice of Hon- 
 duras. Being in direct opposition to the spirit and meaning 
 of the Clayton and Bulwer treaty as understood in the United 
 States, the Senate rejected the entire clause, and substituted 
 in its stead a simple recognition of the sovereign right of 
 Honduras to these islands in the following language : " The 
 two contracting parties do hereby mutually engage to recog- 
 nize and respect the islands of Kuatan, Bonaco, Utila, Barbar- 
 etta, Helena, and Morat, situate in the Bay of Honduras, and 
 
MESSAGES OF PRESIDENT BUCHANAN. 25 
 
 off the coast of the republic of Honduras, as under the sover- 
 eignty and as part of the said republic of Honduras." 
 
 Great Britain rejected this amendment, assigning as the only 
 reason that the ratifications of the convention of thq 27tli 
 August, 1856, between her and Honduras, had not been " ex- 
 changed, owing to the hesitation of that government." Had 
 this been done, it is stated that "her Majesty's government 
 would have had little difficulty in agreeing to the modification 
 proposed by the Senate, which then would have had in effect 
 the same signification as the original wording." Whether this 
 would have been the effect — whether the mere circumstance 
 of the exchange of the ratifications of the British convention 
 with Honduras prior in point of time to the ratification of our 
 treaty with Great Britain would, " in effect," have had " the 
 same signification as the original wording," and thus have 
 nullified the amendment of the Senate, may well be doubted. 
 It is, perhaps, fortunate that the question has never arisen. 
 
 The British government, immediately after rejecting the 
 treaty as amended, proposed to enter into a new treaty with 
 the United States, similar in all respects to the treaty which 
 they had just refused to ratify, if the United States would 
 consent to add to the Senate's clear and unqualified recog- 
 nition of the sovereignty of Honduras over the Bay Islands 
 the following conditional stipulsttion : " Whenever and so 
 soon as the republic of Honduras shall have concluded and 
 ratified a treaty with Great Britain, by which Great Britain 
 shall have ceded, and the republic of Honduras shall have 
 accepted, the said islands, subject to the provisions and condi- 
 tions contained in such treaty." 
 
 This proposition was, of course, rejected. After the Senate 
 had refused to recognize the British convention with Honduras 
 of the 27th August, 1856, with full knowledge of its contents, 
 it was impossible for me, necessarily ignorant of '* the provi- 
 sions and conditions" which might be contained in a future 
 convention between the same parties, to sanction them in 
 advance. 
 
 The fact is, that when two nations like Great Britain and 
 the United States, mutually desirous as they are, and 1 trust 
 ever may be, of maintaining the most friendly relations with 
 
26 MESSAGES OF PEE8IDEKT BTJCHAIirAlT, 
 
 each other, have unfortunately concluded a treaty which they 
 understand in senses directly opposite, the wisest course is to 
 abrogate such a treaty by mutual consent, and to commence 
 anew. Had this been done 'promptly, all difficulties in Cen- 
 tral America would most probably ere this have been adjusted 
 to the satisfaction of both parties. The time spent in discuss- 
 ing the meaning of the Clayton and Bulwer treaty would have 
 been devoted to this praiseworthy purpose, and the task would 
 have been the more easily accomplished because the interest 
 of the two countries in Central America is identical, being 
 confined to securing safe transits over all the routes across the 
 Isthmus. 
 
 Whilst entertaining these sentiments, I shall nevertheless 
 not refuse to contribute to any reasonable adjustment of the 
 Central American questions which is not practically inconsis- 
 tent with the American interpretation of the treaty. Over- 
 tures for this purpose have been recently made by the British 
 government in a friendly spirit, which I cordially reciprocate ; 
 but whether this renewed effort will result in success I am not 
 yet prepared to express an opinion. A brief period will 
 determine. 
 
 With France our ancient relations of friendship still con- 
 tinue to exist. The French government have in several recent 
 instances, which need not be enumerated, evinced a spirit of 
 good will and kindness towards our country which I heartily 
 reciprocate. It is, notwithstanding, much to be regretted that 
 two nations whose productions are of such a character as to in- 
 vite the most extensive exchanges and freest commercial inter- 
 course, should continue to enforce ancient and obsolete restric- 
 tions of trade against each other. Our commercial treaty with 
 France is, in this respect, an exception from our treaties with 
 all other commercial nations. It jealously levies discrimi- 
 nating duties both on tonnage and on articles, the growth, prod- 
 uce, or manufacture of the one country, when arriving in 
 vessels belonging to the other. 
 
 More than forty years ago, on the 3d March, 1815, Congress 
 passed an act offering to all nations to admit their vessels laden 
 with their national productions into the ports of the United 
 States upon the same terms with our own vessels, provided 
 
MESSAGES OF PRESIDENT BUCHANAK. 27 
 
 they would reciprocate to us similar advantages. This act 
 confined the reciprocity to the productions of the respective 
 foreign nations who might enter into the proposed arrange- 
 ment with the United States. The act of May 24, 1828, re- 
 moved this restriction, and offered a similar reciprocity to all 
 such vessels, without reference to the origin of their cargoes. 
 Upon these principles our commercial treaties and arrange- 
 ments have been founded, except with France, and let us hope 
 that this exception may not long exist. 
 
 Onr relations with Eussia remain, as they have ever been, t 
 on the most friendly footing. The present emperor, as well< 
 as his predecessors, have never failed, when the occasion, 
 offered, to manifest their good will to our country ; and their^ 
 friendship has always been highly appreciated by the govern- j 
 ment and people of the United States. 
 
 With all other European governments, except that of Spain, 
 our relations are as peaceful as we could desire. I regret to 
 say that no progress whatever has been made, since the ad- 
 journment of Congress, towards the settlement of any of the 
 numerous claims of our citizens against the Spanish govern- 
 ment. Besides, the outrage committed on our Hag by the 
 Spanish war-frigate Ferrolana on the high seas, off the coast 
 of Cuba, in March, 1855, by firing into the American mail 
 steamer El Dorado, and detaining and searching her, remains 
 unacknowledged and unredressed. The general tone and 
 temper of the Spanish government towards that of the United 
 States are much to be regretted. Our present envoy extra- 
 ordinary and minister plenipotentiary to Madrid has asked to 
 be recalled ; and it is my purpose to send out a new minister 
 to Spain, with special instructions on all questions pending 
 between the two governments, and with a determination to 
 have them speedily and amicably adjusted, if this be possible. 
 In the mean time, whenever our minister urges the just claims 
 of our citizens on the notice of the Spanish government, he is 
 met with the objection that Congress has never made the ap- 
 propriation recommended by President Polk, in his annual 
 message of December, 1847, " to be paid to the Spanish gov- 
 ernment for the purpose of distribution among the claimants 
 in the Amistad case." A similar recommendation was made 
 
28 _ MESSAGES OP PKESIDENT BUCHANAN. 
 
 by my immediate predecessor, in his message of December, 
 1853 ; and entirely concurring with both in the opinion that 
 this indemnity is justly due under the treaty with Spain of the 
 27th of October, 1795, I earnestly recommend such an appro- 
 priation to the favorable consideration of Congress. 
 
 A treaty of friendship and commerce was concluded at Con- 
 stantinople on the 13th December, 1856, between the United 
 States and Persia, the ratifications of which were exchanged 
 at Constantinople on the 13th June, 1867, and the treaty was 
 proclaimed by the President on the 18th August, 1857. This 
 treaty, it is believed, will prove beneficial to American com- 
 merce. The Shah has manifested an earnest disposition to 
 cultivate friendly relations with our country, and has expressed 
 a strong wish that we should be represented at Teheran by a 
 minister plenipotentiary ; and I recommend that an appropri- 
 ation be made for this purpose. 
 
 Eecent occurrences in" China have been unfavorable to a re- 
 vision of the treaty with that empire of the 3d July, 1844, 
 with a view to the security and extension of our commerce. 
 The 24th article of this treaty stipulated for a revision of it, in 
 case experience should prove this to be requisite ; " in which 
 case the two governments will, at the expiration of twelve 
 years from the date of said convention, treat amicably con- 
 cerning the same, by means of suitable persons appointed to 
 conduct such negotiations." These twelve years expired on 
 the 3d July, 1856 ; but long before that period it was ascer- 
 tained that important changes in the treaty were necessary ; 
 and several fruitless attempts were made by the commissioner 
 of the United States to effect these changes. Another effort 
 was about to be made for the same purpose by our commis- 
 sioner, in conjunction with the ministers of England and 
 France, but this was suspended by the occurrence of hostilities 
 in the Canton river between Great Britain and the Chinese 
 Empire. These hostilities have necessarily interrupted the 
 trade of all nations with Canton, which is now in a state of 
 blockade, and have occasioned a serious loss of life and prop- 
 erty. Meanwhile the insurrection within the empire against 
 the existing imperial dynasty still continues, and it is difiacult 
 to anticipate what will be the result. 
 
MESSAGES OP PRESIDENT BUCHANAN. 29 
 
 Under these circumstances, I have deemed it advisable to 
 appoint a distinguished citizen of Pennsylvania envoy extra- 
 ordinary and minister plenipotentiary to proceed to China, and 
 to avail himself of any opportunities which may offer to pffect 
 changes in the existing treaty favorable to American com- 
 merce. He left the United States for the place of his desti- 
 nation in July last, in the war steamer Minnesota. Special 
 ministers to China have also been appointed by the govern- 
 ments of Great Britain and France. 
 
 Whilst our minister has been instructed to occupy a neutral 
 position in reference t9 the existing hostilities at Canton, he 
 will cordially co-operate with the British and French ministers 
 in all peaceful measures to secure by treaty stipulations those 
 just concessions to commerce which the nations of the world 
 have a right to expect, and which China cannot long be per- 
 mitted to withiiold. From assurances received, I entertain 
 no doubt that the three ministers will" act in harmonious con- 
 cert to obtain similar commercial treaties for each of the 
 powers they represent. 
 
 We cannot fail to feel a deep interest in all that concerns 
 the welfare of the independent republics on our own conti- 
 nent, as well as of the empire of Brazil. 
 
 Our difficulties with New Granada, which a short time since 
 bore so threatening an aspect, are, it is to be hoped, in a fair 
 train of settlement in a manner just and honorable to both 
 parties. 
 
 The Isthmus of Central America, including that of Panama, 
 is the great highway between the Atlantic and Pacific, over 
 which a large portion of the commerce of the world is destined 
 to pass. The United States are more deeply interested than 
 any other nation in preserving the freedom and security of all 
 the communications across this isthmus. It is our duty, there- 
 fore, to take care that they shall not be interrupted either by 
 invasions from our own country or by wars between the inde- 
 pendent States of Central America. Under our treaty with 
 New Granada of the 12th December, 1846, we are bound to 
 guaranty the neutrality of the Isthmus of Panama, through 
 which the Panama railroad passes, " as well as the rights of 
 sovereignty and property which New Granada has and pos- 
 
30 MESSAGES OP PRESIDENT BTTCHANAIir. 
 
 sesses over the said territory." This obh'gation is founded 
 upon equivalents granted by the treaty to the government and 
 people of the United States. 
 
 Under these circumstances, I recommend to Congress the 
 passage of an act authorizing the President, in case of neces- 
 sity, to employ the land and naval forces of the United States 
 to carry into e£Eect this guarantee of neutrality and protection. 
 I also recommend similar legislation for the security of any 
 other route across the isthmus in which we may acquire an 
 interest by treaty. 
 
 With the independent republics on this continent it is both 
 our duty and our interest to cultivate the most friendly rela- 
 tions. We can never feel indifferent to their fate, and must 
 always rejoice in their prosperity. Unfortunately, both for 
 them and for us, our example and advice have lost much of 
 their influence in consequence of the lawless expeditions which 
 have been fitted out against some of them within the limits of 
 our country. Nothing is better calculated to retard our steady 
 material progress, or impair pur character as a nation, than 
 the toleration of such enterprises in violation of the law of 
 nations. 
 
 It is one of the first and highest duties of any independent 
 State, in its relations with the members of the great family of 
 nations, to restrain its people from acts of hostile aggression 
 against their citizens or subjects. The most eminent writers 
 on public law do not hesitate to denounce such hostile acts as 
 robbery and murder. 
 
 Weak and feeble States, like those of Central America, may 
 not feel themselves able to assert and vindicate their rights. 
 The case would be far different if expeditions were set on foot 
 within our own territories to make private war against a 
 powerful nation. If such expeditions were fitted out from 
 abroad against any portion of our own country, to burn down 
 our cities, murder and plunder our people, and usurp our gov- 
 ernment, we should call any power on earth to the strictest 
 account for not preventing such enormities. 
 
 Ever since the administration of General Washington, acts 
 of Congress have been in force to punish severely the crime 
 of setting on foot a military expedition within the limits of 
 
MESSAGES OF PRESIDENT BTJCHANATiT. 31 
 
 the United States, to proceed from thence against a nation or 
 State with whom we are at peace. The present neutrality act 
 of April 20, 1818, is but little more than a collection of pre- 
 existing laws. Under this act, the President is empowered to 
 employ the land and naval forces and the militia " for the 
 purpose of preventing the carrying on of any such expedition 
 or enterprise from the territories and jurisdiction of the United 
 States,' ' and the collectors of customs are authorized and re- 
 quired to detain any vessel in port when there is reason to 
 believe she is about to take part id such lawless enterprises. 
 
 When it was first rendered probable that an attempt would 
 be made to get up another unlawful expedition against Nica- 
 ragua, the Secretary of State issued instructions to the marshals 
 and district attorneys, which were directed by the Secretaries 
 of War and the Navy to the appropriate army and navy 
 officers, requiring them to be vigilant, and to use their best 
 exertions in carrying into effect the provisions of the act of 
 1818. Notwithstanding these precautions, the expedition has 
 escaped from our shores. Such enterprises can do no possible 
 good to the country, but have already inflicted much injury 
 both on its interests and its character. They have prevented 
 peaceful emigration from the United States to the States of 
 Central America, which could not fail to prove highly bene- 
 ficial to all the parties concerned. In a pecuniary point of 
 view alone, our citizens have sustained heavy losses from the 
 seizure and closing of the transit route by the San Juan be- 
 tween the two oceans. 
 
 The leader of the recent expedition was arrested at New 
 Orleans, but was discharged on giving bail for his appearance 
 in the insufficient sum of two thousand dollars. 
 
 I commend the whole subject to the serious attention of 
 Congress, believing that our duty and our .interest, as well as 
 our national character, require that we should adopt such 
 measures as will be effectual in restraining our citizens from 
 committing such outrages. 
 
 I regret to inform you that the President of Paraguay has 
 refused to ratify the treaty between the United States and that 
 State as amended by the Senate, the signature of which was 
 mentioned in the message of my predecessor to Congress at 
 
32 MESSAGES OF PRESIDENT BTJCHAKAN. 
 
 the opening of its session in December, 1853. The reasons 
 assigned for this refusal will appear in the correspondence 
 herewith submitted. 
 
 It being desirable to ascertain the litness of the river La 
 Plata and its tributaries for navigation by steam, the United 
 States steamer Water Witch was sent thither for that purpose 
 in 1853. This enterprise was successfully carried on until 
 February, 1855, when, whilst in the peaceful prosecution of 
 her voyage up the Parana river, the steamer was fired upon 
 by a Paraguayan fort. Th« fire was returned ; but as the 
 Water Witch was of small force, and not designed for offen- 
 sive operations, she retired from the conflict. The pretext 
 upon which the attack was made was a decree of the President 
 of Paraguay of October, 1854, prohibiting foreign vessels-of- 
 war from navigating the rivers of that State. As Paraguay, 
 however, was the owner of but one bank of the river of that 
 name, the other belonging to Corientes, a State of the Argen- 
 tine Confederation, the right of its government to expect that 
 such a decree would be obeyed cannot be acknowledged. But 
 the Water Witch was not, properly speaking, a vessel-of-war. 
 She was a small steamer engaged in a scientific enterprise in- 
 tended for the advantage of commercial states generally. 
 Under these circumstances, I am constrained to consider tlie 
 attack upon her as unjustifiable, and as calling for satisfaction 
 from the Paraguayan government. 
 
 Citizens of the United States, also, who were established in 
 business in Paraguay, have had their property seized and taken 
 from them, and have otherwise been treated by the authorities 
 in an insulting and arbitrary manner, which requires redress. 
 
 A demand for these purposes will be made in a firm but 
 conciliatory spirit. This will the more probably be granted if 
 the Executive shall have authority to use other means in the 
 event of a refusal. This is accordingly recommended. 
 
 It is unnecessary to state in detail the alarming condition of 
 the Territory of Kansas at the time of my inauguration. The 
 opposing parties then stood in hostile array against each other, 
 and any accident might have relighted the flames of civil war. 
 Besides, at this critical moment, Kansas was left without a 
 governor by the resignation of Governor Geary. 
 
MESSAGES OF PEESIDESTT BUCHANAN. 33 
 
 On the 19tli of February previous, the territorial legislature 
 had passed a law providing for the election of delegates on the 
 third Monday of June, to a convention to meet on the first 
 Monday of September, for the purpose of framing a constitu- 
 tion preparatory to admission into the Union. This law was 
 in the main fair and just ; and it is to be regretted that all the 
 qualified electors had not registered themselves and voted 
 under its provisions. 
 
 At the time of the election for delegates, an extensive ? 
 organization existed in the Territory, whose avowed object it^ 
 was, if need be, to put down the lawful government by force, < 
 and to establish a government of their own under the so-called j 
 Topeka constitution. The persons attached to this revolu-^ 
 tionary organization abstained from taking any part in the/ 
 election. 
 
 The act of the territorial legislature had omitted to provide 
 for submitting to the people the constitution which might be 
 framed by the convention ; and in the excited state of public 
 feeling throughout Kansas, an apprehension extensively pre- 
 vailed that a design existed to force upon them a constitution, 
 in relation to slavery, against their will. In this emergency 
 it became my duty, as it was my unquestionable right, having 
 in view the union of all good citizens in support of the terri- 
 torial laws, to express an opinion on the true construction of 
 the provisions concerning slavery contained in the organic act 
 of Congress of the 30th May, 1854. Congress declared it to 
 be " the true intent and meaning of this act, not to legislate 
 slavery into any Territory or State, nor to exclude it there- 
 from, but to leave the people thereof perfectly free to form 
 and regulate their domestic institutions in their own way." 
 Under it Kansas, "when admitted as a State," was to "be 
 received into the Union with or without slavery, as their con- 
 stitution may prescribe at the time of their admission." 
 
 Did Congress mean by this language that the delegates 
 elected to frame a constitution should have authority finally 
 to decide the question of slavery, or did they intend by leav- 
 ing it to the people that the people of Kansas themselves 
 should decide this question by a direct vote ? On this subject 
 I confess I had never entertained a serious doubt, and, there- 
 3 
 
B4 MESSAGES OF PEESIDENT BtJCHANAN". 
 
 fore, in my instructions to Governor Walker of the 28th 
 March last, I merely said that when " a constitution shall be 
 submitted to the people of the Territory, they must be pro- 
 tected in the exercise of their right of Toting for or against 
 that instrument, and the fair expression of the popular will 
 must not be interrupted by fraud or violence." 
 
 In expressing this opinion it was far from my intention to 
 interfere with the decision of the people of Kansas, either for 
 or against slavery. From this I have always carefully ab- 
 stained. Intrusted with the duty of taking ' ' care that the 
 laws be faithfully executed, " my only desire was that the peo- 
 ple of Kansas should furnish to Congress the evidence required 
 by the organic act, whether for or against slavery ; and in this 
 manner smooth their passage into the Union. In emerging 
 from the condition of territorial dependence into that of a sov- 
 ereign State, it was their duty, in my opinion, to make known 
 their will. by the votes of the majority, on the direct question, 
 whether this important domestic institution should or should 
 not continue to exist. Indeed, this was the only possible 
 mode in which their will could be authentically ascertained. 
 
 The election of delegates to a convention must necessarily 
 take place in separate districts. From this cause it may 
 readily happen, as has often been the case, that a majority of 
 the people of a State or Territory are on one side of a ques- 
 tion, whilst a majority of the representatives from the several 
 districts into which it is divided may be upon the other side. 
 This arises from the fact that in some districts delegates may 
 be elected by small majorities, whilst in others those of differ- 
 ent sentiments may receive majorities suiBciently great not 
 only to overcome the votes given for the former, but to leave 
 a large majority of the whole people in direct opposition to a 
 majority of the delegates. Besides, our history proves, that 
 influences niay be brought to bear on the representative suffi- 
 ciently powerful to induce him to disregard the will of his 
 constituents. The truth is, that no other authentic and satis- 
 factory mode exists of ascertaining the will of a majority of 
 the people' of any State or Territory on an important and ex- 
 citing question like that of slavery in Kansas, except by leav- 
 ing it to a direct vote. How wise, then, was it for Congress 
 
MESSAGES OF PRESIDENT BUCHABrAK. 35 
 
 to pass over all subordinate and intermediate agencies, and 
 proceed directly to the source of all legitimate power under 
 our institutions ! 
 
 How vain would any other principle prove in practice ! 
 This may be illustrated by the case of Kansas. Should she 
 be admitted into the Union with a constitution either main- 
 taining or abolishing slavery, against the sentiment of the 
 people, this could have no other effect than to continue and 
 to exasperate the existing agitation during the brief period re- 
 quired to make the constitution conform to the irresistible will 
 of the majority. 
 
 The friends and supporters of the Nebraska and Kansas act, 
 when struggling on a recent occasion to sustain its wise pro- 
 visions before the great tribunal of the American people, 
 never differed about its true meaning on this subject. Every- 
 where throughout the Union they publicly pledged their faith 
 and their honor that they would cheerfully submit the question 
 of slavery to the decision of the honafide people of Kansas, 
 without any restriction or qualification whatever. All were 
 cordially united upon the great doctrine of popular sover- 
 • eignty, which is the vital principle of our free institutions. 
 Had it, then, been insinuated from any quarter that it would 
 be a sufiBcient compliance with the requisitions of the organic 
 law for the members of a convention, thereafter to be elected, 
 to withhold the question of slavery from the people, and to 
 substitute their own wiU for that of a legally-ascertained 
 majority of all their constituents, this would have been in. 
 stantly rejected. Everywhere they remained true to the reso- 
 lution adopted on a celebrated occasion recognizing " the right 
 of the people of all the Territories — including Kansas and 
 Nebraska, acting through the legally and fairly expressed will 
 of a majority of actual residents, and whenever the number 
 of their inhabitants jnstifies it — to form a constitution with of 
 without slavery, and be admitted into the Union upon terms 
 of perfect equality with the other States." 
 
 The convention to frame a constitution for Kansas met on 
 the first Monday of September last. They were called 
 together by virtue of an act of the territorial legislature, 
 whose lawful existence had been recognized by Congress in 
 
36 MESSAGES OF PRESIDENT BUCHANAN. 
 
 different forms and by different enactments. A large propor- 
 tion of the citizens of Kansas did not think proper to register 
 their names and to vote at the election for delegates ; but an 
 opportunity to do this having been fairly afforded, their re- 
 fusal to avail themselves of their right could in no manner 
 affect the legality of the convention. 
 
 This convention proceeded to frame a constitution for Kan- 
 sas, and finally adjourned on the Yth day of ISTovember. But 
 little difficulty occurred in the convention, except on the sub- 
 ject of slavery. The truth is, that the general provisions of 
 our recent State constitutions are so similar, and, I may add, 
 so excellent, that the difference between them is not essential. 
 Under the earlier practice of the government, no constitution 
 framed by the convention of a Territory preparatory to its 
 admission into the Union as a State had been submitted to the 
 people. 1 trust, however, the example set by the last Con- 
 gress, requiring that the constitution of Minnesota " should 
 be subject to the approval and ratification of the people of the 
 proposed State," may be followed on future occasions. I 
 took it for granted that the convention of Kansas would act 
 in accordance with this example, founded, as it is, on correct 
 principles ;' and hence my instructions to Governor Walker, 
 in favor of submitting the constitution to the people, were ex- 
 pressed in general and unqualified terms. 
 
 In the Kansas-Nebraska act, however, this requirement, as 
 applicable to the whole constitution, had not been inserted, 
 and the convention were not bound by its terms to submit any 
 other portion of the instrument to an election, except that 
 which relates to the " domestic institution" of slavery. This 
 will be rendered clear by a simple reference to its language. 
 It was " not to legislate slavery into any Territory or State, 
 nor to exclude it therefrom, but to leave the people thereof 
 perfectly free to form and regulate their domestic institutions 
 in their own way." According to the plain construction of 
 the sentence, the words " domestic institutions"' have a direct 
 as they have an appropriate reference to slavery. " Domestic 
 institutions" are limited to the family. The relation between 
 master and slave and a few others are " domestic institutions," 
 . and are entirely distinct from institutions of a political char- 
 
MESSAGES OF PRESIDENT BTJCHANAN. 37 
 
 acter. Besides, there was no question then before Congress, 
 nor indeed has there since been any serious question before 
 the people of Kansas or the country, except that which relates 
 to the " domestic institution" of slavery. . 
 
 The convention, after an angry and excited debate, finally 
 determined, by a majority of only two, to submit the question 
 of slavery to the people, though at the last forty-three of the 
 fifty delegates present affixed their signatures to the constitu- 
 tion. 
 
 A large majority of the convention were in favor of estab- 
 lishing slavery in Kansas. They accordingly inserted an arti- 
 cle in the constitution for this purpose similar in form to those 
 which had been adopted by other territorial conventions. In 
 the schedule, however, providing for the. transition from a 
 territorial to a State government, the question has been fairly 
 and explicitly referred to the people, whether they will have 
 a constitution "with or without slavery." It declares that, 
 before the constitution adopted by the convention "shall be 
 sent to Congress for admission into the Union as a State, ' ' an 
 election shall be held to decide this question, at which all the 
 white male inhabitants of the Territory above the age of 21 
 are entitled to vote. They are to vote by ballot ; and " the 
 ballots cast at said election shall be endorsed ' constitution 
 with slavery,' and ' con^itution with no slavery.' " If there 
 be a majority in favor of the "constitution with slavery," 
 then it is to be transmitted to Congress by the president of the 
 convention in its original form. If, on the contrary, there 
 shall be a majority in favor of the " constitution with no 
 slavery," "then the article providing for slavery shall be 
 stricken from the constitution by the president of this conven- 
 tion ;" and it is expressly declared that " no slavery shall exist 
 in the State of Kansas, except that the right of property in 
 slaves now in the Territory shall in no manner be interfered 
 with ;" and in that event it is made his duty to have the con- 
 stitution thus 'ratified transmitted to the Congress of the United 
 States for the admission of the State into the Union. 
 
 At this election every citizen will have an opportunity of 
 expressing his opinion by his vote " whether Kansas shall be 
 received into the Union with or without slavery," and thus 
 
38 MESSAGES OF PKESIDENT BUCHANAN. 
 
 this exciting question may be peacefully settled in the very 
 mode required by the organic law. The election will be held 
 under legitimate authority, and if any portion of the inhabi- 
 tants shall refuse to vote, a fair opportunity to do so having 
 been presented, this will be their own voluntai-y act, and they 
 alone will be responsible for the consequences. 
 
 Whether Kansas shall be a free or a slave State, must 
 eventually, under some authority, be decided by an election ; 
 and the question can never be more clearly or distinctly pre- 
 sented to the people than it is at the present moment. Should 
 this opportunity be rejected, she may be involved for years in 
 domestic discord, and possibly in civil war, before she can 
 again make up the issue now so fortunately tendered, and 
 again reach the point she has already attained. 
 
 Kansas has for some years occupied too much of the public 
 attention. It is high time this should be directed to far more 
 important objects. When once admitted into the Union, 
 whether with or without slavery, the excitement beyond her 
 own limits will speedily pass away, and she will then, for the 
 first time, be left, as she ought to have been long since, to 
 manage her own affairs in her own way. If her constitution 
 on the subject of slavery, or on any other subject, be dis- 
 pleasing to a majority of the people, no human power can 
 prevent them from changing it within a brief period. Under 
 these circumstances it may well be questioned whether the 
 peace and quiet of the whole country are not of greater im- 
 portance than the mere temporary triumph of either of the 
 political parties in Kansas. 
 
 Should the constitution without slavery be adopted by the 
 votes of the majority, the rights of property in slaves now in 
 the Territory are reserved. The number of these is very 
 small ; but if it were greater the provision would be equally 
 just and reasonable. The slaves wer^ brought into the Terri- 
 tory under the Constitution of the United States, and are now 
 the property of their masters. This point has at length been 
 finally decided by the highest judicial tribunal of the country 
 —and this upon the plain principle that when a confederacy 
 of sovereign States acquire a new territory at their joint ex- 
 pense, both equality and justice demand that the citizens of 
 
MESSAGES OP PRESIDENT BUCHANAN. 39 
 
 one and all of them shall have the right to take into it whatso- 
 ever is recognized as property by the common Constitution. 
 To have summarily confiscated the property in slaves already 
 in the Territory would have been an act of gross injustice, and 
 contrary to the practice of the older States of the Union which 
 have abolished slavery. 
 
 A territorial government was established for Utah by act of 
 Congress approved the 9th September, 1850, and the Consti- 
 tution and laws of the United States were thereby extended 
 over it "so far as the same, or any provisions thereof, may 
 be applicable. " This act provided for the appointment by 
 the President, by and with the advice and consent of the 
 Senate, of a governor, who was to be ex-officio superintendent 
 of Indian affairs, a secretary, three judges of the supreme 
 court, a marshal, and a district attorney. Subsequent acts 
 provided for the appointment of the officers necessary to ex- 
 tend our land and our Indian system over the Territory. 
 Brigham Young was appointed the first governor on the 20th 
 September, 1850, and has held the office ever since. Whilst 
 Governor Young has been both governor and superintendent 
 of Indian affairs throughout this period, he has been at the 
 same time the head of the church called the Latter-Day Saints, 
 and professes to govern its members and dispose of their prop- 
 erty by direct inspiration and authority from the Almighty. 
 His power has been, therefore, absolute over both church and 
 State. 
 
 The people of Utah, almost exclusively, belong to this 
 church, and believing with a fanatical spirit that he is gov- 
 ernor of the Territory by divine appointment, they obey his 
 commands as if these were direct revelations from Heaven. 
 If, therefore, he chooses that his government shall come into 
 collision with the government of the United States, the mem- 
 bers of the Mormon church will yield implicit obedience to 
 his will. Unfortunately, existing facts leave but little doubt 
 that such is his determination. Without entering upon a 
 minute history of occurrences, it is sufficient to say that all the 
 officers of the United States, judicial and executive, with the 
 single exception of two Indian agents, have found it necessary 
 for their own personal safety to withdraw from the Territory, 
 
40 MESSAGES OF PEESIDENT BUCHANAN. 
 
 and there no longer remains any government in Utali but the 
 despotism of Brigham Young. This being the condition of 
 affairs in the Territory, I could not mistake the path of duty. 
 As Chief Executive Magistrate, I was bound to restore the 
 supremacy of the Constitution and laws within its limits. In 
 order to effect this purpose, 1 appointed a new governor and 
 other federal officers for Utah, and sent with them a military 
 force for their protection, and to aid as a foase oomitatnis, in 
 case of need, in the execution of the laws. 
 
 "With the religious opinions of the Mormons, as long as they 
 remained mere opinions, however deplorable in themselves 
 and revolting to the moral and religious sentiments of all 
 Christendom, I had no right to interfere. Actions alone, 
 when in violation of the Constitution and laws of the United 
 States, become the legitimate subjects for the jurisdiction of 
 the civil magistrate. My instructions to Governor Gumming 
 have therefore been framed in strict accordance with these 
 principles. At their date a hope was indulged that no neces- 
 sity might exist for employing the military in restoring and 
 maintaining the authority of the law ; but this hope has now 
 vanished. Governor Young has, by proclamation, declared his 
 determination to maintain his power by force, and has already 
 committed acts of hostility against the United States. Unless 
 he should retrace his steps tlie Territory of Utah will be in a 
 state of open rebellion. He has committed these acts of hos- 
 tility notwithstanding Major Van Vliet, an officer of the army, 
 sent to Utah by the commanding general to purchase provi- 
 sions for the troops, had given him the strongest assurances of 
 the peaceful intentions of the government, and that the troops 
 would only be employed as a fosse Gomitatus when called on 
 by the civil authority to aid in the execution of the laws. 
 
 There is reason to believe that Governor Young has long 
 contemplated this result. He knows that the continuance 
 of his despotic power depends upon the exclusion of all 
 settlers from the Territory, except those who will acknowl- 
 edge his divine mission and implicitly obey his wiU. ; and 
 that an enlightened public opinion there would soon pros- 
 trate institutions at war with the laws both of God and man. 
 He has, therefore, for several years, in order to maintain 
 
MESSAGES OF PRESIDENT BUCHANAN. 41 
 
 his independence, been industriously employed in collecting 
 and fabricating arms and munitions of war, and in disciplining 
 the Mormons for military service. As superintendent of 
 Indian affairs he has had an opportunity of tampering^^with 
 the Indian tribes, and exciting their hostile feelings against 
 the United States. This, according to our information, he has 
 accomplished in regard to som'e of these tribes, while others 
 have remained true to their allegiance, and have communi- 
 cated his intrigues to our Indian agents. He has laid in a 
 store of provisions for three years, which, in case of necessity, 
 as he informed Major Yan "Vliet, he will conceal, " and then 
 take to the mountains, and bid defiance to all the powers of 
 the government." 
 
 A great part of all this may be idle boasting ; but yet no 
 wise government will lightly estimate the efforts which may 
 be inspired by such frenzied fanaticism as exists among the 
 Mormons in Utah. This is the first rebellion which has ex- 
 isted in our Territories ; and humanity itself requires that we 
 should put it down in such a manner that it shall be the last. 
 To trifie with it would-be to encourage it and to render it for- 
 midable. We ought to go there with such an imposing force 
 as to convince these deluded people that resistance would be 
 vain, and thus spare the effusion of blood. "We can in this 
 manner best convince them that we are their friends, not their 
 enemies. In order to accomplish this object, it will be neces- 
 sary, according to the estimate of the War Department, to 
 raise four additional regiments ; and this I earnestly recom- 
 mend to Congress. At the present moment of depression in 
 the revenues of the country I am sorry to be obliged to recom- 
 mend such a measure ; but I feel confident of the support of 
 Congress, cost what it may, in suppressing the insurrection 
 and in restoring and maintaining the sovereignty of the Con- 
 stitution and laws over the Territory of Utah. 
 
 I recommend to Congress the establishment of a territorial 
 government over Arizona, incorporating with it such portions 
 of !New Mexico as they may deem expedient. I need scarcely 
 adduce arguments in support of this recommendation. We 
 are bound to protect the lives and the property of our citizens 
 inhabiting Arizona, and these are now without any efficient 
 
42 MESSAGES OF PEESIDENT BTJCHANAW. 
 
 protection. Their present number is already considerable, and 
 is rapidly increasing, notwithstanding the disadvantages nnder 
 which they labor. Besides, the proposed Territory is believed 
 to be rich in mineral and agricultural resources, especially in 
 silver and copper. The mails of the United States to Cali- 
 fornia are now carried over it throughout its whole extent, 
 and this route is known to be' the nearest, and believed to be 
 the best to the Pacific. 
 
 Long experience has deeply convinced me that a strict con- 
 struction of the powers granted to Congress is the only true, 
 as well as the only safe, theory of the Constitution. Whilst 
 this principle shall guide my public conduct, I consider it 
 clear that under the war-making power Congress may appro- 
 priate money for the construction of a military road through 
 the territories of the United States, when this is absolutely 
 necessary for the defence of any of the States against foreign 
 invasion. The Constitution has conferred upon Congress 
 power " to declare war," " to raise and support armies," " to 
 provide and maintain a navy," and to call forth the militia to 
 " repel invasions. " These high sovereign powers necessarily 
 involve important and responsible public duties, and among 
 them there is none so sacred and so imperative as that of pre- 
 serving our soil from the invasion of a foreign enemy. The 
 Constitution has, therefore, left nothing on this point to con- 
 struction, but expressly requires that " the United States shall 
 protect each of them [the States] against invasion." Now, if 
 a military road over our own territories be indispensably neces- 
 sary to enable us to meet and repel the invader, it follows as 
 a necessary consequence not only that we possess the power, 
 but it is our imperative duty to construct such a road. It 
 would be an absurdity to invest a government with the unlim- 
 ited power to make and conduct war, and at the same time 
 deny to it the only means of reaching and defeating the 
 enemy at the frontier. Without such a road it is quite evi- 
 dent we cannot " protect" California and our Pacific posses- 
 sions "against invasion." We cannot by any other means 
 transport men and munitions of war from the Atlantic States 
 in sufiicient time successfully to defend these remote and dis- 
 tant portions of the republic. 
 
MESSAGES OF PRESIDENT BUCHANAIT. 43 
 
 Experience has proved that the routes across the isthmus of 
 Central America are at best but a very uncertain and unre- 
 liable mode of communication. But even if this were not the 
 case, they would at once be closed against us in the event of 
 war with a naval power so much stronger than our own as to 
 enable it to blockade the ports at either end of these routes. 
 After all, therefore, we can only rely upon a military road 
 through our own territories ; and ever since the origin of the 
 government Congress has been in the practice of appropriating 
 money from the public treasury for the construction of such 
 roads. 
 
 The difficulties and the expense of constructing a military 
 railroad to connect our Atlantic and Pacific States have been 
 greatly exaggerated. The distance on the Arizona route near 
 the 32d parallel of north latitude, between the western bound- 
 ary of Texas on the Rio Grande and the eastern boundary of 
 California on the Colorado, from the best explorations now 
 within our knowledge, does not exceed four hundred and 
 seventy miles, and the face of the country is, in the main, 
 favorable. For obvious reasons the government ought not to 
 undertake the work itself by means of its own agents. This 
 ought to be committed to other agencies, which Congress 
 might assist, either by grants of land or money, or by both, 
 upon such terms and conditions as they may deem most bene- 
 ficial for the country. Provision might thus be made not 
 only for the safe, rapid, and economical transportation of 
 troops 'and munitions of war, but also of the public mails. 
 The commercial interests of the whole couiltry, both east and 
 west, would be greatly promoted by such a road ; and, above 
 all, it would be a powerful additional bond of Union. And 
 although advantages of this kind, whether postal, commercial, 
 or political, cannot confer constitutional power, yet they may 
 furnish auxiliary arguments in favor of expediting a work 
 which, in my judgment, is clearly embraced within the war- 
 making power. 
 
 For these reasons I commend to the friendly consideration 
 of Congress the subject of the Pacific railroad, without finally 
 committing myself to any particular route. 
 
 The report of the Secretary of the Treasury will furnish a 
 
44 MESSAGES Oi- PEESIDENT BUCHANAN. 
 
 detailed statement of the condition of the public finances and 
 of the respective branches of the public service devolved upon 
 that department of the government. By this report it appears 
 that the amount of revenue received from all sources into the 
 treasury during the fiscal year ending the 30th June, 185Y, 
 was sixty-eight million six hundred and thirty-one thousand 
 five hundred and thirteen dollars and sixty-seven cents, ($68,- 
 631,513 6T,) which amount, with the balance of nineteen mill- 
 ion nine hundred and one thousand three hundred and twenty- 
 five dollars and forty-five cents, ($19,901,325 45,) remaining 
 in the treasury at the commencement of the year, made an 
 aggregate for the service of the year of eighty-eight million 
 five hundred and thirty-two thousand eight hundred and 
 thirty-nine dollars and twelve cents, ($88,532,839 12.) 
 
 The public expenditures for the fiscal year ending 30th 
 June, 1857, amounted to seventy million eight hundred and 
 twenty-two thousand seven- hundred and twenty-four dollars 
 and eighty-five cents, ($70,822,Y24 85,) of which five million 
 nine hundred and forty-three thousand eight hundred and 
 ninety-six dollars and ninety-one cents ($5,943,896 91) were 
 applied to the redemption of the public debt, iucluding inter- 
 est and premium, leaving in the treasury at the commence- 
 ment of the present fiscal year on the 1st July, 1857, seven- 
 teen million seven hundred and ten thousand one hundred and 
 fourteen dollars and twenty-seven cents, ($17,710,114 27.) 
 
 The receipts into the treasury for the first quarter of the 
 present fiscal year, commencing 1st July, 1857, were twenty 
 million nine hundred and twenty-nine thousand eight hundred 
 and nineteen dollars and eighty-one cents, ($20,929,819 81,) 
 and the estimated receipts of the remaining three quarters to 
 the 30th June, 1858, are thirty-six million seven hundred and 
 fifty thousand dollars, ($36,750,000,) making, with the balance 
 before stated, an aggregate of seventy-five million three hun- 
 dred and eighty-nine thousand nine hundred and thirty-four 
 dollars and eight cents ($75,389,934 08) for the service of the 
 present fiscal year. 
 
 The actual expenditures during the first quarter of the present 
 fiscal year were twenty-three million seven hundred and four- 
 teen thousand five hundred and twenty-eight dollars and thirty- 
 
MESSAGES OP PRESIDENT BUCHANAN". 45 
 
 seven cents, ($23,714,528 37,) of which three million eight 
 hundred and -ninety-live thousand two hundred and thirty-two 
 dollars and thirty-nine cents ($3,895,232 39) were applied to 
 the redemption of the public debt, including interest andj pre- 
 mium. The probable expenditures of the remaining three 
 quarters, to 30th June, 1858, are fifty-one million two hun- 
 dred and forty-eight thousand five hundred and thirty dollars 
 and four cents, ($51,248,530 04,) including interest on the 
 public debt, making an aggregate of seventy-four million nine 
 hundred and sixty-three thousand fifty -eight dollars and forty- 
 one cents, ($74,963,058 41,) leaving an estimated balance in 
 the treasury at the close of the present fiscal year of four hun- 
 dred and twenty-six thousand eight hundred and seventy-five 
 dollars and sixty-seven cents, ($426,875 67.) 
 
 The amount of the public debt at the commencement of the 
 present fiscal year was twenty -nine million sixty thousand 
 three hundred and eighty-six dollars and ninety cents, ($29,- 
 060,386 90.) 
 
 The amount redeemed since the 1st of July was three mill- 
 ion eight hundred and ninety-five thousand two hundred and 
 thirty-two dollars and thirty-nine cents, ($3,895,232 39,) 
 leaving a balance unredeemed at this time of twenty-five mill- 
 ion one hundred and sixty-five thousand one hundred and 
 fifty -four dollars and fifty-one cents, ($25,165,154 51.) 
 
 The amount of estimated expenditures for the remaining 
 three quarters of the present fiscal year will, in all probability, 
 be increased from the causes set forth in the report of the 
 Secretary. His suggestion, therefore, that authority should 
 be given to supply any temporary deficiency by the issue of a 
 limited amount of treasury notes, is approved, and I accord- 
 ingly recommend the passage of such a law. 
 
 As stated in the report of the Secretary, the tariff of March 
 3, 1857, has been in operation for so short a period of time, 
 and under circumstances so unfavorable to a just development 
 of its results as a revenue measure, that I should regard it as 
 Inexpedient, at least for the present, to undertake its revision. 
 
 I transmit herewith the reports made to me by the Secre- 
 taries of War and of the Navy, of the Interior and of the 
 Postmaster General. They all contain valuable and important 
 
46 MESSAGES OE PRESIDENT BUOHANAIT, 
 
 information and suggestions, which I commend to the favor- 
 able consideration of Congress. 
 
 I have already recommended the raising of four additional 
 regiments, and the report of the Secretary of War presents 
 strong reasons, proving this increase of the army, under exist- 
 ing circumstances, to be indispensable. 
 
 I would call the special attention of Congress to the recom- 
 mendation of the Secretary of the Navy in favor of the con- 
 struction of ten small war steamers of light draught. For 
 some years the government has been obliged on many occa- 
 sions to hire such steamers from individuals to supply its press- 
 ing wants. At the present moment we have no armed vessel 
 in the navy which can penetrate the rivers of China. We 
 have but few which can enter any of the harbors south of 
 Norfolk, although many millions of foreign and domestic com- 
 merce annually pass in and out of these harbors. Some of our 
 most valuable interests and most vulnerable points are thus 
 left exposed. This class of vessels of light draught, great 
 speed, and heavy guns would be formidable in coast defence. 
 The cost of their construction will not be great, and they will 
 require but a comparatively small expenditure to keep them 
 in commission. In time of peace they will prove as effective 
 as much larger vessels, and more useful. One of them should 
 be at every station where we maintain a squadron, and three 
 or four should be constantly employed on our Atlantic and 
 Pacific coasts. Economy, utility, and efficiency combine to 
 recommend them as almost indispensable. Ten of these small 
 vessels would be of incalculable advantage to the naval service, 
 and the whole cost of their construction would not exceed two 
 million three hundred thousand dollars, or $230,000 each. 
 
 The report of the Secretary of the Interior is worthy of 
 grave consideration. It treats of the numerous, important, 
 and diversified branches of domestic administration intrusted 
 to him by law. Among these the most prominent are the 
 public lands and our relations with the Indians. 
 
 Our system for the disposal of the public lands, originating 
 with the fathers of the republic, has been improved as experi- 
 ence pointed the way, and gradually adapted to the growth 
 and settlement of our western States and Territories. It has 
 
MESSAGES OP PRESIDENT BUCHAHTAW. 47 
 
 worked well in practice. Already thirteen States and seven 
 Territories have been carved out of these lands, and still more 
 than a thousand millions of acres remain unsold. "What a 
 boundless prospect this presents to our country of future pros- 
 perity and power ! 
 
 We have heretofore disposed of 363,862,464 acres of the 
 public land. 
 
 Whilst the public lands, as a source of revenue, are of great 
 importance, their importance is far greater as furnishing 
 homes for a hardy and independent race of honest and indus- 
 trious citizens, who desire to subdue and cultivate the soil. 
 They ought to be administered mainly with a view of pro- 
 moting this wise and benevolent policy. In appropriating 
 them for any other purpose, we ought to use even greater 
 economy than if they had been converted into money and the 
 proceeds were already in the public treasury. To squander 
 away this richest and noblest inheritance which any people 
 have ever enjoyed upon objects of doubtful constitutionality 
 or expediency, would be to violate one of the most important 
 trusts ever committed to any people. Whilst I do not deny 
 to Congress the power, when acting bona fide as a proprietor, 
 to give away portions of them for the purpose gf increasing 
 the value of the remainder, yet, considering the great tempta- 
 tion to abuse this power, we cannot be too cautious in its ex- 
 ercise. 
 
 Actual settlers under existing laws are protected against 
 other purchasers at the public sales, in their right of pre- 
 emption, to the extent of a quarter-section, or 160 acres of 
 land. The remainder may then be disposed of at public or 
 entered at private sale in unlimited quantities. 
 
 Speculation has of late years prevailed to a great extent in 
 the public lands. The consequence has been that large por- 
 tions of them have become the property of individuals and 
 companies, and thus the price is greatly enhanced to those 
 who desire to purchase for actual settlement. In order to 
 limit the area of speculation as much as possible, the extinc- 
 tion of the Indian title and the extension of the public surveys 
 ought only to keep pace with the tide of emigration. 
 If Congress should hereafter grant alternate sections to 
 
48 MESSAGES OF PEESIDENT BTJCHANAlSr. 
 
 States or companies, as they have done heretofore, 1 recom- 
 mend that the intermediate sections retained by the govern- 
 ment should be subject to pre-emption by actual settlers. 
 
 It ought ever to be our cardinal policy to reserve the public 
 lands as much as may be for actual settlers, and this at mod- 
 erate prices. We shall thus not only best promote the pros- 
 perity of the new States and Territories, and the power of the 
 Union, but shall secure homes for our posterity for many gen- 
 erations. 
 
 The extension of our limits has brought within our jurisdic- 
 tion many additional and populous tribes of Indians, a large 
 proportion of which are wild, intractable, and difficult to 
 control. Predatory and warlike in their disposition and habits, 
 it is impossible altogether to restrain them from committing 
 aggressions on each other, as well as upon our frontier citizens 
 and those emigrating to our distant States and Territories. 
 Hence expensive military expeditions are frequently necessary 
 to overawe and chastise the more lawless and hostile. 
 
 The present system of making them valuable presents to 
 influence them to remain at peace has proved ineffectual. It 
 is believed to be the better policy to colonize them in suitable 
 localities, where they can receive the rudiments of education 
 and be gradually induced to adopt habits of industry. So far 
 as the experiment has been tried it has worked well in prac- 
 tice, and it will doubtless prove to be less expensive than the 
 present system. 
 
 The whole number of Indians within our territorial limits 
 is believed to be, from the best data in the Interior Depart- 
 ment, about 325,000. 
 
 The tribes of Cherokees, Choctaws, Chickasaws, and Creeks, 
 settled in the territory set apart for them west of Arkansas, 
 are rapidly advancing in education and in all the arts of civili- 
 zation and self-government ; and we may indulge the agree- 
 able anticipation that at no very distant day they will be incor- 
 porated into the Union as one of the sovereign States. 
 
 It wiU be seen from the report of the Postmaster Greneral 
 that the Post Office Department still continues to depend on 
 the treasury, as it has been compelled to do for several years 
 past, for an important portion of the means of sustaining and 
 
MESSAGES OE PEESIDENT BUCHANAN. 49 
 
 extending its operations. Their rapid growth and expansion 
 are shown by a decennial statement of the number of post 
 offices, and the length of post roads, commencing with the 
 year 1827. In that year there were 7,000 post offices ; in 
 1837, 11,177 ; in 1847, 15,146 ; and in 1857 they number 
 26,586. In this year 1,725 post offices have been established 
 and 704 discontinued, leaving a net increase of 1,021. The 
 postmasters of 368 offices are appointed by the President. 
 
 The length of post roads in 1827 was 105,336 miles ; in 
 1837, 141,242 miles ; in 1847, 153,818 miles ; and in the year 
 1857 there are 242,601 miles of post road, including 22,530 
 miles of railroad, on which the mails are transported. 
 
 The expenditures of the department for the fiscal year end- 
 ing on the 30th June, 1857, as adjusted by the Auditor, 
 amounted to $11,507,670. To defray these expenditures 
 there was to the credit of the department on the 1st July, 
 1856, the sum of $789,599 ; the gross revenue of the year, 
 including the annual allowances for the transportation of free 
 mail matter, produced $8,053,951 ; and the remainder was 
 supplied by the appropriation from the treasury of $2,250,000, 
 granted by the act of Congi-ess approved August 18, 1856, 
 and by the appropriation of $666,883 made by the act of 
 March 3, 1857, leaving $252,763 to be carried to the credit of 
 the department in the accounts of the current year. I com- 
 mend to your consideration the report of the department in 
 relation to the establishment of the overland mail route from 
 the Mississippi river to San Francisco, California. The route 
 was selected with my full concurrence, as the one, in my judg- 
 ment, best calculated to attain the important objects contem- 
 plated by Congress. 
 
 The late disastrous monetary revulsion may have one good 
 effect should it cause both the government and the people to 
 return to the practice of a wise and judicious economy both in 
 public and private expenditures. 
 
 An overflowing treasury has led to habits of prodigality and 
 extravagance in our legislation. It has induced Congress to 
 make large appropriations to objects for which they never 
 would have provided had it been necessary to raise the amount 
 of revenue required to meet them by increased taxation or by 
 4 
 
50 MESSAGES OF PRESIDENT BTICHAIirAN. 
 
 loans. We are now compelled to pause in our career, and to 
 scrutinize our expenditures with the utmost vigilance ; and in 
 performing this duty, I pledge my co-operation to the extent 
 of my constitutional competency. 
 
 It ought to be observed at the same tinae t?iat true public 
 economy does not consist in withholding the means necessary 
 to accomplish important national objects intrusted to us by 
 the Constitution, and especially such as may be necessary for 
 the common defence. In the present crisis of the country it 
 is our duty to confine our appropriations to objects of this 
 character, unless in cases where justice to individuals may de- 
 mand a difEereut course. In all cases care ought to be taken 
 that the money granted by Congress shall be faithfully and 
 economically applied. 
 
 Under the Federal Constitution, " every bill which shall 
 have passed the House of Representatives and the Senate 
 shall, before it becomes a law," be approved and signed by 
 the President ; and, if not approved, " he shall return it with 
 his objections to that house in which it originated. " In order 
 to perform this high and responsible duty, sufficient time 
 must be allowed the President to read and examine every bill 
 presented to him for. approval. Unless this be afforded, the 
 Constitution becomes adead letter in this particular ; and even 
 worse, it becomes a means of deception. Our constituents, 
 seeing the President's approval and signature attached to each 
 act of Congress, are induced to believe that he has actually 
 performed this duty, when, in truth, nothing is, in many 
 cases, more unfounded. 
 
 From the practice of Congress, such an examination of each 
 bill as the Constitution requires has been rendered impossible. 
 The most important business of each session is generally 
 crowded into its last hours, and the alternative presented to 
 the President is either to violate the constitutional duty which 
 he owes to the people, and approve bills which, for want of 
 time, it is impossible he should have examined, or, by his re- 
 fusal to do this, subject the country and individuals to great 
 loss and inconvenience. 
 
 Besides, a practice has grown up of late years to legislate in 
 appropriation bills, at the last hours of the session, on new 
 
MESSAGES OE PRESIDENT BFCHANAK. 51 
 
 and important subjects. This practice constrains the Presi- 
 dent either to suffer measures to become laws which he does 
 not approve, or to incur the risk of stopping the wheels of the 
 government by vetoing an appropriation bill. Formerly, 
 such bills were confined to specific appropriations for carrying 
 into effect existing laws and the well-established policy of the 
 country, and little time was then required by the President 
 for their examination. 
 
 For my own part, 1 have deliberately determined that I 
 shall approve no bill which I hav^e not examined, and it will 
 be a case of extreme and most urgent necessity which shall 
 ever induce me to depart from this rule. I therefore respect- 
 fully, but earnestly, recommend that the two Houses would 
 allow the President at least two days previous to the adjourn- 
 ment of each session within which no new bill shall be pre- 
 sented to him for approval. Under the existing joint rule one 
 day is allowed ; but this rule has been hitherto so constantly 
 suspended in practice, that important bills continue to be pre- 
 sented to him up till the very last moments of the session. In 
 a large majority of cases no great public inconvenience can 
 arise from the want of time to examine their provisions, 
 because the Constitution has declared that if a bill be presented 
 to the President within the last ten days of the session, he is 
 not required to return it, either with an approval or with a 
 veto, " in which case it shall not be a law." It may then lie 
 over, and be taken up and passed at the next session. Great 
 inconvenience would only be experienced in regard to appro- 
 priation bills ; but fortunately, under the late excellent law 
 allowing a salary, instead of a per diem, to members of Con- 
 gress, the expense and inconvenience of a called session will 
 be greatly reduced. 
 
 I cannot conclude without commending to your favorable 
 consideration the interest of the people of this District. With- 
 out a representative on the floor of Congress, they have for 
 this very reason peculiar claims upon our just regard. To 
 this I know, from my long acquaintance with them, they are 
 eminently entitled. JAMES BUCHANAN. 
 
 Washington, December 8, 1857. 
 
ANNUAL MESSAGE TO THE TWO HOUSES OF 
 
 CONGRESS AT THE COMMENCEMENT 
 
 OF THE SECOND SESSION OF THE 
 
 THIRTY-FIFTH CONGRESS. 
 
 Kansas affairs. — People of that Territory are now authorized to form 
 another constitution, but not until its population shall equal the ratio 
 necessary to elect a member of the House of Kepresentatives. — The 
 country at large should not again be convulsed with its affairs until then. 
 — The same rule should be applied in future to all Territories seeking ad- 
 mission into the Union. — This is but justice to the older States. — Forty 
 or fifty thousand people in a Territory cannot justly be made the equal of 
 Virginia or New York in the Senate of the United States. — Congress urged 
 to pass a general act on this subject. — Affairs of Utah in a better condi- 
 tion. — Despatch of Messrs. Powell and McCuUoch to'Utah, with a procla- 
 mation to its ' inhabitants warning them of the hopelessness of rebellion 
 against the United States and offering pardon. — Good results, and the 
 authority of the Constitution and laws restored. — Conclusion of a satis- 
 factory treaty with China, also with Japan. — Long-pending controversy 
 with Great Britain in relation to visitation and search of our ships on the 
 high seas amicably adjusted and the practice abandoned. — Affairs under 
 the Clayton-Bulwer treaty of April, 1850, stiU unsettled.— Our relations 
 with Spain still unsatisfactory. — Cuba in its colonial condition a constant 
 source of injury and annoyance, and the only spot in the world where the 
 slave trade is still tolerated. — Purchase of Cuba desirable for strategic 
 and many other reasons. — Affairs with Mexico unsatisfactory. — The 
 various transit routes in Central America, and recommendations in regard 
 to them for the protection of our citizens and their property en route to 
 California. — Other foreign relations. — Paraguay. — Financial affairs of the 
 country and Government. — The tariff and the national debt. — Reports of 
 departments. — Urges the building of a transcontinental Pacific railway. — 
 Asiatic trade.^-Disposal of captured slaves. — District of Columbia com- 
 mended to Congress. 
 
 Fellow-ciiizerm of the Senate and House of Representatives : 
 
 When we compare the condition of the country at the pres- 
 ent day with what it was one year ago, at the meeting of Con- 
 gress, we have much reason for gratitude to that Almighty 
 Providence which has never failed to interpose for our relief 
 
MESSAGES OP PRESIDENT BTJCHAWAN. 53 
 
 at the most critical periods of onr history. One year ago the 
 sectional strife between the North and the South on the dan- 
 gerous subject of slavery had again ^become so intense as to 
 threaten the peace and perpetuity of the confederacy. The 
 application for the admission of Kansas as a State into the 
 Union fostered this unhappy agitation, and brought the whole 
 subject once more beforeCongress. It was the desire of every 
 patriot that such measures of legislation might be adopted as 
 would remove the excitement from the States and confine it 
 to the Territory where it legitimately belonged. Much has 
 been done, I am happy to say, towards the accomplishment of 
 this object during the last session of Congress. 
 
 The Supreme Court of the United States had previously de- 
 cided that all American citizens have an equal right to take 
 into the Territories whatever is held as property under the 
 laws of any of the States, and to hold such property there 
 under the guardianship of the Federal Constitution, so long.as 
 the territorial condition shall remain. 
 
 This is now a'well established position, and the proceedings 
 of the last session were alone wanting to give it practical effect. 
 The principle has been recognized, in some form or other, by 
 an almost unanimous vote of both houses of Congress, that a 
 Territory has a right to come into the Union either as a free 
 or a slave State, according to the will of a majority of its peo- 
 ple. The just equality of all the States has thus been vindi- 
 cated, and a fruitful source of dangerous dissension among 
 them has been removed. 
 
 Whilst such has been the beneficial tendency of your legis- 
 lative proceedings outside of Kansas, their influence has no- 
 where been so happy as within that Territory itself. Left to 
 manage and control its own affairs in its own way, without the 
 pressure of external influence, the revolutionary Topeka organ- 
 ization and all resistance to the territorial government estab- 
 lished by Congress have been finally abandoned. As a natural 
 consequence, that fine Territory now appears to be tranquil 
 and prosperous, and is attracting increasing thousands of im- 
 migrants to make it their happy home. 
 
 The past unfortunate experience of Kansas has enforced the 
 lesson, so often already taught, that resistance to lawful author- 
 
54 MESSAGES OF PRESIDENT BUCHANAN'. 
 
 ity, under our form of government, cannot fail in the end to 
 prove disastrous to its authors. Had the people of the Terri- 
 tory yielded obedience to the laws enacted by their legislature, 
 it would at the present moment have contained a large addi- 
 tional population of industrious and enterprising citizens, who 
 have been deterred from entering its borders by the existence 
 of civil strife and organized rebellion. 
 
 It was the resistance to rightful authority and the persever- 
 ing attempts to establish a revolutionary government under 
 the Topeka constitution which caused the people of Kansas to 
 commit the grave error of refusing to vote for delegates to the 
 convention to frame a constitution under a law not denied to 
 be fair and just in its provisions. This refusal to vote has 
 been the prolific source of all the evils which have followed. 
 In their hostility to the territorial government they disregarded 
 the principle, absolutely essential to the working of our form 
 of. government, that a majority of those who vote — not the 
 majority who may remain at home, from whatever cause — 
 must decide the result of an election. For this reason, seek- 
 ing to take advantage of their own error, they denied the 
 authority of the convention thus elected to frame a constitu- 
 tion. 
 
 The convention, notwithstanding, proceeded to adopt a 
 constitution unexceptionable in its general features, and pro- 
 viding for the submission of the slavery question to a vote of 
 the people, which, in my opinion, they were bound to do 
 under the Kansas and Nebraska act. This was the all-impor- 
 tant question which had alone convulsed the Territory ; and 
 yet the opponents of the lawful government, persisting in 
 their first error, refrained from exercising their right to vote, 
 and preferred that slavery should continue, rather than sur- 
 render their revolutionary Topeka organization. 
 
 A wiser and better spirit seemed to prevail before the first 
 Monday of January last, when an election was held under the 
 constitution. A majority of the people then voted for a gov- 
 ernor and other State officers, for a member of Congress, and 
 members of the State legislature. This election was warmly 
 contested by the two political parties in Kansas, and a greater 
 vote was polled than at any previous election. A large 
 
MESSAGES OF PRESIDENT BUCIIANAB-. 55 
 
 majority of the members of the legislature elect belonged to 
 that party which had previously refused to vote. The anti- 
 slavery party were thus placed in the ascendant, and the polit- 
 ical power of the State was in their own hands. Had Con- 
 gress admitted Kansas into the Union under the Lecompton 
 constitution, the legislature might, at its very first session, 
 have submitted the question to a vote of the people, whether 
 they would or would not have a convention to amend their 
 constitution, either on the slavery or any other question, and 
 have adopted all necessary means for giving speedy effect to 
 the will of the majority. Thus the Kansas question would 
 have been immediately and finally settled. 
 
 Under these circumstances, I submitted to Congress the 
 constitution thus framed, with all the officers already elected 
 necessary to put the State government into operation, accom- 
 panied by a strong recommendation in favor of the admission 
 of Kansas as a State. In the course of my long public life I 
 have never performed any official act which, in the retrospect, 
 has afforded me more heartfelt satisfaction. Its admission 
 could have inflicted no possible injury on any human being, 
 whilst it would, within a brief period, have restored peace to 
 Kansas and harmony to the Union. In that event, the slavery 
 question would ere this have been finally settled, according to 
 the legally expressed will of a majority of the voters, and 
 popular sovereignty would thus have been vindicated in a con- 
 stitutional manner. 
 
 With my deep convictions of duty, I could have pursued 
 no other course. It is true, that, as an individual, I had ex- 
 pressed an opinion, both before and during the session of the 
 convention, in favor of submitting the remaining clauses of 
 the constitution, as well as that concerning slavery, to the 
 people. But, acting in an official character, neither myself 
 nor any human authority had the power to re judge the pro- 
 ceedings of the convention, and declare the constitution which 
 it had framed to be a nullity. To have done this would have 
 been a violation of the Kansas and Nebraska act, which left 
 the people of the Territory " perfectly free to form and regu- 
 late their domestic institutions in their own way, subject only 
 to the Constitution of the United States." It would equally 
 
66 MESSAGES OF PEESIDEKT BtTCHANAN. 
 
 have violated the great principle of popular sovereignty, at 
 the foundation of our institutions, to deprive the people of the 
 povirer, if they thought proper to exercise it, of confiding to 
 delegates elected by themselves the trust of framing a consti- 
 tution, without requiring them to subject their constituents to 
 the trouble, expense, and delay of a second election. It 
 would have been in opposition to many precedents in our his- 
 tory, commencing in the very best age of the republic, of the 
 admission of Territories as States into the Union, without a 
 previous vote of the people approving their constitution. 
 
 It is to be lamented that a question so insignificant, when 
 viewed in its practical effects on the people of Kansas, whether 
 decided one way or the other, should have kindled such a 
 flame of excitement throughout the country. This reflection 
 may prove to be a lesson of wisdom and of warning for our 
 future guidance. Practically considered, the question is sim- 
 ply whether the people of that Territory should first come into 
 the Union and then change any provision in their constitution 
 not agreeable to themselves, or accomplish the very same ob- 
 ject by remaining out of the Union and framing another con- " 
 stitution in accordance with their will ? In either case, the 
 result would be precisely the same. The only difference in 
 point of fact is, that the object would have been much sooner 
 attained, and the pacification of Kansas more speedily effected, 
 had it been admitted as a State during the last session of 
 Congress. 
 
 My recommendation, however, for the immediate admission 
 of Kansas, failed to meet the approbation of Congress. They 
 deemed it wiser to adopt a different measure for the settle- 
 ment of the question. For my own part, I should have been 
 willing to yield my assent to almost any constitutional measure 
 to accomplish this object. I therefore cordially acquiesced in 
 what has been called the English Compromise, and approved 
 the " Act for the admission of the State of Kansas into the 
 Union" upon the terms therein prescribed. 
 
 Under the ordinance which accompanied the Lecompton 
 constitution the people of Kansas had claimed double the 
 quantity of public lands for the support of common schools 
 which had ever been previously granted to any State upon en- 
 
MESSAGES OF PRESIDENT BUCHAWATiT. 57 
 
 tering the Union ; and also the alternate sections of land for 
 twelve miles on each side of two railroads, proposed to be 
 constructed from the northern to the southern boundary, and 
 from the eastern to the western boundary of the State. Qon- 
 gress, deeming these claims unreasonable, provided, by the 
 act of May 4, 1858, to which I have just referred, for the 
 admission of the State on an equal footing with the original 
 States, but " upon the fundamental condition precedent" that 
 a majority of the people thereof, at an election to be held for 
 that purpose, should, in place of the very large grants of pub- 
 lic lands which they had demanded under the ordinance, ac- 
 cept such grants as had been made to Minnesota and other 
 new States. Under this act, should a majority reject the 
 proposition offered them, " it shall be deemed and held that 
 the people of Kansas do not desire admission into the Union 
 with said constitution under the conditions set forth in said 
 proposition." In that event, the act authorizes the people of 
 the Territory to elect delegates to form a constitution and 
 State government for themselves " whenever, and not before, 
 it is ascertained by a census, duly and legally taken, that the 
 population of said Territory equals or exceeds the ratio of 
 representation required for a member of the House of Repre- 
 sentatives of the Congress of the United States." The dele- 
 gates thus assembled " shall first determine by a vote whether 
 it is the wish of the people of the proposed State to be ad- 
 mitted into the Union at that time, and if so, shall proceed to 
 form a constitution, and take all necessary steps for the estab- 
 lishment of a State government in conformity with the Fed- 
 eral Constitution." After this constitution shall have been 
 formed. Congress, carrying out the principles of popular sov- 
 ereignty and non-intervention, have left " the mode and man- 
 ner of its approval or ratification by the people of the proposed 
 State" to be "•prescribed by law," and they " shall then be 
 admitted into the Union as a State under such constitution 
 thus fairly and legally made, with or without slavery, as said 
 constitution may prescribe." 
 
 An election was held throughout Kansas, in pursuance of 
 the provisions of this act, on the second day of August last, 
 and it resulted in the rejection, by a large majority, of the 
 
68 MESSAGES OP PEESIDENT BUCHANAN". 
 
 proposition submitted to the people by Congress. This being 
 the case, they are now authorized to form another constitution, 
 preparatory to admission into the Union, but not until their 
 number, as ascertained by a census, shall equal or exceed the 
 ratio required to elect a member to the House of Represent- 
 atives. 
 
 It is not probable, in the present state of the case, that a 
 third constitution can be lawfully framed and presented to 
 Congress by Kansas before its population shall have reached 
 the designated number. Nor is it to be presumed that, after 
 their sad experience in resisting the territorial laws, they will 
 attempt to adopt a constitution in express violation of the pro- 
 visions of an act of Congress. During the session of 1856 
 much of the time of Congress "Was occupied on the question 
 of admitting Kansas under the Topeka constitution. Again, 
 nearly the whole of the last session was devoted to the question 
 of its admission under the Lecorapton constitution. Surely it 
 is not unreasonable to require the people of Kansas to wait, 
 before making a third attempt, until the number of their in- 
 habitants shall amount to ninety-three thousand four hundred 
 and twenty. During this brief period the harmony of the 
 States, as well as the great business interests of the country, 
 demand that the people of the Union shall not for a third 
 time be convulsed by another agitation on the Kansas ques- 
 tion. By waiting for a short time, and acting in obedience to 
 law, Kansas will glide into the Union without the slightest 
 impediment. 
 
 This excellent provision, which Congress has applied to 
 Kansas, ought to be extended and rendered applicable to all 
 Territories which may hereafter seek admission into the 
 Union. 
 
 Whilst Congress possesses the undoubted power of admitting 
 a new State into the Union, however small may be the num- 
 ber of its inhabitants, yet this power ought not, in my opinion, 
 to be exercised before the population shall amount to the ratio 
 required by the act for the admission of Kansas. Had this 
 been previously the rule, the country would have escaped all 
 the evils and misfortunes to which it has been exposed by the 
 Kansas question. 
 
MESSAOES OF PRESIDENT BUCHANAN. 59 
 
 Of course, it would be unjust to give this rule a retrospec- 
 tive application, and exclude a State which, acting upon the 
 past practice of the government, has already formed its con- 
 stitution, elected" its legislature and other officers, and is now 
 prepared to enter the Union. 
 
 The rule ought to be adopted, whether we consider its bear- 
 ing on the people of the Territories or upon the people of the 
 existing States. Many of the serious dissensions which have 
 prevailed in Congress and throughout the country would have 
 been avoided had this rule been established at an earlier period 
 of the government. 
 
 Immediately upon the formation of a new Territory, people 
 from different States and from foreign countries rush into it, 
 for the laudable purpose of improving their condition. Their 
 first duty to themselves is to open and cultivate farms, to con- 
 struct roads, to establish schools, to erect places of religious 
 worship, and to devote their energies generally to reclaim the 
 •wilderness, and to lay the foundations of a flourishing and 
 prosperous commonwealth. If, in this incipient condition, 
 with a population of a few thousand, they should prematurely 
 enter the Union, they are oppressed by the burden of State 
 taxation, and the means necessary for the improvement of the 
 Territory and the advancement of their own interests are thus 
 diverted to very different purposes. 
 
 The federal government has ever been a liberal parent to 
 the Territories, and a generous contributor to the useful enter- 
 prises of the early settlers. It has paid the expenses of their 
 governments and legislative assemblies out of the common 
 treasury, and thus relieved them from a heavy charge. Under 
 these circumstances, nothing can be better calculated to retard 
 their material progress than to divert them from their useful 
 employments, by preniaturely exciting angry political contests 
 among themselves, for the benefit of aspiring leaders. It is 
 surely no hardship for embryo governors, senators, and mem- 
 bers of Congress, to wait until the number of inhabitants shall 
 equal those of a single congressional district. They surely 
 ought not to be permitted to rush into the Union with a popula- 
 tion less than one-half of several of the large counties in the 
 interior of some of the States. This was the condition of 
 
60 MESSAGES OP PRE8IDEKT BUCHANAK. 
 
 Kansas when it made application to be admitted under the 
 Topeka constitution. Besides, it requires some time to render 
 the mass of a population collected in a new Temtory at all 
 homogeneous, and to unite them on anything like a fixed 
 policy. Establish the rule, and all will look forward to it and 
 govern themselves accordingly. 
 
 But justice to the people of the several States requires that 
 this rule should be established by Congress. Each State is 
 entitled to two senators and at least one representative in Con- 
 gress. Should the people of the States fail to elect a Vice 
 President, the power devolves upon the Senate to select this 
 officer from the two highest candidates on the list. In case 
 of the death of the President, the Vice President, thus elected 
 by the Senate, becomes President of the United States. On 
 all questions of legislation the senators from the smallest States 
 of the Union have an equal vote with those from the largest. 
 The same may be said in regard to the ratification of treaties 
 and of Executive appointments. All this has worked admir- 
 ably in practice, whilst it conforms in principle with the char- 
 acter of a government instituted by sovereign States. I pre- 
 sume no American citizen would desire the slightest change in 
 the arrangement. Still, is it not unjust and unequal to the 
 'existing States to invest some forty or fifty thousand people 
 collected in a Territory with the attributes of sovereignty, and 
 place them on an equal footing with Virginia and Ifew York 
 in the Senate of the United States ? 
 
 For these reasons, I earnestly recommend the passage of a 
 general act, which shall provide that, upon the application of 
 a territorial legislature, declaring their belief that the Terri- 
 tory contains a number of inhabitants which, if in a State, 
 would entitle them to elect a member of Congress, it shall be 
 the duty of the President to cause a census of the inhabitants 
 to be taken, and if found sufficient, then by the terms of this 
 act to authorize them to proceed " in their own way" to frame 
 a State constitution preparatory to admission into the Union. 
 I also recommend that an appropriation may be made, to 
 enable the President to take a census of the people of 
 
 The present condition of the Territory of Utah, when cou- 
 
MESSAGES OF PRESIDENT BUCHANAN. 61 
 
 trasted with what it was one year ago, is a subject for con- 
 gratulation. It was then in a state of open rebellion, and, 
 cost what it might, the character of the government required 
 that this rebellion should be suppressed and . the Mormons 
 compelled to yield obedience to the Constitution and the laws. 
 In order to accomplish this object, as I informed you in my 
 last annual message, I appointed a new governor instead of 
 Brigham Young, and other federal officers to take the place 
 of those who, consulting their personal safety, had found it 
 necessary to withdraw from the Territory. To protect these 
 civil officers, and to aid them, as a posse comitatus, in the 
 execution of the laws in case of need, I ordered a detachment 
 of the army to accompany them to Utah. The necessity for 
 adopting these measures is now demonstrated. 
 
 On .the 15th of September, 1857, Grovernor Young issued 
 his proclamation, in the style of an independent sovereign, 
 announcing his purpose to resist by force of arms the entry of 
 the United States troops into our own Territory of Utah. By 
 this he required all the forces in the Territory to " hold them- 
 selves in readiness to march at a moment's notice to repel any 
 and all such invasion," and established martial law from its 
 date throughout the Territory. These proved to be no idle 
 threats. Forts Bridger and Supply were vacated and burnt 
 down by the Mormons, to deprive our troops of a shelter after 
 their long and fatiguing march. Orders were issued by Daniel 
 H. Wells, styling himself " Lieutenant-General, Nauvoo 
 Legion," to stampede the animals of the United States troops 
 on their march, to set fire to their trains, to burn the grass 
 and the whole country before them and on their flanks, to 
 keep them from sleeping by night surprises, and to blockade 
 the road by felling trees, and destroying the fords of rivers, 
 &c., &c., &c. 
 
 These orders were promptly and efEectually obeyed. On 
 the 4th of October, 185T, the Mormons captured and burned, 
 on Green river, three of our supply trains, consisting of sev- 
 enty-five wagons loaded with provisions and tents for the 
 army, and carried away several hundred animals. This dimin- 
 ished the supply of provisions so materially that General John- 
 ston was obliged to reduce the ration, and even with this pre- 
 
62 MESSAGES OF PRESIDENT BUCHANAlir. 
 
 caution there was only sufficient left to subsist tlie troops until 
 the first of June. 
 
 Our little army behaved admirably in their encampment at 
 Fort Bridger under these trying privations. In the midst of 
 the mountains, in a dreary, unsettled, and inhospitable region, 
 more than a thousand miles from home, they passed the severe 
 and inclement winter without a murmur. They looked for- 
 ward with confidence for relief from their country in due sea- 
 son, and in this they were not disappointed. 
 
 The Secretary of "War employed all his energies to forward 
 them the necessary supplies, and to muster and send such a 
 military force to Utah as would render resistance on the part 
 of the Mormons hopeless, and thus terminate the war without 
 the effusion of blood. In his efforts he was efficiently sus- 
 tained by Congress. They granted appropriations sufficient 
 to cover the deficiency thus necessarily created, and also pro- 
 vided for raising two regiments of volunteers " for the pur- 
 pose of quelling disturbances in the Territory of Utah, for the 
 protection of supply and emigrant trains, and the suppression 
 of Indian hostilities on the frontiers. " Happily, there was 
 no occasion to call these, regiments into service. If there had 
 been, I should have felt serious embarrassment in selecting 
 them, so great was the number of our brave and patriotic citi- 
 zens anxious to serve their country in this distant and appar- 
 ently dangerous expedition. Thus it has ever been, and thus 
 may it ever be ! 
 
 The wisdom and economy of sending sufficient reinforce- 
 ments to Utah are established not only by the event, but in 
 the opinion of those who, from their position and opportuni- 
 ties, are the most capable of forming a correct judgment. 
 General Johnston, the commander of the forces, in addressing 
 the Secretary of War from Fort Bridger, under date of Octo- 
 ber 18, 185Y, expresses the opinion that " unless a large force 
 is sent here, from the nature of the country, a protracted war 
 on their [the Mormons] part is inevitable." This he consid- 
 ered necessary, to terminate the war " speedily and more eco- 
 nomically than if attempted by insufficient means." 
 
 In the mean time it was my anxious desire that the Mormons 
 should yield obedience to the Constitution and the laws, with- 
 
MESSAGES OP PRESIDENT BXJCHANAN. 63 
 
 out rendering it necessary to resort to military force. To aid 
 in accomplishing this object I deemed it advisable, in April 
 last, to despatch two distinguished citizens of the United 
 States, Messrs. Powell and McCuUoch, to Utah. They bore 
 with them a proclamation addressed by myself to the inhabi- 
 tants of Utah, dated on the 6th day of that month, warning them 
 of their true condition, and how hopeless it was on their part 
 to persist in rebellion against the United States, and offering 
 all those who should submit to the laws a full pardon for their 
 past seditions and treasons. At the same time I assured those 
 who should persist in rebellion against the United States that 
 they must expect no further lenity, but look to be rigorously 
 dealt with, according to their deserts. The instructions to 
 these agents, as well as a copy of the proclamation and their 
 reports, are herewith submitted. It will be seen by their 
 report of the 3d of July last that they have fully confirmed 
 the opinion expressed by General Johnston in the previous 
 October as to the necessity of sending reinforcements to Utah. 
 In this they state that they " are firmly impressed with the 
 belief that the presence of the army here, and the large addi- 
 tional force that had been ordered to this Territory, were the 
 chief inducements that caused the Mormons to abandon the 
 idea of resisting the authority of the United States. A less 
 decisive policy would probably have resulted in a long, bloody, 
 and expensive war." 
 
 These gentlemen conducted themselves to my entire satis- 
 faction, and rendered useful services in executing the humane 
 intentions of the government. 
 
 It also affords me great satisfaction to state that Governor 
 Gumming has performed his duty in an able and conciliatory 
 manner, and with the happiest effect. I cannot, in this con- 
 nection, refrain from mentioning the valuable services of Col- 
 onel Thomas L. Kane, who, from motives of pure benevo- 
 lence, and without any official character or pecuniary compen- 
 sation, visited Utah during the last inclement winter for the 
 purpose of contributing to the pacification of the Territory. 
 
 I am happy to inform you that the governor and other civil 
 officers of Utah are now performing their appropriate func- 
 tions without resistance. The authority of the Constitution 
 
64 MESSAGES OP PRESIDENT BUCHANAN. 
 
 and the laws has been fully restored, and peace prevails 
 tliroughout the Territory. 
 
 A portion of the troops sent to Utah are now encamped in 
 Cedar valley, forty -four miles southwest of Salt Lake city, and 
 the remainder have been ordered to Oregon to suppress Indian 
 hostilities. 
 
 The march of the army to Salt Lake city, through the 
 Indian Territory, has had a powerful effect in restraining the 
 hostile feelings against the United States which existed among 
 the Indians in that region, and in securing emigrants to the 
 Far West against their depredations. This will also be the 
 means of establishing military posts and promoting settlements 
 along the route. 
 
 I recommend that the benefits of our land laws and pre- 
 emption system be extended to the people of Utah, by the 
 establishment of a land office in that Territory. 
 
 I have occasion, also, to congratulate you on the result of 
 our negotiations with China. 
 
 You were informed by my last annual message that our 
 minister had been instructed to occupy a neutral position in 
 the hostilities conducted by Great Britain and France against 
 Canton. He was, however, at the same time, directed to co- 
 operate cordially with the British and French ministers in all 
 peaceful measures to secure by treaty those just concessions to 
 foreign commerce which the nations of the world had a right 
 to demand. It was impossible for me to proceed further than 
 this on my own authority, without usurping the war-making 
 power, which, under the Constitution, belongs exclusively to 
 Congress. ^ 
 
 Besides, after a careful examination of the nature and ex- 
 tent of our grievances, I did not believe they were of such a 
 pressing and aggravated character as would have justified 
 Congress in declaring war against the Chinese empire, with- 
 out first making another earnest attempt to adjust them by 
 peaceful negotiation. 1 was the more inclined to this opinion, 
 because of the severe chastisement which had then but recently 
 been inflicted upon the Chinese by our squadron in the cap- 
 ture and destruction of the Barrier forts to avenge an alleged 
 insult to our flag. 
 
MESSAGES OP PRESIDENT BUCHAWAK. 65 
 
 The event has proved the wisdom of our neutrality. Our 
 minister has executed his instructions with eminent skill and 
 ability. In conjunction with the Eussian plenipotentiary, he 
 has peacefully, but effectually, co-operated with the Eng^sh 
 and French plenipotentiaries ; and each of the four powers 
 has concluded a separate treaty with China, of a highly satis- 
 factory character. The treaty concluded by our own pleni- 
 potentiary will immediately be submitted to the Senate. 
 
 I am happy to announce that, through the energetic yet 
 conciliatory efforts of our consul general in Japan, a new treaty 
 has been concluded with that empire, which may be expected 
 materially to augment our trade and intercourse in that quarter, 
 and remove from our countrymen the disabilities which have 
 heretofore been imposed upon the exercise of their religion. 
 The treaty shall be submitted to the Senate for approval with- 
 out delay. 
 
 It is my earnest desire that every misunderstanding with 
 the government of Great Britain should ^e amicably and 
 speedily adjusted. It has been the misfortune of both coun- 
 tries, almost ever since the period of the revolution, to have 
 been annoyed by a succession of irritating and dangerous ques- 
 tions, threatening their friendly relations. This has partially 
 prevented the full development of those feelings of mutual 
 friendship between the people of the two countries, so natural 
 in themselves and so conducive to their common interest. 
 Any serious interruption of the commerce between the United 
 States and Great Britain would be equally injurious to both. 
 In fact, no two nations have ever existed on the face of the 
 earth which could do each other so much good or so much 
 harm. 
 
 Entertaining these sentiments, I am gratified to inform you 
 that the long-pending controversy between the two govern- 
 ments, in relation to the question of visitation and search, has 
 been amicably adjusted. The claim, on the part of Great 
 Britain, forcibly to visit American vessels on the high seas in 
 time of peace could not be sustained under the law of nations, 
 and it had been overruled by her own most eminent jurists. 
 This question was recently brought to an issue by the repeated 
 acts of British cruisers, in boarding and searching our mer- 
 5 
 
66 MESSAGES OF PRESIDENT BTJCHANAN. 
 
 chant vessels in the Gulf of Mexico and the adjacent seas. 
 These acts were the more injurious and annoying, as these 
 waters are traversed bj a large portion of the commerce and 
 navigation of the United States, and their free and unrestricted 
 use is essential to the security of the coastwise trade between 
 the different States of the Union. Such vexatious interrup- 
 tions could not fail to excite the feelings of the country, and 
 to require the interposition of the Government. Eemon- 
 strances were addressed to the British government against 
 these violations of our rights of sovereignty, and a naval force 
 was at the same time ordered to the Cuban waters, with direc- 
 tions " to protect all vessels of the United States on the high 
 seas from search or detention by the vessels-of-war of any 
 other nation." These measures received the unqualified and 
 even enthusiastic approbation of the American people. Most 
 fortunately, however, no collision took place, and the British 
 government promptly avowed its recognition of the principles 
 of international iaw upon this subject as laid down by the 
 government of the United States in the note of the Secretary 
 of State to the British minister at Washington, of April 10, 
 1858, which secure the vessels of the United States upon the 
 high seas from visitation or search in time of peace, under any 
 circumstances whatever. The claim has been abandoned in a 
 manner reflecting honor on the British government, and 
 evincing a just regard for the law of nations, and cannot fail 
 to strengthen the amicable relations between the two countries. 
 The British government, at the same time, proposed to the 
 United States that some mode should be adopted, by mutual 
 arrangement between the two countries, of a character which 
 may be found effective without being offensive, for verifying 
 the nationality of vessels suspected on good grounds of carry- 
 ing false colors. They have also invited the United States to 
 take the initiative, and propose measures for this purpose. 
 "Whilst declining to assume so grave a responsibility, the Secre- 
 tary of State has informed the British government that we are 
 ready to receive any proposals which they may feel disposed 
 to offer, having tliis object in view, and to consider them in 
 an amicable spirit. A strong opinion is, however, expressed, 
 that the occasional abuse of the flag of any nation is an evil 
 
MESSAGES OF PRESIDENT BUCHAWAN. 67 
 
 far less to be deprecated than would be the establishment of 
 any regulations which might be incompatible with the freedom 
 of the seas. This government has yet received no communi- 
 cation specifying the manner in which the British government 
 would propose to carry out their suggestion, and I am inclined 
 to believe that no plan which can be devised will be free from 
 grave embarrassments. Still, I shall form no decided opinion 
 on the subject until I shall have carefully and in the best spirit 
 examined any proposals which they may think proper to 
 make. 
 
 I am truly sorry I cannot also inform you that the compli- 
 cations between Great Britain and the United States arising 
 out of the Clayton and Bulwer treaty of April, 1860, have 
 been finally adjusted. 
 
 At the commencement of your last session I had reason to 
 hope that, emancipating themselves from further unavailing 
 discussions, the two governiilents would proceed to settle the 
 Central American questions in a practical manner, alike hon- 
 orable and satisfactory to both ; and this hope I have not yet 
 abandoned. In my last annual message I stated that overtures 
 had been made by the British government for this purpose in 
 a friendly spirit, which I cordially reciprocated. Their pro- 
 posal was, to withdraw these questions from direct negotiation 
 between the two governments ; but to accomplish the same 
 object by a negotiation between the British government and 
 each of the Central American repubhcs whose territorial inter- 
 ests are immediately involved. The settlement was to be 
 made in accordance with the^ general tenor of the interpreta- 
 tion placed upon the Clayton and Bulwer treaty by the United 
 States, with certain modifications. As negotiations are still 
 pending upon this basis, it would not be proper for me now 
 to communicate their present condition. A final settlement 
 of these questions is greatly to be desired, as this would wipe 
 out the last remaining subject of dispute between the two 
 countries. 
 
 Our relations with the great empires of France and Russia, 
 as well as with all other governments on the continent of 
 Eui'ope, except that of Spain, continue to be of the most 
 friendly character. 
 
68 MESSAGES OF PBESIDENT BITCHANAlir. 
 
 With Spain our relations remain in an unsatisfactory condi- 
 tion. In my message of December last I informed you that 
 our envoy extraordinary and minister plenipotentiary to Ma- 
 drid had asked for his recall ; and it was my purpose to send 
 out a new minister to that court, with special instructions on 
 all questions pending between the two governments, and with 
 a determination to have them speedily and amicably adjusted, 
 if that were possible. This purpose has been hitherto defeated 
 by causes which 1 need not enumerate. 
 
 The mission to Spain has been intrusted to a distinguished 
 citizen of Kentucky, who will proceed to Madrid without de- 
 lay, and make another and a final attempt to obtain justice 
 from that government. 
 
 Spanish oflScials, under the direct control of the captain 
 general of Cuba, have insulted our national flag, and in re- 
 peated instances have, from time to time, inflicted injuries on 
 the persons and property of our citizens. These have given 
 birth to numerous claims against the Spanish government, the 
 merits of which have been ably discussed for a series of years 
 by our successive diplomatic representatives. Notwithstand- 
 ing this, we have not arrived at a practical result in any single 
 instance, unless we may except the case of the Black Warrior, 
 under the late administration ; and that presented an outrage 
 of such a character as would have justified an immediate resort' 
 to war. All our attempts to obtain redress have been baffled 
 and defeated. The frequent and oft-recurring changes in the 
 Spanish ministry have been employed as reasons for delay. 
 We have been compelled to wait, again and again, until the 
 new minister shall have had time to investigate the justice of 
 our demands. 
 
 Even what have been denominated " the Cuban claims," in 
 which more than a hundred of our citizens are directly inter- 
 ested, have furnished no exception. These claims were for 
 the refunding of duties unjustly exacted from American ves- 
 sels at different custom-houses in Cuba so long ago as the year 
 1844. The principles upon which they rest are so manifestly 
 equitable and just, that, after a period of nearly ten years, in 
 1854 they were recognized by the Spanish government. Pro- 
 ceedings were afterwards instituted to ascertain their amount, 
 
MESSAGES OP PEESIDEl^T BUCHAITAH". 69 
 
 and this was finally fixed according to their own statenaent 
 (with which we were satisfied) at the sura of one hundred and 
 twenty-eight thousand six hundred and thirty-five dollars and 
 fifty-four cents. Just at the moment, after a delay of fpur- 
 teen years, when we had reason to expect that this sum would 
 be repaid with interest, we have received a proposal offering 
 to refund one-third of that amount, (forty-two thousand eight 
 hundred and seventy-eight dollars and forty-one cents,) but 
 without interest, if we would accept this in full satisfaction. 
 The offer is also accompanied by a declaration that this indem- 
 nification is not founded on any reason of strict justice, but is 
 made as a special favor. 
 
 One alleged cause for procrastination in the examination and 
 adjustment of our claims arises from an obstacle which it is 
 the duty of the Spanish government to remove. Whilst the 
 captain general of Cuba is invested with general despotic 
 authority in the government of that island, the power is with- 
 held from him to examine and redress wrongs committed by 
 officials under his control on citizens of the United States. 
 Instead of making our complaints directly to him at Havana, 
 we are obliged to present them through our minister at Ma- 
 drid. These are then referred back to the captain general for 
 information, and much time is thus consumed in preliminary 
 investigations and correspondence between Madrid and Cuba 
 before the Spanish government will consent to proceed to 
 negotiation. Many of the difficulties between the two govern- 
 ments would be obviated, and a long train of negotiation 
 avoided, if the captain general were invested with authority 
 to settle questions of easy solution on the spot, where all the 
 facts are fresh, and could be promptly and satisfactorily ascer- 
 tained. We have hitherto in vain urged upon the Spanish 
 government to confer this power upon the captain general, 
 and our minister to Spain will again be instructed to urge this 
 subject on their notice. In this respect we occupy a different 
 position from the powers of Europe. Cuba is almost within 
 sight of our shores ; our commerce with it is far greater than 
 that of any other nation, including Spain itself, and our citi- 
 zens are in habits of daily and extended personal intercourse 
 with every part of the island. It is, therefore, a great griev- 
 
70 MESSAGES OF PRESIDENT BTJCHANAK. 
 
 ance that when any difficulty occurs, no matter how unimpor- 
 tant, which might be readily settled at the moment, we should 
 be obliged to resort to Madrid, especially when the very first 
 step to be taken there is to refer it back to Cuba. 
 
 The truth is, that Cuba, in its existing colonial conditi9n, is 
 a constant source of injury and annoyance to the American 
 people. It is the only spot in the civilized world where the 
 African slave trade is tolerated ; and we are bound by treaty 
 with Great Britain to maintain a naval force on the coast of 
 Africa, at much expense both of life and treasure, solely for 
 the purpose of arresting slavers bound to that island. The 
 late serious difficulties between the United States and Great 
 Britain respecting the right of search, now so happily termi- 
 nated, could never have arisen if Cuba had not afforded a 
 market for slaves. As long as this market shall remain open, 
 there can be no hope for the civilization of benighted Africa. 
 Whilst the demand for slaves continues in Cuba, wars will be 
 waged among the petty and barbarous chiefs in Africa for the 
 purpose of seizing subjects to supply this trade. In such a 
 condition of affairs, it is impossible that the light of civilization 
 and religion can ever penetrate these dark abodes. 
 
 It has been made known to the world by my predecessors 
 that the United States have, on several occasions, endeavored 
 to acquire Cuba from Spain by honorable negotiation. If 
 this were accomplished, the last relic of the African slave 
 trade would instantly disappear. We would not, if we could, 
 acquire Cuba in any other manner. This is due to our na- 
 tional character. All the territory which we have acquired 
 since the origin of the government has been by fair purchase 
 from France, Spain, and Mexico, or by the free and voluntary 
 act of the independent State of Texas in blending her destinies 
 with our own. This course we shall ever p^irsue, unless cir- 
 cumstances should occur, which we do not now anticipate, 
 rendering a departure from it clearly justifiable, under the 
 imperative and overruling law of self-preservation. 
 
 The island of Cuba, from its geographical position, com- 
 mands the mouth of the Mississippi, and the immense and 
 annually increasing trade, foreign and coastwise, from the 
 valley of that noble river, now embracing half the sovereign 
 
MESSAGES OF PEESIDENT BUCHANAK. 71 
 
 States of the Union. With that island tinder the dominion of 
 a distant foreign power, this trade, of vital importance to these 
 States, is exposed to the danger of being destroyed in time of 
 war, and it has hitherto been subjected to perpetual injury ' 
 and annoyance in time of peace. Our relations with Spain, 
 which ought to be of the most friendly character, must always 
 be placed in jeopardy, whilst the existing colonial government 
 over the island shall remain in its present condition. 
 
 Whilst the possession of the island would be of vast impor- 
 tance to the United States, its value to Spain is, comparatively, 
 unimportant. Such was the relative situation of the parties 
 when the great Napoleon transferred Louisiana to the United 
 States. Jealous, as he ever was, of the national honor and 
 interests of France, no person throughout the world has im- 
 puted blame to him for accepting a pecuniary equivalent for 
 this cession. 
 
 The publicity which has been given to our former negotia- 
 tions upon this subject, and the large appropriation which may 
 be required to effect the purpose, render it expedient, before 
 making another attempt to renew the negotiation, that I 
 should lay the whole subject before Congress. This is espe- 
 cially necessary, as it may become indispensable to success, 
 that I should be intrusted with the means of making an ad- 
 vance to the Spanish government immediately after the sign- 
 ing of the treaty, without awaiting the ratification of it by the 
 Senate. 1 am encouraged to make this suggestion by the ex- 
 ample of Mr. Jefferson, previous to the purchase of Louisiana 
 from France, and by that of Mr. Polk, in view of the acquisi- 
 tion of territory from Mexico. I refer the whole subject to 
 Congress, and commend it to their careful consideration. 
 
 1 repeat the recommendation made in my message of De- 
 cember last in favor of an appropriation "to be paid to the 
 Spanish government for the purpose of distribution among the 
 claimants in the Amistad case." President Polk first made a 
 similar recommendation in December, 184:7, and it was re- 
 peated by my immediate predecessor in December, 1853. I 
 entertain no doubt that indemnity is fairly due to these claim- 
 ants under our treaty with Spain of October 2T, 1795 ; and 
 ■whilst demanding justice we ought to do justice. An appro- 
 
72 MESSAGES OF PEBSIDENT BUCHANAN. 
 
 priation promptly made for this purpose could not fail to exert 
 a favorable influence on our negotiations with Spain. 
 
 Our position in relation to the independent States south of 
 • us on this continent, and especially those within the limits of 
 North America, is of a peculiar character. The northern 
 boundary of Mexico is coincident with our own southern 
 boundary from ocean to ocean, and we must necessarily feel a 
 deep interest in all that concerns the well being and the fate 
 of so near a neighbor. We have always cherished the kindest 
 wishes for the success of that republic, and have indulged the 
 hope that it might at last, after all its trials, enjoy peace and 
 prosperity under a free and stable government. "We have 
 never hitherto interfered, directly or indirectly, with its in- 
 ternal affairs, and it is a duty which we owe to ourselves- to 
 protect the integrity of its territory against the hostile inter- 
 ference of any other power. Our geographical position, our 
 direct interest in all that concerns Mexico, and our well-settled 
 policy in regard to the North American continent, render this 
 an indispensable duty. 
 
 Mexico has been in a state of constant revolution almost 
 ever since it achieved its independence. One military leader 
 after another has usurped the government in rapid succession ; 
 and the various constitutions from time to time adopted have 
 been set at naught almost as soon as they were proclaimed. 
 The successive governments have afforded no adequate protec- 
 tion, either to Mexican citizens or foreign residents, against 
 lawless violence. Heretofore, a seizure of the capital by a 
 military chieftain has been generally followed by at least the 
 nominal submission of the country to his rule for a brief 
 period ; but not so at the present crisis of Mexican affairs. 
 A civil war has been raging for some time throughout the re- 
 public between the central government at the city of Mexico, 
 which has endeavored to subvert the constitution last framed 
 by military power, and those who maintain the authority of 
 that constitution. The antagonist parties each hold possession 
 of different States of the republic, and the fortunes of the war 
 are constantly changing. Meanwhile the most reprehensible 
 means have been employed by both parties to extort money 
 from foreigners, as well as natives, to carry on this ruinous 
 
MESSAGES OF PRESIDENT BUCHANAN. 73 
 
 contest. The truth is, that this fine country, blessed with a 
 productive soil and a benign climate, has been reduced by 
 civil dissension to a condition of almost hopeless anarchy and 
 imbecility. It would be vain for this government to attempt 
 to enforce payment in money of the claims of American citi- 
 zens, now amounting to more than ten million dollars, against 
 Mexico, because she is destitute of all pecuniary means to 
 satisfy these demands. 
 
 Our late minister was furnished with ample powers and in- 
 structions for the adjustment of all pending questions with the 
 central government of Mexico, and he performed his duty 
 "with zeal and ability. The claims of our citizens, some of 
 them arising out of the violation of an express provision of 
 the- treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, and others from gross in- 
 juries to persons as well as property, have remained unre- 
 dressed, and even unnoticed. Remonstrances against these 
 grievances have been addressed, without effect, to that govern- 
 ment. Meantime, in various parts of the republic, instances 
 have been numerous of the murder, imprisonment, and plunder 
 of our citizens by difEerent parties claiming and exercising a 
 local jurisdiction ; but the central government, although re- 
 peatedly urged thereto, have made no effort either to punish 
 the authors of these outrages or to prevent their recurrence. 
 No American citizen can now visit Mexico on lawful business 
 without imminent danger to his person and property. There 
 is no adequate protection to either ; and in this respect our 
 treaty with that republic is almost a dead letter. 
 
 This state of affairs was brought to a crisis in May last by 
 the promulgation of a decree levying a contribution pro rata 
 upon all the capital in the republic, between certain specified 
 amounts, whether heid by Mexicans or foreigners. Mr. For- 
 syth, regarding this decree in the light of a "forced loan," 
 formally protested against its application to his countrymen, 
 and advised them not to pay the contribution, but to suffer it 
 to be forcibly exacted. Acting upon this advice an American 
 citizen refused to pay the contribution, and his property was 
 seized by armed men to satisfy the amount. Not content with 
 this, the government proceeded still further and issued a de- 
 cree banishing him from the country. Our minister immedi- 
 
74 MESSAGES OF PEESIDENT BUCHANAlir. 
 
 ately notified them that, if this decree should be carried into 
 execution, he would feel it to be his duty to adopt " the most 
 decided measures that belong to the powers and obligations of 
 the representative office." Notwithstanding this warning, 
 the banishment was enforced, and Mr. Forsyth promptly an- 
 nounced to the government the suspension of the political rela- 
 tions of his legation with them, until the pleasure of his own 
 government should be ascertained. 
 
 This government did not regard the contribution imposed 
 by the decree of the 15th May last to be in strictness a 
 " forced loan," and as such prohibited by the 10th article of 
 the treaty of 1826 between Great Britain and Mexico, to the 
 benefits of which American citizens are entitled by treaty ; 
 yet the imposition of the contribution upon foreigners was 
 considered an unjust and oppressive measure. Besides, in- 
 ternal factions in other parts of the republic were at the same 
 time levying similar exactions upon the property of our citi- 
 zens and interrupting their commerce. There had been an 
 entire failure on the part of our minister to secure redress for 
 the wrongs which our citizens had endured, notwithstanding 
 his persevering efforts. And from the temper manifested by 
 the Mexican government he had repeatedly assured us that no 
 favorable change could be expected until the United States 
 should " give striking evidence of their will and power to pro- 
 tect their citizens," and that " severe chastening is the only 
 earthly remedy for our grievances." From this statement of 
 facts, it would have been worse than idle to direct Mr. Forsyth 
 to retrace his steps and resume diplomatic relations with that 
 government ; and it was therefore deemed proper to sanction 
 his withdrawal of the legation from the city of Mexico. 
 
 Abundant cause now undoubtedly existe for a resort to hos- 
 tilities against the government still holding possession of the 
 capital. Should they succeed in subduing the constitutional 
 forces all reasonable hope will then have expired of a peaceful 
 settlement of our difficulties. 
 
 On the other hand, should the constitutional party prevail 
 and their authority be established over the republic, there is 
 reason to hope that they will be animated by a less unfriendly 
 spirit, and may grant that' redress to American citizens which 
 
MESSAGES OF PRESIDENT BUCHAWAN. 75 
 
 justice requires, so far as they may possess the means. But for 
 this expectation I should at once have recommended to Congress 
 to grant the necessary power to the President to take posses- 
 sion of a sufficient portion of the remote and unsettled terri- 
 tory of Mexico, to be held in pledge until our injuries shall be 
 redressed and our just demands be satisfied. "We have already 
 exhausted every milder means of obtaining justice. In such 
 a case this remedy of reprisals is recognized by the law of 
 nations, not only as just in itself, but as a means of preventing 
 actual war. 
 
 But there is another view of our relations with Mexico, 
 arising from the unhappy condition of affairs along our south- 
 western frontier, which demands immediate action. In that 
 remote region, where there are but few white inhabitants, 
 large bands of hostile and predatory Indians roam promiscu- 
 ously over the Mexican States of Chihuahua and Sonora, and 
 our adjoining Territories. The local governments of these 
 States are perfectly helpless, and are kept in a state of con- 
 stant alarm by the Indians. They have not the power, if they 
 possessed the will, even to restrain lawless Mexicans from 
 passing the border and committing depredations on our remote 
 settlers. A state of anarchy and violence prevails throughout 
 that distant frontier. The laws are a dead letter, and life and 
 property wholly insecure. For this reason the settlement of 
 Arizona is arrested, whilst it is of great importance that a* 
 chain of inhabitants should extend all along its southern border, 
 sufficient for their own protection and that of the United 
 States mail passing to and from California. Well-founded 
 apprehensions are now entertained, that the Indians, and wan- 
 dering Mexicans equally lawless, may break up the important 
 stage and postal communication recently established between 
 our Atlantic and Pacific possessions. This passes very near 
 to the Mexican boundary throughout the whole length of 
 Arizona. I can imagine no possible remedy for these evils, 
 and no mode of restoring law and order on that remote and 
 unsettled frontier, but for the govern mStit of the United States 
 to assume a temporary protectorate over the northern portions 
 of Chihuahua and Sonora, and to establish military posts with- 
 in the same — and this I earnestly recommend to Congress. 
 
76 MESSAGES OF PRESIDENT BTJCHANAK. 
 
 This protection may be withdrawn as soon as local govern- 
 ments shall be established in these Mexican States, capable of 
 performing their duties to the United States, restraining the 
 lawless, and preserving peace along the border. 
 
 I do not doubt that this measure will be viewed in a friendly 
 spirit by the governments and people of Chihuahua and 
 Sonora, as it will prove equally effectual for the protection of 
 their citizens on that remote and lawless frontier, as for citi- 
 zens of the United States. 
 
 And, in this connection, permit me to recall your attention 
 to the condition of Arizona. The population of that Terri- 
 tory, nimibering, as is alleged, more than ten thousand souls, 
 are practically without a government, without laws, and with- 
 out any regular administration of justice. Murder and other 
 crimes are committed with impunity. This state of things 
 calls loudly for redress, and I therefore repeat my recommend- 
 ation for the establishment of a territorial government over 
 Arizona. 
 
 ; The political condition of the narrow isthmus of Central 
 America, through which transit routes pass between the 
 Atlantic and Pacific oceans, presents a subject of deep interest 
 to all commercial nations. It is over these transits that a large 
 proportion of the trade and travel between the European and 
 Asiatic continents is destined to pass. To the United States 
 •these routes are of incalculable importance as a means of com- 
 munication between their Atlantic and Pacific possessions. 
 The latter now extend throughout seventeen degrees of lati- 
 tude on the Pacific coast, embracing the important State of 
 California and the flourishing Territories of Oregon and Wash- 
 ington. All commercial nations, therefore, have a deep and 
 direct interest that these communications shall be rendered 
 secure from interruption. If an arm of the sea connecting 
 the two oceans penetrated through Nicaragua and Costa Rica, 
 It could not be pretended that .these States would have the 
 right to arrest or retard its navigation, to the injury of other 
 nations. The transit By land over this narrow isthmus occu- 
 pies nearly the same position. It is a highway in which they 
 themselves have little interest when compared with the vast 
 interests of the rest of the world. Whilst their rights of sov- 
 
MESSAGES OF PRESIDENT BUOHABTAIT. 77 
 
 ereignty ouglit to be respected, it is the duty of other nations 
 to require that this important passage shall not be interrupted 
 by the civil wars and rev^olutionary outbreaiss which have so 
 frequently occurred in that region. The stake is too impor- 
 tant to be left at the mercy of rival companies claiming to hold 
 conflicting contracts with Nicaragua. The commerce of other 
 nations is not to stand still and await the adjustment of such 
 petty controversies. The government of the United States 
 expect no more than this, and they will not be satisfied with 
 less. They would not, if they could, derive any advantage 
 from the IS^icaragua transit not common to the rest of the 
 world. Its neutrality and protection for the common use oi 
 all nations is their only object. They have no objection that 
 Nicaragua shall demand and receive a fair compensation from 
 the companies and individuals who may traverse the route ; 
 but they insist that it shall never hereafter be closed by an 
 arbitrary decree of that government. If disputes arise be- 
 tween it and those with whom they may have entered into 
 contracts, these must be adjusted by some fair tribunal pro- 
 vided for the purpose, and the route must not be closed pend- 
 ing the controversy. This is our whole policy, and it cannot 
 fail to be acceptable to other nations. 
 
 All these difficulties might be avoided, if, consistently with 
 the good faith of Nicaragua, the use of this transit could be 
 thrown open to general competition ; providing at the same 
 time for the payment of a reasonable rate to the Nicaraguan 
 government on passengers and freight. 
 
 In August, 1852, the Accessory Transit Company made its 
 first interoceanic trip over the Nicaraguan route, and continued 
 in successful operation with great advantage to the public, 
 until the 18th February, 1856, when it was closed, and the 
 grant to this company as well as its charter, was summarily 
 and arbitrarily revoked by the government of President Kivas. 
 Previous to this date, however, in 1854, serious disputes con- 
 cerning the settlement of their accounts had arisen between 
 the company and the government, threatening the interrup- 
 tion of the route at any moment. These the United States in 
 vain endeavored to compose. It would be useless to narrate 
 the various proceedings which took place between the parties 
 
78 MESSAGES OF PRESIDENT BUCHANAN. 
 
 up till the time when the transit was discontinued. Suffice it 
 to say that, since February, 1856, it has remained closed, 
 greatly to the prejudice of citizens of the United States. 
 Since that time the competition has ceased between the 
 rival routes of Panama and Nicaragua, and in consequence 
 thereof, an unjust and unreasonable amount has been ex- 
 acted from our citizens for their passage- to and from Cali- 
 fornia. 
 
 A treaty was signed on the 16th day of November, 1857, 
 by the Secretary of State and minister of Nicaragua, under 
 the stipulations of which the use and prbtection of the transit 
 route would have been secured not only to the United States, 
 but equally to all other nations. How, and on what pretext 
 this treaty has failed to receive the ratification of the Nica- 
 raguan government, will appear by the papers herewith com- 
 municated from the State - Department. The principal objec- 
 tion seems to have been to the provision authorizing the United 
 States to employ force to keep the route open, in case Nica- 
 ragua should fail to perform her duty in this respect. From 
 the feebleness of that republic, its frequent changes of govern- 
 ment, and its constant internal dissensions this had become a 
 most important stipulation, and one essentially necessary not 
 only for the security of the route, but for the safety of Ameri- 
 can citizens passing and repassing to and from our Pacific pos- 
 sessions. Were such a stipulation embraced in a treaty be- 
 tween the United States and Nicaragua, the knowledge of this 
 fact would of itself most probably prevent hostile parties from 
 committing aggressions on the route, and render our actual 
 interference for its protection unnecessary. 
 
 The Executive government of this country, in its inter- 
 course with foreign nations, is limited to the employment of 
 diplomacy alone. When this fails it can proceed no further. 
 It cannot legitimately resort to force without the direct au- 
 thority of Congress, except in resisting and repelling hostile 
 attacks. It would have no authority to enter the territories 
 of Nicaragua, even to prevent the destruction of the transit, 
 and protect the lives and property of our own citizens on their 
 passage. It is true, that on a sudden emergency of this char- 
 acter, the President would direct any armed force in the 
 
MESSAGES OP PRESIDENT BUCHANAN. 79 
 
 vicinity to march to their relief ; but in doing this he would 
 act upon his own responsibility. 
 
 Under these circumstances, I earnestly recommend to Con- 
 gress the passage of an act authorizing the President, under 
 such restrictions as they may deem proper, to employ the land 
 and naval forces of the United States in preventing the transit 
 from being obstructed or closed by lawless violence, and in 
 protecting the lives and property of American citizens travel- 
 ling thereupon, requiring at the same time that these forces 
 shall be withdrawn the moment the danger shall have passed 
 away. Without such a provision our citizens will be con- 
 stantly exposed to interruption in their progress, and to law- 
 less violence. 
 
 A similar necessity exists for the passage of such an act for 
 the protection of the Panama and Tehuantepec routes. 
 
 In reference to the Panama route, the United States, by 
 their existing treaty with New Granada, expressly guaranty 
 the neutrality of the isthmus, ' ' with the view that the free 
 transit from the one to the other sea may not be interrupted 
 or embarrassed in any future time while this treaty exists." 
 
 In regard to the Tehuantepec route, which has been recently 
 opened under the most favorable auspices, our treaty with 
 Mexico of the 30th December, 1853, secures to the citizens 
 of the United States a right of transit over it for their persons 
 and merchandise, and stipulates that neither government shall 
 " interpose any obstacle" thereto. It also concedes to the 
 United States the "right to transport across the isthmus, in 
 closed bags, the mails of the United States not intended for 
 distribution along the line of the communication ; also, the 
 effects of the United States government and its citizens which 
 may be intended for transit, and not for distribution on the 
 isthmus, free of custom-house or other charges by the Mexican 
 government." 
 
 These treaty stipulations with New Granada and Mexico, in 
 addition to the considerations applicable to the Nicaragua 
 route, seem to require legislation for the purpose of carrying 
 them into effect. 
 
 The injaries which have been inflicted upon our citizens in 
 Costa Eica and Nicaragua, during the last two or three years, 
 
80 MESSAGES OF PRESIDENT BUCUANAN. 
 
 have received the prompt attention of this government. Some 
 of these injuries were of the most aggravated character. The 
 transaction at Virgin Bay, in April, 1856, when a company of 
 unarmed Americans, who were in no way connected with afiy 
 belligerent conduct or party, were fired upon by the troops of 
 Costa Eica, and numbers of them killed and wounded, was 
 brought to the knoM'ledge of Congress by my predecessor soon 
 after its occurrence, and was also presented to the government 
 of Costa Rica for that immediate investigation and redress 
 which the nature of the case demanded. A similar course was 
 pursued with reference to other outrages in these countries, 
 some of which were hardly less aggravated in their character 
 than the transaction at "Virgin Bay. At the time, however, 
 when our present minister to Nicaragua was appointed, in 
 December, 1857, no redress had been obtained for any of these 
 wrongs, and no reply even had been received to the demands 
 which had been made by this government upon that of Costa 
 Eica more than a year before. Our minister was instructed, 
 therefore, to lose no time in expressing to those governments 
 the deep regret with which the President had witnessed this 
 inattention to the just claims of the United States, and in de- 
 manding their prompt and satisfactory adjustment. Unless 
 this demand shall be complied with at an early day, it will 
 only remain for this government to adopt such other measures 
 as may be necessary, in order to obtain for itself that justice 
 which it has in vain attempted to secure by peaceful means 
 from the governments of Nicaragua and Costa Eica. While 
 it has shown, and will continue to show, the m'ost sincere re- 
 gard for the rights and honor of these republics, it cannot per- 
 mit this regard to be met by an utter neglect on their part, of 
 what is due to the government and citizens of the United 
 States. 
 
 Against New Granada we have long standing causes of com- 
 plaint, arising out of the unsatisfied claims of our citizens upon 
 that republic ; and to these have been more recently added 
 the outrages committed upon our citizens at Panama in April, 
 1856. A treaty for the adjustment of these difficulties was 
 concluded by the Secretary of State and the minister of New 
 Granada, in September, 1857, which contained just and ac- 
 
MESSAGES OP PRESIDENT BUCHAlirAIir. 81 
 
 ceptable provisions for that purpose. This treaty was trans- 
 mitted to Bogota, and was ratified by the government of ITew 
 Granada, but with certain amendments. It was not, however, 
 returned to this city until after the close of the last session, of 
 the Senate. It will be immediately transmitted to that body 
 for their advice and consent ; and should this be obtained, it 
 will remove all our existing causes of complaint against Ifew 
 Granada on the subject of claims. 
 
 Questions have arisen between the two governments, as to 
 the right of ^KTew Granada to levy a tonnage duty upon the 
 vessels of the United States in its ports of the isthmus, and to 
 levy a passenger tax upon our citizens arriving in that country, 
 whether with a design to remain there or to pass from ocean to 
 ocean by the transit route ; and also a tax upon the mail of 
 the United States transported over the Panama railroad. The 
 government of New Granada has been informed, that the 
 United States would consider the collection of either of these 
 taxes, as an act in violation of the treaty between the two 
 countries, and as such would be resisted by the United States. 
 At the same time, we are prepared to discuss these questions 
 in a spirit of amity and justice, and with a sincere desire to 
 adjust them in a satisfactory manner. A negotiation for that 
 purpose has already been commenced. No effort has recently 
 been made to collect these taxes, nor is any anticipated under 
 present circumstances. 
 
 With the empire of Brazil our relations are of the most 
 friendly character. The productions of the two countries, 
 and especially those of an agricultural nature, are such as to 
 invite extensive mutual exchanges. A large quantity of 
 American flour is consumed in Brazil, whilst more than treble 
 the amount in value of Brazilian coffee is consumed in the 
 United States. "Whilst this is the case, a heavy duty has been 
 levied, until very recently, upon the importation of American 
 flour into Brazil. I am gratifled, however, to be able to in- 
 form you that in September last this has bef^n reduced from 
 $1 32 to about forty-nine cents per barrel, and the duties on 
 other articles of our production have been diminished in nearly 
 the same proportion. 
 
 1 regret to state that the government of Brazil still con- 
 6 
 
82 MESSAGES OF PKESIDENT BTTOHANAH". 
 
 tinues to levy an export duty of about 11 per cent, on coffee, 
 notwithstanding this article is admitted free from duty in the 
 United States. This is a heavy charge upon the consumers of 
 coffee in our country, as we purchase half of the entire surplus 
 crop of that article raised in Brazil. Our minister, under in- 
 structions, will reiterate his efforts to have this export duty 
 removed ; and it is hoped that the enlightened government of 
 the Emperor will adopt this wise, just, and equal policy. In 
 that event, there is good reason to believe that the commerce 
 between the two countries will greatly increase, much to 'the 
 advantage of both. 
 
 The claims of our citizens against the government of Brazil 
 are not in the aggregate, of very large amount ; but some of 
 these rest upon plain principles of justice, and their settlement 
 ought not to be longer delayed. A renewed and earnest, and 
 I trust a successful effort will be made by our minister to pro- 
 cure their final adjustment. 
 
 On the 2d of June last. Congress passed a joint resolution 
 authorizing the President " to adopt such measures and use 
 such force as, in his judgment, may be necessary and advis- 
 able" "for the purpose of adjusting the differences between 
 the United States and the republic of Paraguay, in connection 
 with the attack on the United States steamer Water Witch, 
 and with other measures referred to' ' in his annual message. 
 And on the 12th of July following, they made an appropria- 
 tion to defray the expenses and compensation of a commis- 
 sioner to that republic, should the President deem it proper 
 to make such an appointment. 
 
 In compliance with these enactments, I have appointed a 
 commissioner, who has proceeded to Paraguay, with full 
 powers and instructions to settle these differences in an amica- 
 ble and peaceful manner, if this be practicable. His experi- 
 ence and discretion justify the hope that he may prove success- 
 ful in convincing the Paraguayan government that it is due 
 both to honor and justice, that they should voluntarily and 
 promptly make atonement for the wrongs which they have 
 committed against the United States, and indemnify our in- 
 jured citizens whom they have forcibly despoiled of their 
 property. 
 
MESSAGES OF PEESIDENT BUCHANAK. 83 
 
 Should our commissioner prove unsuccessful, after a sincere 
 and earnest effort to accomplish the object of his mission, 
 then no alternative will remain but the employment of force 
 to obtain "just satisfaction" from Paraguay. In view of 
 this contingency, the Secretary of the Navy, under my direc- 
 tion, has fitted out and despatched a naval force, to rendez- 
 vous near Buenos Ayres, which, it is believed, will prove 
 sufficient for the occasion. It ie my earnest desire, however, 
 that it may not be found necessary to resort to this last alter- 
 native. 
 
 "When Congress met in December last, the business of the 
 country had just been crushed by one of those periodical re- 
 vulsions which are the inevitable consequence of our unsound 
 and extravagant system of bank credits and inflated currency. 
 With all the elements of national wealth in abundance, our 
 manufactures were suspended, our useful public and private 
 enterprises were arrested, and thousands of laborers were de- 
 prived of employment and reduced to want. Universal dis- 
 tress prevailed among the commercial, manufacturing, and 
 mechanical classes. This revulsion was felt the more severely 
 in the United States, because similar causes had produced the 
 like deplorable effects throughout the commercial nations of 
 Europe. All were experiencing sad reverses at the same 
 moment. Our manufacturers everywhere suffered severely, 
 not because of the recent reduction in the tariff of duties on 
 imports, but because there was no demand at any price for 
 their productions. The people were obliged to restrict them- 
 selves in their purchases, to articles of prime necessity. In 
 the general prostration of business the iron manufacturers in 
 different States probably suffered more than any other class, 
 and much destitution was the inevitable consequence among 
 the great number of workmen who had been employed, in thig 
 useful branch of industry. There could be no supply where 
 there was no demand. To present an example, there could 
 be no demand for railroad iron, after our magnificent system 
 of railroads, extending its benefits to every portion of the 
 Union, had been brought to a dead pause. The same conse- 
 quences have resulted from similar causes to many other 
 ■branches of useful manufactures. It is self-evident that 
 
84 MESSAGES OF PEESIDENT BUCHAWAIf. 
 
 where there is no ability to purchase ■ manufactured articles, 
 these cannot be sold, and consequently must cease to be pro- 
 duced. 
 
 No government, and especially a government of such lim- 
 ited powers as that of the United States, could have prevented 
 the late revulsion. The whole commercial world seemed for 
 years to have been rushing to this catastrophe. The same 
 ruinous consequences would have followed in the United 
 States, whether the duties upon foreign imports had remained 
 as they were under the tarifE of 1846, or had been raised to a 
 much higher standard. The tariff of 185T had no agency in 
 the result. The general causes existing throughout the world, 
 could not have been controlled by the legislation of any par- 
 ticular country. 
 
 The periodical revulsions which have existed in our past 
 history, must continue to return at intervals, so long as our 
 present unbounded system of bank credits shall prevail. They 
 will, however, probably be the less severe in future ; because 
 it is not to be expected, at least for many years to come, that 
 the commercial nations of Europe, with whose interests our 
 own are so materially involved, will expose tliemselves to sim- 
 ilar calamities. But this subject was treated so much at large 
 in my last annual message that I shall not now pursiie it 
 further. Still, I respectfully renew the recommendation in 
 favor of the passage of a uniform bankrupt law, applicable to 
 banking institutions. This is all the direct power over the 
 subject which, I believe, the federal government possesses. 
 Such a law would mitigate, though it might not prevent the 
 evil. The instinct of self-preservation might produce a whole- 
 some restraint upon their banking business, if they knew in ad- 
 vance that a suspension of specie payments would inevitably 
 produce their civil death. 
 
 Eut the effects of the revulsion are now slowly but surely 
 passing away. The energy and enterprise of our citizens with 
 our unbounded resources, will, within the period of another 
 year, restore a state of wholesome industry and trade. Capi- 
 tal has again accumulated in our large cities. The rate of in- 
 terest is there very low. Confidence is gradually reviving, 
 and so soon asjt is discovered that this capital can be profit- ' 
 
MESSAGES OP PRESIDENT BUCHANAN. 85 
 
 ably employed in commercial and manufacturing enterprises, 
 and in the construction of railroads and other works of public 
 and private improvement, prosperity will again smile through- 
 out the land. It is vain, however, to disguise the fact from 
 ourselves, that a speculative inflation of our currency, without 
 a corresponding inflation in other countries whose manufac- 
 tures come into competition with our own, must ever produce 
 disastrous results to our domestic manufactures. ISTo tariff 
 short of absolute prohibition can prevent these evil conse- 
 quences. 
 
 In connection with this subject, it is proper to refer to our 
 financial condition. The same causes which have produced 
 pecuniary distress throughout the country, have so reduced 
 the amount of imports from foreign countries, that the rev- 
 enue has proved inadequate to meet the necessary expenses of 
 the government. To supply the deficiency. Congress, by the 
 act of December 23, 1857, authorized the issue of $20,000,000 
 of Treasury notes ; and this proving inadequate, they author- 
 ized, by the act of June M, 1858, a loan of $20,000,000 " to 
 be applied to the payment of appropriations made by law." 
 
 'No statesman would advise that we should go on increasing 
 the national debt to meet the ordinary expenses of the govern- 
 ment. This would be a most ruinous policy. In case of war 
 our credit must be our chief resource, at least for the first 
 year, and this would be greatly impaired by having contracted 
 a large debt in time of peace. It is our true policy to increase 
 our revenue so as to equal our expenditures.. It would be 
 ruinous to continue to borrow. Besides it may be proper to 
 observe that the incidental protection thus afforded by a rev- 
 enue tariff would at the present moment, to some extent, in- 
 crease the confidence of the manufacturing interests, and give 
 a fresh impulse to our reviving business. To this surely no 
 person will object. 
 
 In regard to the mode of assessing and collecting duties 
 under a strictly revenue tariff, I have long entertained and 
 often expressed the opinion that sound policy requires this 
 should be done by specific duties, in cases to which these can 
 be properly applied. They are well adapted to commodities 
 which are usually sold by weight or by measure, and which 
 
86 MESSAGES OF PEESIDENT BUOHAWAN. 
 
 from their nature, are of equal or of nearly equal value. Such, 
 for example, are the articles of iron of different classes, raw- 
 sugar, and foreign wines and spirits. 
 
 In mj deliberate judgment, specific duties are the best, if 
 not the only means of securing the revenue against false and 
 f raudiilent invoices, and such has been the practice adopted 
 for this purpose by other commercial nations. Besides, specific 
 duties would afford to the American manufacturer the inci- 
 dental advantages to which he is fairly entitled under a rev- 
 enue tariff. The present system is a sliding scale to his disad- 
 vantage. Under it, when prices are high and business pros- 
 perous, the duties rise in amount when he least requires their 
 aid. On the contrary, when prices fall and he is struggling 
 against a;dversity, the duties are diminished in the same pro- 
 portion, greatly to his injury. 
 
 Neither would there be danger that a higher rate of duty 
 than that intended by Congress, could be levied in the form 
 of specific duties. It would be easy to ascertain the average 
 value of any imported article for a series of years ; and, instead 
 of subjecting it to an ad valorem duty at a certain rate per 
 centum, to substitute in its place an equivalent specific duty. 
 
 By such an arrangement the consumer would not be injured. 
 It is true, he might have to pay a little more duty on a given 
 article in one year ; but if so, he would pay a little less in 
 another, and in a series of years these would counterbalance 
 each other, and amount to the same thing so far as his intei-est 
 is concerned. This inconvenience would be trifling when con- 
 trasted with the additional security thus afforded against frauds 
 upon the revenue, in which every consumer is directly inter- 
 ested. 
 
 I have thrown out these suggestions as the fruit of my own 
 observation, to which Congress, in their better judgment, will 
 give such weight as they may justly deserve. 
 
 The report of the Secretary of the Treasury will explain in 
 detail the operations of that department of the government. 
 The receipts into the treasury from all sources during the fiscal 
 year ending June 30, 1858, including the treasury notes 
 authorized by the act of December 23, 1857, were seventy 
 million two hundred and seventy -three thousand eight hundred 
 
MESSAGES OP PRESIDENT BTTCHAJSTAK. 87 
 
 and sixty-nine dollars and fifty-nine cents, ($70,273,869 59,) 
 •which amount, with the balance of seventeen million seven 
 hundred and ten thousand one hundred and fourteen dollars 
 and twenty-seven cents ($17,710,114 27) remaining in the 
 treasury at the commencement of the year, made an aggregate 
 for the service of the year of eighty-seven million nine hun- 
 dred and eighty-three thousand nine hundred and eighty-three 
 dollars and eighty-six cents, ($87,983,983 86.) 
 
 The public expenditures during the fiscal year ending June 
 30, 1858, amounted to eighty-one million five hundred and 
 eighty-five thousand six hundred and sixty-seven dollars and 
 seventy-six cents, ($81,585,667 76,) of which nine million six 
 hundred and eighty-four thousand five hiindred and thirty- 
 seven dollars and ninety-nine cents ($9,684,537 99) were ap- 
 plied to the payment of the public debt, and the redemption 
 of treasury notes with the interest thereon, leaving in the 
 treasury on July 1, 1858, being the commencement of the 
 present fiscal year, six million three hundred and ninety-eight 
 thousand three hundred and sixteen dollars and ten cents, 
 ($6,398,316 10.) 
 
 The receipts into the treasury, during the first quarter of 
 the present fiscal year, commencing the 1st of July, 1858, in- 
 cluding one-half of the loan of twenty million dollars, with 
 the premium upon it, authorized by the act of June 14, 1858, 
 were twenty-five million two hundred and thirty thousand 
 eight hundred and seventy-nine dollars and forty-six cents, 
 ($25,230,879 46,) and the estimated receipts for the remaining 
 three quarters to the 30th of June, 1859, from ordinary 
 sources, are thirty -eight million five hundred thousand dollars, 
 ($38,500,000,) making with the balance before stated an 
 aggregate of seventy million one hundred and twenty-nine 
 thousand one hundred and ninety-five dollars and fifty-six 
 cents, ($70,129,195 56.) 
 
 The expenditures, during the first quarter of the present 
 fiscal year, were twenty-one million seven hundred and eight 
 thousand one hundred and ninety-eight dollars and fifty-one 
 cents, ($21,708,198 51 ;) of which one milhon and ten thou- 
 sand one hundred and forty-two dollars and thirty-seven cents 
 ($1,010,142 37) were applied to the payment of the public 
 
88 MESSAGES OP PRESIDENT BUOHANAN. 
 
 debt and the redemption of treasury notes and the interest 
 thereon. The estimated expenditures, during the remaining 
 three quarters to June 30, 1859, are fifty-two million three 
 hundred and fifty- seven thousand six hundred and ninety- 
 eight dollars and forty-eight cents, ($52,357,698 48,) making 
 an aggregate of seventy-four million sixty-five thousand eight 
 hundred and ninety-six dollars and ninety-nine cents, ($74,- 
 065,896 99,) being an excess of expenditure, beyond the esti- 
 mated receipts into the treasury from ordinary sources, during 
 the fiscal year to the 30th of June, 1859, of three million nine 
 hundred and thirty-six thousand seven hundred and one dollars 
 and forty-three cents, ($3,936,701 43.) Extraordinary means 
 are placed by law within the command of the Secretary of the 
 Treasury, by the reissue of treasury notes redeemed, and by 
 negotiating the balance of the loan authorized by the act of 
 June 14, 1858, to the extent of eleven millions of dollars, 
 which, if realized during the present fiscal year, will leave a 
 balance in the treasury, on the first day of July, 1859, of 
 seven million sixty-three thousand two hundred and ninety- 
 eight dollars and fifty-seven cents, ($7,063,298 57.) 
 
 The estimated receipts during the next fiscal year ending 
 June 30, 1860, are sixty-two millions of dollars, ($62,000,000) 
 which, with the above estimated balance of seven million 
 sixty-three thousand two hundred and ninety-eight dollars and 
 fifty-seven cents, ($7,063,298 57,) make an aggregate for the 
 service of the next fiscal year of sixty-nine million sixty-three 
 thousand two hundred and ninety-eight dollars and .fifty-seven 
 cents, ($69,063,298 57.) The estimated expenditures during 
 the next fiscal year ending June 30, 1860, are seventy-three 
 million one hundred and thirty-nine thousand one hundred 
 and forty-seven dollars and forty-six cents, ($73,139,147 46,) 
 which leave a deficit of estimated means, compared with the 
 estimated expenditures for that year, commencing on July 1, 
 1859, of four million seventy-five thousand eight hundred and 
 forty-eight dollars and eighty-nine cents, ($4,075,848 89.) 
 
 In addition to this sum, the Postmaster General will require 
 from the treasury, for the service of the Post Office Depart- 
 ment, three million eight hundred and tliirty-eight thousand 
 seven hundred and twenty-eight dollars, ($3,838,728,) as ex- 
 
MESSAGES OF PRESIDENT BUCHANAN. 89 
 
 plained in the report of the Secretary of the Treasury, which 
 will increase the estimated deficit on June 30, 1860, to seven 
 million nine hundred and fourteen thousand five hundred and 
 seventy-six dollars and eighty-nine cents, ($7,914,576 89.) 
 To provide for the payment of this estimated deficiency, which 
 will be increased by such appropriations as may be made by 
 Congress, not estimated for in the report of the Treasury 
 Department, as well as to provide for the gradual redemption, 
 from year to year, of the out-standing treasury notes, the 
 Secretary of the Treasury recommends such a revision of the 
 present tariff as will raise the required amount. After what 
 I have already said, I need scarcely add that I concur in the 
 opinion expressed in his report — that the public debt should 
 not be increased by an additional loan — and would therefore 
 strongly urge upon Congress the duty of making, at their 
 present session, the necessary provision for meeting these 
 liabilities. 
 
 The public debt on July 1, 1858, the commencement of the 
 present fiscal year, was $25,155,977 66. 
 
 During the first quarter of the present year the sum of 
 $10,000,000 has been negotiated of the loan authorized by the 
 act of June 14, 1858 — making the present outstanding public 
 debt, exclusive of treasury notes, $35,155,977 66. There 
 was, on the 1st of July, 1858, of treasury notes issued by 
 authority of the act of December 23, 1857, unredeemed, the 
 sum of $19,754,800, making the amount of actual indebted- 
 ness at that date $54,910,777 66. To this will be added 
 $10,000,000 during the present fiscal year — this being the re- 
 maining half of the loan of $20,000,000 not yet negotiated. 
 
 The rapid increase of the public debt, and the necessity 
 which exists for a modification of the tariff, to meet even the 
 ordinary expenses of the government, ought to admonish us 
 all, in our respective spheres of duty, to the practice of rigid 
 economy. The objects of expenditure should be limited in 
 number, as far as this may be practicable, and the appropria- 
 tipns necessary to carry them into effect ought to be disbursed 
 under the strictest accountability. Enlightened economy does 
 not consist in the refusal to appropriate money for constitu- 
 tional purposes essential to the defence, progress, and pros- 
 
90 MESSAGES OP PEESIDENT BtrCHANAIf. 
 
 perity of the republic, but "in taking care that none of this 
 money shall be wasted by mismanagement in its application to 
 the objects designated by law. 
 
 Comparisons between the annual expenditure at the present 
 time and what it was ten or twenty years ago are altogether 
 fallacious. The rapid increase of our country in extent and 
 population renders a corresponding increase of expenditure, to 
 some extent, unavoidable. This is constantly creating new ob- 
 jects of expenditure and augmenting the amount required for 
 the old. The true questions, then, are, have these objects been 
 unnecessarily multiplied ? or has the amount expended upon 
 any or all of them been larger than comports with due econ- 
 omy ? In accordance with these principles, the heads of the 
 different Executive departments of the government have been 
 instructed to reduce their estimates for the next fiscal year to 
 the lowest standard consistent with the efiBciency of the ser- 
 vice, and this duty they have performed in a spirit of just 
 economy. The estimates of the Treasury, War, Wavy, and 
 Interior Departments, have each been in some degree re- 
 duced ; and unless a sudden and unforeseen emergency should 
 arise, it is not anticipated that a deficiency will exist in either 
 within the present or the next fiscal year. The Post Office 
 Department is placed in a peculiar position, different from the 
 other departments, and to this I shall hereafter refer. 
 
 I invite Congress to institute a rigid scrutiny to ascertain 
 whether the expenses in all the departments cannot be still 
 further reduced ; and I promise them all the aid in my power 
 in pursuing the investigation. 
 
 I transmit herewith the reports made to me by the Secre- 
 taries of War, of the Navy, of the Interior, and of the Post- 
 master General. They each contain valuable information and 
 important recommendations, to which I invite the attention of 
 Congress. 
 
 In my last annual message, I took occasion to recommend 
 the immediate construction of ten small steamers, of light 
 draught, for the purpose of increasing the efficiency of the 
 navy. Congress responded to the recommendation by author- 
 izing the construction of eight of them. The progress which 
 has been made in executing this authority is stated in the re- 
 
MESSAGES OF PRESIDEH-T BTJOHANAIir. 91 
 
 port of the Secretary of the Navy. I concur with him in the 
 opinion that a greater number of this class of vessels is neces- 
 sary, for the purpose of protecting in a more efficient manner 
 the persons and property of American citizens on the high 
 seas and in foreign countries, as well as in guarding more 
 effectually our own coasts. 1 accordingly recommend the 
 passage of an act for this purpose. 
 
 The suggestions contained in the report of the Secretary of 
 the Interior, especially those in regard to the disposition of 
 the public domain, the pension and bounty land system, the 
 policy towards the Indians, and the amendment of our patent 
 laws, are worthy of the serious consideration of Congress. 
 
 The Post Office Department occupies a position very differ- 
 ent from that of the other departments. For many years it 
 was the pohcy of the government to I'ender this a self-sustain- 
 ing department ; and if this cannot now be accomplished, in 
 the present condition of the country, we ought to make as 
 near an approach to it as may be practicable. 
 
 The Postmaster General is placed in a most embarrassing 
 position by the existing laws. He is obliged to carry these 
 into effect. He has no other alternative. He finds, however, 
 that this cauaot be done without heavy demands upon the 
 treasury over and above what is received for postage ; and 
 these have been progressively increasing from year to year 
 until they amounted for the last fiscal year, ending on the 
 30th of June, 1858, to more than four millions and a half of 
 dollars ; whilst it is estimated that for the present fiscal year 
 they will amount to $6,290,000. These sums are exclusive 
 of the annual appropriation of $700,000 for " compensation 
 for the mail service performed for the two houses of Congress 
 and the other departments and officers of the government in 
 the transmission of free matter." 
 
 The cause of these large deficits is mainly attributable to 
 the increased expense of transporting the mails. In 1852 the 
 sum paid for this service was but a fraction above four milHons 
 and a quarter. Since that year it has annually increased until 
 in 1858 it has reached more than eight millions and a quarter ; 
 and for the service of 1859 it is estimated that it will amount 
 to more than ten millions of dollars. 
 
92 MESSAGES OF PRESIDENT BUCHANAN. 
 
 The receipts of the Post Office Department can be made to 
 approach or to equal its expenditure only by means of the 
 legislation of Congress. In applying any remedy care should 
 be taken that the people shall not be deprived of the advan- 
 tages which they are fairly entitled to enjoy from the Post 
 Office Department. The principal remedies recommended to 
 the consideration of Congress hy the Postmaster General, are 
 to restore the former rate of postage upon single letters to five 
 cents ; to substitute for the franking privilege the delivery, 
 to those now entitled to enjoy it, of post office stamps for 
 their correspondence, and to direct the department in making 
 contracts for the transportation of the mail, to confine itself 
 to the payment of the sum necessary for this single purpose, 
 without requiring it to be transported in post coaches or car- 
 riages of any particular description. Under the present system 
 the expense to the Government is greatly increased, by requir- 
 ing that the mail shall be carried in such vehicles as will 
 accommodate passengers. This will be done, without pay 
 from the department, over all roads where the travel will re- 
 munerate the contractors. 
 
 These recommendations deserve the grave consideration of 
 Congress. 
 
 I would again call your attention to the construction of a 
 Pacific railroad. Time and reflection have but served to con- 
 firm me in the truth and justice of the observations which I 
 made on this subject in my last annual message, to which I 
 beg leave respectfully to refer. 
 
 It is freely admitted that it would be inexpedient for this 
 government to exercise the power of constructing the Pacific 
 railroad by its own immediate agents. Such a policy would 
 increase the patronage of the Executive to a dangerous ex- 
 tent, and introduce a system of jobbing and corruption which 
 no vigilance on the part of federal officials could either pre- 
 vent or detect. This can only be done by the keen eye and 
 active and careful siipervision of individual and private inter- 
 est. The construction of this road ought, therefore, to be 
 committed to companies incorporated by the States, or other 
 agencies whose pecuniary interests would be directly involved. 
 Congress might then assist them in the work by grants of land 
 
MESSAGES OF PRESIDENT B0CHANAK. 93 
 
 or of money, or both, under such conditions and restrictions 
 as would secure the transportation of troops and munitions of 
 war free from any charge, and that of the United States mail 
 at a fair and reasonable price. 
 
 The progress of events since the commencement of your last 
 session has shown how soon difficulties disappear before a firm 
 and determined resolution. At that time such a road was 
 deemed by wise and patriotic men to be a visionary project. 
 The great distance to be overcome, and the intervening moun- 
 tains and deserts in the way, were obstacles which, in the 
 opinion of many, could not be surmounted. Now, after the 
 lapse of but a single year, these obstacles, it has been discov- 
 ered, are far less formidable than they were supposed to be ; 
 and mail stages with passengers, now pass and repass regularly 
 twice in each week, by a common wagon road, between San 
 Francisco and St. Louis and Memphis, in less than twenty-five 
 days. The service has been as regularly performed as it was 
 in former years, between New York and this city. 
 
 Whilst disclaiming all authority to appropriate money for 
 the construction of this road, except that derived from the 
 war-making power of the Constitution, there are important 
 collateral considerations urging us to undertake the work as 
 speedily as possible. 
 
 The first and most momentous of these is that such a road 
 would be a powerful bond of union between the States east 
 and west of the Rocky mountains. This is so self-evident as 
 to require no illustration. 
 
 But again, in a commercial point of view, I consider this 
 the great question of the day. With the eastern front of our 
 republic stretching along the Atlantic, and its western front 
 along the Pacific, if all the parts should be united by a safe, 
 easy, and rapid intercommunication, we must necessarily com- 
 mand a very large proportion of the trade both of Europe and 
 Asia. Our recent treaties with China and Japan will open 
 these rich and populous empires to our commerce ; and the 
 history of the world proves that the nation which has gained 
 possession of the trade with Eastern Asia, has always become 
 wealthy and powerful. The peculiar geographical position of 
 California and our Pacific possessions, invites American cap- 
 
94 MESSAGES OE PRESIDENT BUCHAWAIT. 
 
 ital and enterprise into this fruitful field. To reap the rich 
 harvest, however, it is an indispensable prerequisite, that we 
 shall first have a railroad to convey and circulate its products 
 throughout every portion of the Union. Besides, such a rail- 
 road through our temperate latitude, which would not be im- 
 peded by the frosts and snows of winter, nor by the j;ropical 
 heats of summer, would attract to itself much of the travel and 
 the trade of all nations passing between Europe and Asia. 
 
 On the 21st of August last. Lieutenant J. N. MaflBt, of the 
 United States brig Dolphin, captured the slaver "Echo," 
 (formerly the Putnam, of New Orleans,) near Kay Verde, on 
 the coast of Cuba, with more than three hundred African 
 negroes on board. The prize, imder the command of Lieu- 
 tenant Bradford of the United States navy, arrived at Charles- 
 ton on the 27th August ; when the negroes, three hundred 
 and six in number, were delivered into the custody of the 
 United States marshal for the district of South Carolina. 
 They were first placed in Castle Pinckney, and afterwards in 
 Fort Sumter, for safe-keeping, and were detained there until 
 the 19th September, when the survivors, two hundred and sev- 
 enty-one in number, were delivered on board the United States 
 steamer Niagara, to be transported to the coast of Africa, 
 under the charge of the agent of the United States, pursuant 
 to the provisions of the act of the 3d March, 1819, ' ' in addi- 
 tion to the acts prohibiting the slave trade." Under the 2d 
 section of this act, the President is " authorized to make such 
 regulations and arrangements as he may deem expedient, for 
 the safe-keeping, support, and removal beyond the limits of 
 the United States, of all such negroes, mulattoes, or persons 
 of color," captured by vessels of the United States, as may be 
 delivered to the marshal of the district into which they are 
 brought ; " and to appoint a proper person or persons residing 
 upon the coast of Africa, as agent or agents for receiving the 
 negroes, mulattoes, or persons of color, delivered from on 
 board vessels seized in the prosecution of the slave trade by 
 commanders of the United States armed vessels." 
 
 A. doubt immediately arose as to the true construction of this 
 act. It is quite clear from its terms that the President was 
 authorized to provide " for the safe-keeping, support, and re- 
 
MESSAGES OP PEESIDENT BUCHANAN. 95 
 
 nioval " of these negroes up till the time of their delivery to 
 the agent on the coast of Africa ; but no express provision was 
 made for their protection and support after they had reached 
 the place of their destination. Still, an agent was to be ap- 
 pointed to receive them in Africa, and it could not have been 
 supposed that Congress intended he should desert them at the 
 moment tliey were received, and turn them loose on that in- 
 hospitable coast to perish for want of food or to become again 
 the victims of the slave trade. Had this been the intention 
 of Congress, the employment of an agent to receive them, 
 who is required to reside on the coast, was unnecessary, and 
 they might have been landed by our vessels anywhere in 
 Africa and left exposed to the sufferings and the fate which 
 would certainly await them. 
 
 Mr. Monroe, in his special message of December 17, 1819, 
 at the first session after the act was passed, announced to Con- 
 gress what, in his opinion, was its true construction. He 
 believed it to be his duty under it to follow these unfortunates 
 into Africa, and make provision for them there until they 
 should be able to provide for themselves. In communicating 
 this interpretation of the act to Congress he stated that some 
 doubt had been entertained as to its true intent and meaning, 
 and he submitted the question to them, so that they might, 
 " should it be deemed advisable, amend the same before 
 further proceedings are had under it." Nothing was done by 
 Congress to explain the act, and Mr. Monroe proceeded to 
 carry it into execution according to his own interpretation. 
 This, then, became the practical construction. When the 
 Africans from on board the Echo were delivered to the mar- 
 shal at Charleston it became my duty to consider what disposi- 
 tion ought to be made of them under the law. For many 
 reasons it was expedient to remove them from that locality as 
 speedily as possible. Although the conduct of the authorities 
 and citizens of Charleston in giving countenance to the execu- 
 tion of the law was just what might have been expected from 
 their high character, yet a prolonged continuance of three 
 hundred Africans in the immediate vicinity of that city could 
 not have failed to become a source of inconvenience and 
 anxiety to its inhabitants. "Where to send them, was the ques- 
 
96 MESSAGES OF PRESIDENT BUCHANAlSr. 
 
 tion. There was no portion of the coast of Africa, to which 
 they could be removed with any regard to humanity, except 
 to Liberia. Under these circumstances, an agreement was 
 entered into with the Colonization Society on the 7th of Sep- 
 tember last, a copy of which is herewith transmitted, under 
 which the Society engaged, for the. consideration of forty-five 
 thousand dollars, to receive these Africans in Liberia from the 
 agent of the United States, and furnish them during the period 
 of one year thereafter, with comfortable shelter, clothing, 
 provisions, and medical attendance, causing the children to re- 
 ceive schooling ; and all, whether children or adults, to be 
 instructed in the arts of civilized life suitable to their condi- 
 tion. This aggregate of forty -five thousand dollars was based 
 upon an allowance of one hundred and fifty dollars for each 
 individual, and as there has been considerable mortality among 
 them, and may be more before they reach Africa, the society 
 have agreed, in an equitable spirit, to make such a deduction 
 from the amount, as under the circumstances may appear just 
 and reasonable. This cannot be fixed until we shall ascertain 
 the actual number which may become a charge to the society. 
 
 It was also distinctly agreed, that, under no circumstances 
 shall this government be called upon for any additional ex- 
 penses. 
 
 The agents of the society manifested a laudable desire to 
 conform to the wishes of the government, throughout the 
 transaction. They assured me that, after a careful calculation, 
 they would be required to expend the sum of one hundred 
 and fifty dollars on each individual in complying with the 
 agreement, and they would have nothing left to remunerate 
 them for their care, trouble, and responsibility. At all events, 
 I could make no better arrangement, and there was no other 
 alternative. During the period when the government itself, 
 through its own agents, undertook the task of providing for 
 captured negroes in Africa, the cost per head was very much 
 greater. 
 
 There having been no outstanding appropriation applicable 
 to this purpose, 1 could not advance any money on the agree- 
 ment. I therefore recommend that an appropriation may be 
 made of the amount necessary to carry it into effect. 
 
MESSAGES OE PRESIDENT BUCHANATST. 97 
 
 Other captures of a similar character may, and probably will 
 be made by our naval forces ; and I earnestly recommend that 
 Congress may amend the second section of the act of March 3, 
 1819, so as to free its construction from the ambiguity which 
 has so long existed, and render the duty of the President plain 
 in executing its provisions. 
 
 I recommend to your favorable regard the local interests of 
 the District of Columbia. As the residence of Congress and 
 the Executive departments of the government, we cannot fail 
 to feel a deep concern in its welfare. This is heightened by 
 the high character and the peaceful and orderly conduct of its 
 resident inhabitants. 
 
 1 cannot conclude without performing the agreeable duty of 
 expressing my gratification that Congress so kindly responded 
 to the recommendation of my last annual message, by afford- 
 ing me sufficient time before the close of their late session for 
 the examination of all the bills presented to me for approval. 
 This change in the practice of Congress has proved to be a 
 wholesome reform. It exerted a beneficial influence on the 
 transaction of legislative business, and elicited the general 
 approbation of the country. It enabled Congress to adjourn 
 with that dignity and deliberation so becoming to the repre- 
 sentatives of this great republic, without having crowded into 
 general appropriation bills provisions foreign to their nature, 
 and of doubtful constitutionality and expediency. Let me 
 warmly and strongly commend this precedent, established by 
 themselves, as a guide to their proceedings during the present 
 
 session. 
 
 JAMES BTJCHANAK 
 
 Washington Crrr, December 6, 1858. 
 7 
 
ANNUAL MESSAGE TO THE TWO HOUSES OF 
 
 CONGEESS AT THE COMMENCEMENT 
 
 OF THE FIEST SESSION OF THE 
 
 THIETY-SIXTH CONGRESS. 
 
 Our gratitude due to Almighty God for the past year's blessings.— Outbreak 
 at Harper's Ferry. — A warning to cultivate good-will and allay the spirit 
 of sectional hatred. — Congratulations upon the final adjudication by the 
 Supreme Court of the question of slavery in the Territories. — The African 
 slave trade. — The fathers of the Bepublio in advance of all other nations 
 condemned it. — History of its abolition. — Its miseries depicted. — Treaty 
 with China. — Difficulties with Paraguay satisfactorily adjusted.— The ex- 
 penses of the Naval expedition nearly wholly defrayed out of the ordinary 
 appropriation for the Navy. — Relations with Russia and France. — Rela- 
 tions with Spain still unsatisfactory. — Acquisition of Cuba still urged on 
 Congress. — Great Britain, and difficulty in regard to the Island of San 
 Juan under the Oregon Treaty of 15th June, 1846. — Amicable arrange- 
 ment for the present in regard thereto. — Unsatisfactory state of our rela- 
 tions with Mexico, and the President's recommendation of assistance to 
 the Constitutional government of Juarez. — Treaty with Nicaragua. — The 
 Transit routes. — The President asks Congress for authority to employ the 
 Navy to protect American merchant vessels, crews, and cargoes against 
 violent and lawless seizure and confiscation in the ports of Mexico and 
 South American States. — Post Office Deficiency Bill which Congress failed 
 to pass at its last session. — Grave complications possible from such non- 
 action. — Again expresses a decided opinion in favor of a prompt con- 
 struction of the Pacific railway, and assigns his reasons therefor. — State of 
 the Federal Treasury. — Economy urged. — Ascertained and estimated ex- 
 penditures of the Government for the year ending June 30th, 1861, $53,- 
 451,744.89, or with interest on public debt, $61,002,733.99.— Reports of 
 the several Departments. — District of Columbia. 
 
 Fellow -citisens of the Senate and House of Represental/ives : 
 
 Our deep and heartfelt gratitude is due to that Almighty 
 Power which has bestowed upon us such varied and numer- 
 ous blessings throughout the past year. The general health 
 of the country has been excellent : our harvests have been 
 unusually plentiful, and prosperity smiles throughout the land. 
 
MESSAGES OF PRESIDENT BUCHANA3S". 99 
 
 Indeed, notwithstanding our demerits, we have much reason 
 to helieve, from the past events in our history, that we have 
 enjoyed the special protection of Divine Providence ever since 
 our origin as a nation. We have been exposed to mapy 
 threatening and alarming difficulties in our progress, but on 
 each successive occasion the impending cloud has been dissi- 
 pated at the moment it appeared ready to burst upon our head, 
 and the danger to our institutions has passed away. May we 
 ever be under the Divine guidance and protection ! 
 
 Whilst it is the duty of the President, " from time to time, 
 to give to Congress information of the state of the Union," I 
 shall not refer in detail to the recent sad and bloody occur- 
 rences at Harper's Ferry. Still, it is proper to observe that 
 these events, however bad and cruel in themselves, derive 
 their chief importance from the apprehension that they are 
 but symptoms of an incurable disease in the public mind, 
 which may break out in still more dangerous outrages, and 
 terminate, at last, in an open war by the North to abolish 
 slavery in the South. 
 
 Whilst, for myself, I entertain no such .apprehension, they 
 ought to afford a solemn warning to us all to beware of the 
 approach of danger. Our Union is a stake of such inesti- 
 mable value as to demand our constant and watchful vigilance 
 for its preservation. In this view, let me implore my country- 
 men, North and South, to cultivate the ancient feelings of 
 mutual forbearance and good will toward each other, and 
 strive to allay the demon-spirit of sectional hatred and strife 
 now alive in the land. This advice proceeds from the heart 
 of an old public functionary whose service commenced in the 
 last generation, among the wise and conservative statesmen of 
 that day, now nearly all passed away, and whose first and 
 dearest earthly wish is to leave his country tranquil, prosper- 
 ous, united, and powerful. 
 
 We ought to reflect that in this age, and especially in this 
 country, there is an incessant flux and reflux of public opin- 
 ion. Questions which in their day assumed a most threaten- 
 ing aspect have now nearly gone from the memory of men. 
 They are " volcanoes burnt out, and on the lava and ashes 
 and squalid scoria of old eruptions grow the peaceful olive, 
 
100 MESSAGES -OF PRESIDENT BUCHANAN. 
 
 the cheering vine, and the sustaining corn." Such, in my 
 opinion, will prove to be the fate of the present sectional ex- 
 citement should those who wisely seek to apply the remedy 
 continue always to confine their efforts within the pale of the 
 Constitution. If this course be pursued, the existing agitation 
 on the subject of domestic slavery, like everything human, 
 will have its day, and give place to other and less threatening 
 controversies. Public opinion in this country is all powerful, 
 and when it reaches a dangerous excess, upon any question, 
 the good sense of the people will furnish the corrective, and 
 bring it back within safe limits. Still, to hasten this auspi- 
 cious result at the present crisis, we ought to remember that 
 every rational creature must be presumed to intend the natural 
 consequences of his own teachings. Those who announce 
 abstract doctrines subversive of the Constitution and the Union 
 must not be surprised should their heated partisans advance 
 one step further and attempt by violence to carry these doc- 
 trines into practical effect. In this view of the subject it 
 ought never to be forgotten that however great may have been 
 the political advantages resulting from the Union to every 
 portion of our common country, these would all prove to be 
 as nothing should the time ever arrive when they cannot be 
 enjoyed without serious danger to the personal safety of the 
 people of fifteen members of the confederacy. If the peace 
 of the domestic fireside throughout these States should ever 
 be invaded — if the mothers of families within this extensive 
 region should not be able to retire to rest at night without 
 suffering dreadful apprehensions of what may be their own 
 fate and that of their children before the morning— it would 
 be vain to recount to such a people the political benefits which 
 result to them from the Union. Self-preservation is the first 
 instinct of nature, and therefore any state of society in which 
 the sword is all the time suspended over the heads of the 
 people must at last become intolerable. But I indulge in no 
 such gloomy forebodings. On the contrary, I firmly believe 
 that the events at Harper's Ferry, by causing the people to 
 pause and reflect upon the possible peril to their cherished 
 institutions, will be the means, under Providence, of allaying 
 the existing excitement and preventing further outbreaks of a 
 
MESSAGES OF PRESIDENT BUCHANAN. 101 
 
 similar character. They will resolve that the Constitution and 
 the Union shall not be endangered by rash counsels, knowing 
 that should " the silver cord be loosed or the golden bowl be 
 broken * * * at the fountain," human power could never re- 
 unite the scattered and hostile fragments. 
 
 I cordially congratulate you upon the final settlement, by 
 the Supreme Court of the United States, of the question of 
 slavery in the Territories, which had presented an aspect so 
 truly formidable at the commencement of my administration. 
 The right has been established of every citizen to take his 
 property of any kind, including slaves, into the common 
 Territories belonging equally to all the States of the confed- 
 eracy, and to have it protected there under the Federal Con- 
 stitution. Neither Congress, nor a territorial legislature, nor 
 any human power, has any authority to annul or impair this 
 vested right. The supreme judicial tribunal of the country, 
 which is a coordinate branch of the government, has sanctioned 
 and affirmed these principles of constitutional law, so mani- 
 festly just in themselves, and so well calculated to promote 
 peace and harmony among the States. It is a striking proof 
 of the sense of justice which is inherent in our people, that 
 the property in slaves has never been disturbed, to my knowl- 
 edge, in any of the Territories. Even throughout the late 
 troubles in Kansas, there has not been any attempt, as I am 
 credibly informed, to interfere in a single instance with the 
 right of the master. Had any such attempt been made, the 
 judiciary would doubtless have afforded an adequate remedy. 
 Should they fail to do this hereafter, it will then be time 
 enough to strengthen their hands by further legislation. Had 
 it been decided that either Congress or the territorial legisla- 
 ture possess the power to annul or impair the right to property 
 in slaves, the evil would be intolerable. In the latter event 
 there would be a struggle for a majority of the members of 
 the legislature at each successive election, and the sacred 
 rights of property held under the Federal Constitution would 
 depend, for the time being, on the result. The agitation 
 would thus be rendered incessant whilst the territorial condi- 
 tion remained, and its baneful influence would ^keep alive a 
 dangerous excitement among the people of the several States. 
 
102 MESSAGES OF PRESIDENT BTJCHAWAN. 
 
 Thus has the status of a Territory, during the intermediate 
 period from its first settlement until it shall become a State, 
 been irrevocably fixed by the final decision of the Supreme 
 Court. Fortunate has this been for the prosperity of the 
 Territories, as well as the tranquillity of the States. Now, 
 emigrants from the North and the South, the East and the 
 West, will meet in the Territories on a common platform^ 
 having brought with them that species of property best 
 adapted, in their own opinion, to promote their welfare. 
 From natural causes the slavery question will in each case soon 
 virtually settle itself ; and before the Territory is prepared for 
 admission as a State into the Union, this decision, one way or 
 the other, will have been a foregone conclusion. Meanwhile, 
 the settlement of the new Territory will proceed without seri- 
 ous interruption, and its progress and prosperity wiU not be 
 endangered or retarded by violent political struggles. 
 
 When, in the progress of events, the inhabitants of any 
 Territory shall have reached the number required to form a 
 State, they will then proceed in a regular manner, and in the 
 exercise of the rights of popular sovereignty, to form a consti- 
 tution preparatory to admission into the Union. After this 
 has been done, to employ the language of the Kansas and 
 Nebraska act, they " shall be received into the Union with or 
 without slavery, as their constitution may prescribe at the 
 time of their admission." This sound principle has happily 
 been recognized, in some form or other, by an almost unani- 
 mous vote of both houses of the last Congress. 
 
 All lawful means at my command have been employed, and 
 shall continue to be employed, to execute the laws against the 
 African slave trade. After a most careful and rigorous exam- 
 ination of our coasts, and a thorough investigation of the sub- 
 ject, we have not been able to discover that any slaves have 
 been imported into the United States except the cargo by the 
 Wanderer, numbering between three and four hundred. 
 Those engaged in this unlawful enterprise have been rigor- 
 ously prosecuted, but not with as much success as their crimes 
 have deserved. A number of them are still under prose- 
 cution. 
 
 Our history proves that the fathers of the republic, in ad- 
 
MESSAGES OF PEESIDEKT BITCHANAlir. 103 
 
 vance of all other nations, condemned the African slave trade. 
 It was, notwithstanding, deemed expedient by the framers of 
 the Constitution to deprive Congress of the power to prohibit 
 " the migration or importation of such persons as any of tjie 
 States now existing shall think proper to admit" " prior to 
 the year one thousand eight hundred and eight." It will be 
 seen that this restriction on the power of Congress was confined 
 to such States only as might think proper to admit the impor- 
 tation of slaves. It did not extend to other States or to the 
 trade carried on abroad. Accordingly we find that so early 
 as the 22d March, 1794, Congress passed an act imposing 
 severe penalties and punishments upon citizens and residents 
 of the United States who should engage in this trade between 
 foreign nations. The provisions of this act were extended 
 and enforced by the act of 10th May, 1800. 
 
 Again : the States themselves had a ^ear right to waive the 
 constitutional privilege intended for their benefit, and to pro- 
 hibit by their own laws this trade at any time they thought 
 proper previous to 1808. Several of them exercised this right 
 before that period, and among them some containing the 
 greatest number of slaves. This gave to Congress the imme- 
 diate power to act in regard to all such States, because they 
 themselves had removed the constitutional barrier. Congress 
 accordingly passed an act on 28th February, 1803, " to pre- 
 vent the importation of certain persons into certain States 
 where, by the laws thereof, their admission is prohibited." 
 In this manner the importation of African slaves into the 
 United States was to a great extent prohibited some years in 
 advance of 1808. 
 
 As the year 1808 approached. Congress determined not to 
 suffer this trade to exist even for a single day after they had 
 the power to abolish it. On the 2d of March, 1807, they 
 passed an act to take effect " from and after the first day of 
 January, 1808," prohibiting the importation of African slaves 
 into the United States. This was followed by subsequent acbs 
 of a similar character, to which I need not specially refer. 
 Such were the principles and such the practice of our ancestors 
 more than fifty years ago in regard to the African slave trade. 
 It did not occur to the revered patriots who had been dele- 
 
104 MESSAGES OF PRESIDENT BTTCHANAM'. 
 
 gates to the convention, and afterwards became members of 
 Congress, that in passing these laws they had violated the Con- 
 stitution which they had framed with so much care and delib- 
 eration. They supposed that to prohibit Congress, in express 
 terms, from exercising a specified power before an appointed 
 day, necessarily involved the right to exercise this power after 
 that day bad arrived. 
 
 If this were not the case, the framers of the Constitution 
 had expended much labor in vain. Had they imagined that 
 Congress would possess no power to prohibit the trade either 
 before or after 1808, they would not have taken so much care 
 to protect the States against the exercise of this power before 
 that period. Nay, more, they would not have attached such 
 vast importance to this provision as to have excluded it. from 
 the possibility of future repeal or amendment, to which other 
 portions of the Constitution were exposed. It would, then, 
 have been wholly unnecessary to engraft on the fifth article of 
 the Constitution, prescribing the mode of its own future 
 amendment, the proviso, " that no amendment which may be 
 made prior to the year one thousand eight hundred and eight 
 shall in any manner affect" the provision in the Constitution 
 securing to the States tlie right to admit the importation of 
 African slaves previous to that period. According to the 
 adverse construction, the clause itself, on which so much -care 
 and discussion had been employed by the members of the con- 
 vention, was an absolute nullity from the beginning, and all 
 that has since been done under it a mere usurpation. 
 
 It was well and wise to confer this power on Congress ; 
 because had it been left to the States its efficient exercise 
 would have been impossible. In that event, any one State 
 could have effectually continued the trade not only for itself, 
 but for all the other slave States, though never so much 
 against their will. And why ? Because African slaves, when 
 once brought within the limits of any one State in accordance 
 with its laws, cannot practically be excluded from any other 
 State where slavery exists. And even if all the States had 
 separately passed laws prohibiting the importation of slaves, 
 these laws would have failed of effect for want of a naval force 
 to capture the slavers and to guard the coast. Such a force 
 
MESSAGES OF PRESIDENT BUCHANAN. 105 
 
 no State can employ in time of peace without the consent of 
 Congress. 
 
 These acts of Congress, it is believed, have, with very rare 
 and insignificant exceptions, accomplished their purpose. For 
 a period of more than half a century there has been no per- 
 ceptible addition to the number of our domestic slaves. Dur- 
 ing this period their advancement in civilization has far sur- 
 passed that of any other portion of the African race. The 
 light and the blessings of Christianity have been extended to 
 them, and both their moral and physical condition has been 
 greatly improved. 
 
 Keopen the trade, and it would be difficult to determine 
 whether the effect would be more deleterious on the interests 
 of the master, or on those of the nati ve born slave. Of the 
 evils to the master, the one most to be dreaded would be the 
 introduction of wild, heathen, and ignorant barbarians among 
 the sober, orderly, and quiet slaves whose ancestors have been 
 on the soil for several generations. This might tend to bar- 
 barize, demoralize, and exasperate the whole mass, and pro- 
 duce most deplorable consequences. 
 
 The effect upon the existing slave would, if possible, be 
 still more deplorable. At present, he is treated with kindness 
 and humanity. He is well fed, well clothed, and not over- 
 worked. His condition is incomparably better than that of 
 the coolies which modern nations of high civilization have 
 employed as a substitute for African slaves. Both^ the phil- 
 anthropy and the self-interest of the master have combined to 
 produce this humane result. But let this trade be reopened, 
 and what will be the effect ? The same, to a considerable ex- 
 tent, as on a neighboring island — the only spot now on earth 
 where the African slave trade is openly tolerated ; and this in 
 defiance of solemn treaties with a power abundantly able at 
 any moment to enforce their execution. There the master, 
 intent upon present gain, extorts from the slave as much labor 
 as his physical powers are capable of enduring ; knowing that, 
 when death comes to his relief, his place can be supplied at a 
 price reduced to the lowest point by the competition of rival 
 African slave-traders. Should this ever be the case in our 
 country, which I do not deem possible, the present useful 
 
106 MESSAGES OF PRESIDENT BUCHANAN. 
 
 character of the domestic institution, wherein those too old 
 and too youajij to work are provided for with care and human- 
 ity, and those capable of labor are not overtasked, would un- 
 dergo an unfortunate change. The feeling of reciprocal de- 
 pendence and attachment which now exists between master 
 and slave would be converted into mutual distrust and hos- 
 tility. 
 
 But we are obliged, as a Christian and moral nation, to con- 
 sider what would be the effect upon unhappy Africa itself if 
 we should reopen the slave trade. This would give the trade 
 an impulse and extension which it has never had even in its 
 palmiest days. The numerous victims required to supply it 
 would convert the whole slave coast into a perfect pande- 
 monium, for which this country would be held responsible in 
 the eyes both of God and man. Its petty tribes would then 
 be constantly engaged in predatory wars against each other for 
 the purpose of seizing slaves to supply the American market. 
 All hopes of African civilization would thus be ended. 
 
 On the other hand, when a market for African slaves shall 
 no longer be furnished in Cuba, and thus all the world be 
 closed against this trade, we may then indulge a reasonable 
 hope for the gradual improvement of Africa. The chief 
 motive of war among the tribes will cease whenever there is 
 no longer any demand for slaves. The resources of that fer- 
 tile but miserable country might then be developed by the 
 hand of industry, and afford subjects for legitimate foreign 
 and domestic commerce. In this manner Christianity and 
 civilization may gradually penetrate the existing gloom. 
 
 The wisdom of the course pursued by this government 
 towards China has been vindicated by the event. Whilst we 
 sustained a neutral position in the war waged by Great Britain 
 and France against the Chinese empire, our late minister, in 
 obedience to his instructions, judiciously cooperated with the 
 ministers of these powers in all peaceful measures to secure, 
 by treaty, the just concessions demanded by the interests of 
 foreign commerce. The result is, that satisfactory treaties 
 have been concluded with China by the respective ministers 
 of the United States, Great Britain, France, and Russia. Our 
 " treaty, or general convention of peace, amity, and com- 
 
MESSAGES OF PRESIDENT BUCHANAN. 107 
 
 with that empire, was concluded at Tientsin on the 
 18th June, 1858, and was ratified by the President, by and 
 with the advice and consent of the Senate, on the 21st De- 
 cember following. On the 15th December, 1858, John J]. 
 Ward, a distinguished citizen of Georgia, was duly commis- 
 sioned as envoy extraordinary and minister plenipotentiary to 
 China. 
 
 He left the United States for the place of his destination on 
 the 5th of February, 1859, bearing with him the ratified copy 
 of this treaty, and arrived at Shanghai on the 28th May. 
 From thence he proceeded to Peking on the 16th June, but 
 did not arrive in that city until the 27th July. According to 
 the terms of the treaty the ratifications were to be exchanged 
 on or before the 18th June, 1859. This was rendered impos- 
 sible by reasons and events beyond his control, not necessary 
 to detail ; but still it is due to the Chinese authorities at 
 Shanghai to state that they always assured him no advantage 
 should be taken of the delay, and this pledge has been faith- 
 fully redeemed. 
 
 On the arrival of Mr. Ward at Peking he requested an 
 audience of the emperor to present his letter of credence. 
 . This he did not obtain, in consequence of his very proper re- 
 fusal to submit to the humiliating ceremonies required by the 
 etiquette of this strange people in approaching their sovereign. 
 Nevertheless, the interviews on this question were conducted 
 in the most friendly spirit, and with all due regard tp his per- 
 sonal feelings and the honor of his country. When a presen- 
 tation to his Majesty was found to be impossible, the letter of 
 credence from the. President was received with peculiar honors 
 by Kweiliang, " the emperor's prime minister and the second 
 man in the empire to the emperor himself.' ' The ratifications 
 of the treaty were afterwards, on the 16th of August, ex- 
 changed in proper form at Pei-tsang. As the exchange did 
 not take place, until after the day prescribed by the treaty, it 
 is deemed proper, before its publication, again to submit it to 
 the Senate. It is but simple justice to the Chinese authorities 
 to observe that, throughout the whole transaction, they appear 
 to have acted in good faith and in a friendly spirit towards the 
 United States. It is true this has been done after their own 
 
108 MESSAGES OP PKESIDENT BUCHANAN. 
 
 peculiar fashion ; but we ought to regard with a lenient eye 
 the ancient customs of an empire dating back for thousands of 
 years, so far as this may be consistent with our own national 
 honor. The conduct of our minister on the occasion has re. 
 ceived my entire approbation. 
 
 In order to carry out the spirit of this treaty, and to give it 
 full effect, it became necessary to conclude two supplemental 
 conventions — the one for the adjustment and satisfaction of 
 the claims of our citizens, and the other to fix the tariff on 
 imports and exports, and to regulate the transit duties and 
 trade of our merchants with China. This duty was satisfac- 
 torily performed by our late minister. These conventions 
 bear date at Shanghai on the 8th ISTovember, 1858. Having 
 been considered in the light of binding agreements subsidiary 
 to the principal treaty, and to be carried into execution with- 
 out delay, they do not provide for any formal ratification or 
 exchange of ratifications by the contracting parties. This was 
 not deemed necessary by the Chinese, who are already pro- 
 ceeding in good faith to satisfy the claims of our citizens, and, 
 it is hoped, to carry out the other provisions of the conven- 
 tions. Still I thought it was proper to submit them to the 
 Senate, by which they were ratified on the 3d of March, 1859. . 
 The ratified copies, however, did not reach Shanghai until 
 after the departure of our minister to Peking, and these con- 
 ventions could not, therefore, be exchanged at the same time 
 with the .principal treaty. Ro doubt is entertained that they 
 will be ratified and exchanged by the Chinese government 
 should this be thought advisable ; but, under the circum- 
 stances presented, I shall consider them binding engagements 
 from their date on both parties, and cause them to be pub- 
 lished as such for the information and guidance of our mer- 
 chants trading with the Chinese empire. 
 
 It affords me much satisfaction to inform you that all our 
 difficulties with the republic of Paraguay have, been satisfac- 
 torily adjusted. It happily did not become necessary to em- 
 ploy the force for this purpose which Congress had placed at 
 my command, under the joint resolution of 2d June, 1858. 
 On the contrary, the president of that republic, in a friendly 
 spirit, acceded promptly to the just and reasonable demands 
 
MESSAGES OF PRESIDENT BtTCHANAN. 109 
 
 of the government of the United States. Our commissioner 
 arrived at Assumption, the capital of the republic, on the 25th 
 of January, 1859, and left it on the 17th of February, having 
 in three weeks ably and successfully accomplished all the ob- 
 jects of his mission. The treaties which he has concluded will 
 be immediately submitted to the Senate. 
 
 In the view that the employment of other than peaceful 
 means might become necessary to obtain " Just satisfaction" 
 from Paraguay, a strong naval force was concentrated in the 
 waters of the La Plata to await contingencies whilst our com- 
 missioner ascended the rivers to Assumption. The Navy 
 Department is entitled to great credit for the promptness, 
 efficiency, and economy with which this expedition was fitted 
 out and conducted. It consisted of nineteen armed vessels, 
 great and small, carrying two hundred guns and twenty-five 
 hundred men, all under the command of the veteran and gal- 
 lant Shubrick. The entire expenses of the expedition have 
 been defrayed out of the ordinary appropriations for the naval 
 service, except the sum of $289,000 applied to the purchase 
 of seven of the steamers constituting a part of it, under the 
 authority of the naval appropriation act of the 3d March last. 
 It is believed that these steamers are worth more than their 
 cost, and they are all now usefully and actively employed in 
 the naval service. 
 
 The appearance of so large a force, fitted out in such a 
 prompt manner, in the far distant waters of the La Plata, and 
 the admirable conduct of the ofiicers and men employed in it, 
 have had a happy effect in favor of our country throughout 
 all that remote portion of the world. 
 
 Our relations with the great empires of France and Russia, 
 as well as with all other governments on the continent of 
 Europe, unless we may except that of Spain, happily continue 
 to be of the most friendly character. 
 
 In my last annual message I presented a statement of the 
 unsatisfactory condition of our relations with Spain ; and I re- 
 gret to say that this has not materially improved. 
 
 Without special reference to other claims, even the " Cuban 
 claims,' ' the payment of which has been ably urged by our 
 ministers, and in which more than a hundred of our citizens 
 
110 MESSAGES OF PRESIDENT BTJCHAKAliir. 
 
 are directly interested, remain unsatisfied, notwithstanding 
 both their justice and their amonnt ,($128,635 54) had been 
 recognized and ascertained by the Spanish government it- 
 self. 
 
 I again recommend that an appropriation be made, " to be 
 paid to the Spanish government, for the purpose of distribu- 
 tion among the claimants in the Amistad case." In common 
 with two of my predecessors, I entertain no doubt that this is 
 required by our treaty with Spain of the 27th October, 1Y95. 
 The failure to discharge this obligation has been employed by 
 the cabinet of Madrid as a reason against the settlement of 
 our claims. 
 
 I need not repeat the arguments which I urged in my last 
 annual message in favor of the acquisition of Cuba by fair 
 purchase-. My opinions on that measure remain unchanged. 
 I therefore again invite the serious attention of Congress to 
 this important subject. Without a recognition of this policy 
 on their part, it will be almost impossible to institute negotia- 
 tions with any reasonable prospect of success. 
 
 Until a recent period there was good reason to believe that 
 I should be able to announce to you on the present occasion 
 that our difficulties with Great Britain, arising out of the 
 Clayton and Bulwer treaty, had been finally adjusted in a 
 manner alike honorable and satisfactory to both parties. From 
 causes, however, which the British government had not antic- 
 ipated, they have not yet completed treaty arrangements with 
 the republics of Honduras and Nicaragua, in pursuance of the 
 understanding between the two governments. It is neverthe- 
 less confidently expected that this good work will ere long be 
 accomplished. 
 
 Whilst indulging the hope that no other subject remained 
 which could disturb the good understanding between the two 
 countries, the question arising out of the adverse claims of the 
 parties to the island of San Juan, under the Oregon treaty of 
 the 15th June, 1846, suddenly assumed a threatening promi- 
 nence. In order to prevent unfortunate collisions on that re- 
 mote frontier, the late Secretary of State, on the 17th July, 
 1855, addressed a note to Mr. Crampton, then British minister 
 at Washington, communicating to him a copy of the instruc- 
 
MESSAGES OE PRESIDENT BUCHANAN. Ill 
 
 tions which he (Mr. Marcy) had given on the 14th July, to 
 Gov. Stevens, of Washington Territory, having a special refer- 
 ence to an "apprehended conflict between our citizens and 
 the British subjects on the island of San Juan." To prevent 
 this, the governor was instructed " that the oflicers of the 
 Territory should abstain from all acts on the disputed grounds 
 which are calculated to provoke any conflicts, so far as it can 
 be done without implying the concession to the authorities of 
 Great Britain of an exclusive right over the premises. The 
 title ought to be settled before either party should attempt to 
 exclude the other by force, or exercise complete and exclusive 
 sovereign rights within the fairly disputed limits." 
 
 In acknowledging the receipt, on the next day, of Mr. 
 Marcy's note, the British minister expressed his entire concur- 
 rence " in the propriety of the course recommended to the 
 governor of Washington Territory by your [Mr. Marcy's] 
 instructions to that officer," and stating that he had " lost no 
 time in transmitting a copy of that document to the governor 
 general of British North America," and had "earnestly 
 recommended to his excellency to take such measures as to 
 him may appear best calculated to secure, on the part of the 
 British local authorities and the inhabitants of the neighbor- 
 hood of the line in question, the exercise of the same spirit of 
 forbearance which is inculcated by you [Mr. Marcy] on the 
 authorities and citizens of the United States." 
 
 Thus matters remained upon the faith -of this arrangement 
 until the' 9th July last, when General Harney paid a visit to 
 the island. He found upon it twenty-five American residents, 
 with their families, and also an establishment of the Hudson's 
 Bay Company, for the purpose of raising sheep. A short 
 time before his arrival, one of these residents had shot an 
 animal belonging to the company, whilst trespassing upon his 
 premises, for which, however, he ofiPered to pay twice its 
 value, but that was refused. Soon after " the chief factor of 
 the company at Victoria, Mr. Dalles, son-in-law of Governor 
 Douglas, came to the island in the British sloop-of-war Satel- 
 lite, and threatened to take " this American (Mr. Cutler) by 
 force to Victoria, to answer for the trespass he had committed. 
 The American seized his rifle and told Mr. Dalles if any such 
 
113 MESSAGES OF PKESIBENT BTJCHAJTAN. 
 
 attempt was made he would kill him upon the spot. The 
 afiEair then ended." 
 
 Under these circumstances, the American settlers presented 
 a petition to the general, " through the United States in- 
 spector of customs, Mr. Ilubhs, to place a force upon the 
 island to protect them from the Indians as well as the oppres- 
 sive interference of the authorities of the Hudson Bay Com- 
 pany at Victoria, with their rights as American citizens." 
 The general immediately responded to this petition, and 
 ordered Captain George E. Pickett, 9th infantry, " to estab- 
 lish his company on Bellevue, or San Juan island, on some 
 suitable position near the harbor at the southeastern extrem- 
 ity." This order was promptly obeyed, and a military post 
 was established at the place designated. The force was after- 
 wards increased, so that by the last return the whole number 
 of troops then on the island amounted in the aggregate to six 
 hundred and ninety-one men. 
 
 Whilst I do not deem it proper, on the present occasion, to 
 go further into the subject, and discuss the weight which 
 ought to be attached to the statements of the British colonial 
 authorities, contesting the accuracy of the information on 
 which the gallant general acted, it was due to him that I 
 should thus present his own reasons for issuing the order to 
 Captain Pickett. From these it is quite clear his object was 
 to prevent the British authorities on Vancouver's island from 
 exercising jurisdiction over American residents on the island 
 of San Juan, as well as to protect them against the incursions 
 of the Indians. Much excitement prevailed for some time 
 throughout that region, and serious danger of collision between 
 the parties was apprehended. The British had a large naval 
 force in the vicinity ; and it is but an act of simple justice to 
 the admiral on that station to state that he wisely and dis- 
 creetly forebore to commit any hostile act, but determined to 
 refer the whole affair to his government and await their 
 instructions. 
 
 This aspect of the matter, in my opinion, demanded serious 
 attention. It would have been a great calamity for both 
 nations had they been precipitated into acts of hostility, not 
 on the question of title to the island, but merely concerning 
 
MESSAGES OF PRESIDENT BXreHANAlir. 113 
 
 what should be its condition during' the intervening period 
 whilst the two governments might be employed in settling the 
 question to which of them it belongs. For this reason Lieu- 
 tenant General Scott was dispatched, on the 17th of September 
 last, to Washington Territory, to take' immediate command of 
 the United States forces, on the Pacific coast, should he deem 
 this necessary. The main object of his mission was to carry 
 out the spirit of the precautionaTy arrangement between the 
 late Secretary of State and the British minister, and thus to 
 preserve the peace and prevent collision between the British 
 and American authorities pending the negotiations between 
 the two governments. Entertaining no doubt of the validity 
 of our title, I need scarcely add, that in any event, American 
 citizens were to be placed on a footing at least as favorable as 
 that of British subjects, it being undferstood that Captain 
 Pickett's company should remain on the island. It is proper 
 to observe that, considering the distance from the scene of 
 action, and in ignorance of what might have transpired on the 
 spot before the general's arrival, it was necessary to leave 
 much to his discretion ; and 1 am happy to state the event has 
 proven that this discretion could not have been intrusted to 
 more competent hands. General Scott has^ recently returned 
 from his mission, having successfully accomplished its objects, 
 and there is no longer any good reason to apprehend a collision 
 between the forces of the two countries during the pendency 
 of the existing negotiations. 
 
 I regret to inform you that there has been no improvement 
 in the affairs of Mexico since my last annual message, and I 
 am again obliged to ask the earnest attention of Congress to 
 the unhappy condition, of that republic. 
 
 The constituent congress of Mexico, which adjourned on 
 the 17th of February, 1857, adopted a constitution and pro- 
 vided for a popular election. This took place in the following 
 July, (1857,) and General Comonfort was chosen president 
 almost without opposition. At the same election a new con- 
 gress was chosen, whose first session commenced on the 16th 
 of September, (1857.) By the constitution of 1857 the presi- 
 dential term was to begin on the 1st of December, (1857,) and 
 continue for four years. On that day General Comonfort ap- 
 8 
 
114 MESSAGES OE PRESIDENT BUCHAKAIf. 
 
 peared before the assembled congress in the city of Mexico, 
 took the oath to support the new constitution, and was duly 
 inaugarated as president. Within a month afterwards he had 
 been driven from the capital, and a military rebellion had 
 assigned the supreme power of the republic to General Zulo- 
 aga. The constitution provided that, in the absence of the 
 president, his ofiSce should devolve upon the chief justice of 
 the supreme court ; and General Comonfort having left the 
 country, this functionary, General Juarez, proceeded to form, 
 at Guanajuato, a constitutional government. Before this was 
 officially known, however, at the capital, the government of 
 Zuloaga had been recognized by the entire diplomatic corps, 
 including the minister of the United States, as the de facto 
 government of Mexico. The constitutional president never- 
 theless maintained his position with firmness, and was soon 
 established, with his cabinet, at Vera Cruz. Meanwhile, the 
 government of Zuloaga was earnestly resisted in many parts of 
 the republic ; and even in the capital, a portion of the army 
 having pronounced against it, its functions were declared ter- 
 minated, and an assembly of citizens was invited for the 
 choice of a new president. This assembly elected General 
 Miramon ; but that officer repudiated the plan under which he 
 was chosen, and Zuloaga was thus restored to his previous 
 position. He assumed it, however, only to withdraw from it ; 
 and Miramon, having become, by his appointment, " presi- 
 dent substitute," continues, with that title, at the head of the 
 insurgent party. 
 
 In my last annual message I communicated to Congress the 
 circumstances under which the late minister of the United 
 States suspended his official relations with the central govern- 
 ment, and withdrew from the country. It was impossible to 
 maintain friendly intercourse with a government like that at 
 the capital, under whose usurped authority wrongs were con- 
 stantly committed, but never redressed. Had this been an 
 established government, with its power extending, by the con- 
 sent of the people, over the whole of Mexico, a resort to hos- 
 tilities against it would have been quite justifiable, and,' in- 
 deed, necessary. But the country was a prey to civil war, 
 and it was hoped that the success of the constitutional presi- 
 
MESSAGES OF PRESIDENT BUCHANAN. 116 
 
 dent might lead to a condition of things less injurious to the 
 United States. This success became so probable that, in Jan- 
 uary last, 1 employed a reliable agent to visit Mexico and re- 
 port to me the actual condition and prospects of the contend- 
 ing parties. In consequence of his report, and from informa- 
 tion which reached me from other sources, favorable to the 
 prospects of the constitutional cause, 1 felt justified in appoint- 
 ing a new minister to Mexico, who might embrace the earliest 
 suitable opportunity of restoring our diplomatic relations with 
 that republic. For this purpose a distinguished citizen of 
 Maryland was selected, who proceeded on his mission on the 
 8th of March last, with discretionary, authority to recognize 
 the government of President Juarez, if, on his arrival in 
 Mexico, he should find it entitled to such recognition, accord- 
 ing to the established practice of the United States. 
 
 On the 7th of April following Mr. McLane presented his 
 credentials to President Juarez, having no hesitation " in pro- 
 nouncing the government of Juarez to be the only existing 
 government of the republic." He was cordially received by 
 the authorities at Vera Cruz, and they have ever since mani- 
 fested the most friendly disposition towards the United. States. 
 
 Unhappily, however, the constitutional government has not 
 been able to establish its power over the whole republic. 
 
 It is supported by a large majority of the people and the 
 States, but there are important parts of the country where it 
 can enforce no obedience. 
 
 General Miramon maintains himself at the capital ; and in 
 some of the distant provinces there are military governors who 
 pay little respect to the decrees of either government. In the 
 meantime the excesses which always attend upon civil war, 
 especially in Mexico, are constantly recurring. Outrages of 
 the worst description are committed both upon persons and 
 property. There is scarcely any form of injury which has not 
 been suffered by our citizens in Mexico during the last few 
 years. We have been nominally at peace with that republic, 
 but " so far as the interests of our commerce, or of our citi- 
 zens who have visited the country as merchants, shipmasters, 
 or in other capacities, are concerned, we might as well have 
 been at war." Life has been insecure, property unprotected, 
 
116 MESSAGE? OF PEESIDENT BUCHAlirAU-. 
 
 and trade, impossible,, except at a risk of loss wliicli prudent 
 men cannot be expected, to incur. Important contracts, in- 
 yolying large expenditures, entered into by the central govern- 
 ment, have been set a,t defiance by the local governments. 
 Peaceful American residents, occupying their rightful posses- 
 sions, have been suddenly expelled the country, in defiance of 
 tEeaties, and by the mere force of arbitrary power. Even the 
 course of justice has not been safe from control, and a, recent 
 decreefof Miramon permits the intervention of government in 
 all suits where either party is a, foreigner. Vessels of the 
 United States have been seized without law, and a. consular 
 ofiicer who, protestedi against such seizure has been fined and 
 iiHiprisongd for disrespect to the authorities. Military contri- 
 butions Jiave been, levied, in violation of every principle of 
 right, and the American who resisted the lawless demand has 
 Ijad his property, forcibly taken away, and has been himself 
 banished. From a conflict of authority in different parts of 
 the country, tarifE duties, which have been. paid in one place 
 have been exacted over again in another place. Large num- 
 bers of our citizens have been arrested and imprisoned without 
 any form of examination or apy opportunity for a hearing, 
 and even when released, have only obtained their liberty after 
 much suffering and injury, and without any hope of redress. 
 TJhe wholesale massacre of Crabbe and his associates, without 
 trial, in, Sonora, as, well as the seizure and murder of four sick 
 Americans who had taken shelter in the house of an American, 
 "upon the soil of the IJnited States, was communicated to Con- 
 gr,ess 3i,t. its last session. Murders of a still, more. atrocious 
 character have been committed in the very heart of Mexico,^ 
 under tlie a]ithority of Miramon's government, duying the 
 present year. ' Some of these were only worthy of a barbarous 
 age, and. if tjiey had not bqen clearly proven, would have 
 sfiemed impossible in a country, which claims to be civilized. 
 Of this description was, the brutal massacre in April last, by 
 ordpr of General Marquez, of three American physicians, who, 
 were seized in the hospital at Tacubaya while attending upon 
 the sick and the dying of both parties, and •vpthou.t trial, as 
 WJtJiout crime, were hurried ajivay to speedy execution. Little 
 less shpckjng was the receiit fate of Ormond Chase, who wap, 
 
MESSAGES OE PRESIDENT BDCHANAJT. 117 
 
 shot in Tepic on the 7th of Augilst by order of the same 
 Mexican general, not only without a trial, but without any 
 conjecture by his friends of the cause of his arrest. He is 
 represented as a young man of good chafactfer and intelli- 
 gence, who had made numerous friends in Tepic by the cour- 
 age and humanity which he had displayed on several trying 
 occasions, and his death was as "ulieixpected as it was shocking 
 to the whole community. Other outrages might be enumer- 
 ated, but these are suiScient to illustrate the wretched state of 
 the country and the Unprotected condition of the persons and 
 property of our citizens in Mexico. 
 
 In all these cases our ministers have been constant and faith- 
 ful in their demands for redress, biit both they and this gov- 
 ernment, which they have successively represented, have been 
 wholly powerless to make their demands effective. Their 
 testimony in this respect, and in reference to the only remedy 
 which, in their judgments, would meet the exigency, has beeii 
 both uniform and emphatic. " I!^othing but a manifestation 
 of the power of the government of the United States," wrote 
 our late minister in 1866, " and of its purpose to punish these 
 wrongs, will avail. I assure you that the universal belief here 
 is, that there is nothing to be apprehended from the govern- 
 ment of the United States, and that local Mexican officials can 
 commit these outrages upon American citizens with absoltite 
 impunity." " I hope the President," wrote our present miii- 
 ister in August last, " will feel authorized to ask from Cott- 
 gress the power to enter Mexico with the military forces bf 
 the United States, at the call of the constitutional authorities, 
 in order to protect the citizens and the trieaty rights of thfe 
 United States. Unless such a power is conferred upon him, 
 neither the one nor the other will be respected in the existing 
 state of anarchy and disorder, and the outrages already per- 
 petrated will never be chastised ; and, as I assured you in my 
 No. 23, all these evils must increase until every vestige of 
 order and government disappears from the country." I have 
 been reluctantly led to the same opiuion, and, in justice to my 
 countrymen who have suffered wrongs fl-om Mexico, and who 
 may still suffer them, I feel bound to announce this conclusion 
 to Congress. 
 
118 MESSAGES OP PEESIDEOT BTJCHANAIir. 
 
 The case presented, however, is not merely a case of indi- 
 vidual claims, although our just claims against Mexico have 
 reached a very large amount. Nor is it merely the case of 
 protection to the lives and property of the few Americans who 
 may still remain in Mexico, although the life and property of 
 every American citizen ought to be sacredly protected in every 
 quarter of the world. But it is a question which relates to the 
 future as well as to the present and the past, and which in- 
 volves, indirectly at least, the whole subject of our duty to 
 Mexico as a neighboring state. The exercise of the power of 
 the United States in that country to redress the wrongs and 
 protect the rights of our own citizens is none the less to be 
 desired, because efficient and necessary aid may thus be ren- 
 dered at the same time to restore peace and order to Mexico 
 itself. In the accomplishment of this result the people of the 
 United States must necessarily feel a deep and earnest interest. 
 Mexico ought to be a rich and prosperous and powerful repub- 
 lic. She possesses an extensive territory, a fertile soil, and an 
 incalculable store of mineral wealth. She occupies an impor- 
 tant position between the Gulf and the ocean for transit routes 
 and for commerce. Is it possible that such a country as this 
 can be given up to anarchy and ruin without an effort from 
 any quarter for its rescue and its safety ? Will the commer- 
 cial nations of the world, which have so many interests con- 
 nected with it, remain wholly, indifferent to such a result ? 
 Can the United States, especially, which ought to share most 
 largely in its commercial intercourse, allow their immediate 
 neighbor thus to destroy itself and injure them ? Yet, with- 
 out support from some quarter, it is impossible to perceive 
 how Mexico can resume her position among nations and enter 
 upon a career which promises any good results. The aid 
 which she requires, and which the interests of all commercial 
 countries require that she should have, it belongs to this gov- 
 ernment to render, not only by virtue of our neighborhood to 
 Mexico, along whose territory we have a continuous frontier 
 of nearly a thousand miles, but by virtue, also, of our estab- 
 Hshed policy, which is inconsistent with the intervention of 
 any European power in the domestic concerns of that re- 
 public. 
 
MESSAGES OP PRESIDENT BUCHANAN. 119 
 
 Tlie wrongs which we have safifered from Mexico are before 
 the world, and must deeply impress every American citizen. 
 A government which is either unable or unwilling to redress 
 such wrongs is derelict to its highest duties. The difficulty 
 consists in selecting and enforcing the remedy. We may in 
 vain apply to the constitutional government at Yera Cruz, 
 although it is well disposed to do us justice, for adequate 
 redress. Whilst authority is acknowledged in aU the important 
 ports and throughout the seacoasts of the republic, its power 
 does not extend to the city of Mexico and the States in its 
 vicinity, where nearly all the recent outrages have been com- 
 mitted on American citizens. We must penetrate into the 
 interior before we can reach the offenders, and this can only 
 be done by passing through the territory in the occupation of 
 the constitutional government. The most acceptable and least 
 difficult mode of accomplishing the object will be to act in 
 concert with that government. Their consent a,nd their aid 
 might, I believe, be obtained ; but if not, our obligation to 
 protect our own citizens in their just rights, secured by treaty, 
 would not be the less imperative. For these reasons I recom- 
 mend to Congress to pass a law authorizing the President, 
 under such conditions as they may deem expedient, to employ 
 a sufficient military force to enter Mexico for the purpose of 
 obtaining indemnity for the past and security for the future. 
 I purposely refrain from any suggestion as to whether this 
 force shall consist of regular troops or volunteers, or both. 
 This question may be most appropriately left to the decision 
 of Congress. T would merely observe that, should volunteers 
 be selected, such a force could be easily raised in this country 
 among those who sympathize with the sufferings of our unfor- 
 tunate fellow-citizens in Mexico, and with the unhappy con- 
 dition of that republic. Such an accession to the forces of the 
 constitutional government would enable it soon to reach the 
 city of Mexico, and extend its power over the whole republic. 
 In that event, there is no reason to doubt that the just claims 
 of our citizens would be satisfied, and adequate redress ob- 
 tained for the injuries inflicted upon them. The constitutional 
 government have ever evinced a strong desire to do justice, 
 and this might be secured in advance by a preliminary treaty. 
 
120 MESSAGES OF PRESIDENT BUCHANAN. 
 
 ? It may be said that these measures will, at least indirectly, 
 be inconsistent with our wise and settled policy not to inter- 
 fere in the domestic concerns of foreign nations. But does 
 not the present case fairly constitute an exception ? An ad- 
 joining republic is in a state of anarchy and confusion, from 
 which she has proved wholly unable to extricate herself. She 
 is entirely destitute of the power to maintain peace upon her 
 borders, or to prevent the incursions of banditti into our terri- 
 tory. In her fate and in her fortune — in her power to estab- 
 lish and maintain a settled government — we have a far deeper 
 interest, socially, commercially, and politically, than any other 
 nation. She is now a wreck upon the ocean, drifting about 
 as she is impelled by different factions. As a good neighbor, 
 shall we not extend to her a helping hand to save her ? If we 
 do not, it would not be surprising should some other nation 
 undertake the task, and thus force us to interfere at laM, 
 under circumstances of increased difSeulty, for the mainten- 
 ance of our established policy. 
 
 I repeat the recommendation contained in my last annual 
 message, that authority may be given to the President to 
 establish one or more temporary military posts across the 
 Mexican line in Sonora and Chihuahua, where these may be 
 necessary to protect the lives and property of American and 
 Mexican citizens against the incursions and depredations of the 
 Indians, as well as of lawless rovers on that remote region. 
 The establishment of one such post at a point called Arispe, 
 in Sonora, in a country now almogt depopulated by the hostile 
 inroads of the Indians from our side of the line, would, it is 
 believed, have prevented much injury and many cruelties 
 during the past season. A state of lawlessness and violence 
 prevails on that distant frontier. Life and property are there 
 wholly insecure. The poptdation of Arizona, now numbering 
 more than ten thousand souls, are practically destitute of gov- 
 ernment, of laws, or of any regular administration of justice. 
 Murder, rapine, and other crimes are committed with im- 
 punity. I therefore again call the attention of Congress to 
 the necessity for establishing a territorial government over 
 Arizona. 
 
 The treaty with Nicaragua of the 16th of February, 185Y, 
 
MESSAGES OP PRESIDENT BUCHANAIir. 121 
 
 to which I referred in my last annual message, failed to re- 
 ceive the ratification of the government of that republic, for 
 reasons which 1 need not enumerate. A similar treaty has 
 been since concluded between the parties, bearing date on the 
 16th March, 1859, which has already been ratified by the 
 Nicaragiian congress. This will be immediately submitted to 
 the Senate for their ratification. Its provisions cannot, 1 
 think, fail to be acceptable to the people of both countries. 
 
 Our claims against the governments of Costa Rica and 
 Nicaragua remain unredressed, though they are pressed in an 
 earnest manner, and not without hope of success. 
 
 1 deem it to be my duty once more earnestly to recommend 
 to Congress the passage of a law authorizing the President to 
 employ the naval force at his command for the purpose of 
 protecting the lives and property of American citizens passing 
 in transit across the Panama, Ificaragua, and Tehuantepec 
 routes, against sudden and lawless outbreaks and depredations. 
 I shall not repeat the arguments employed in former messages 
 in support of this measure. Suffice it to say that the lives of 
 many of our people, and the security of vast amounts of 
 treasure passing and repaissing over one or more of these routes 
 between the Atlantic and Pacific, may be deeply involved in 
 the action of Congress on this subject. 
 
 I would also again recommend to Congress that authority 
 be given to the President to employ the naval force to protect 
 American rnerchant vessels, their crews, and cargoes, against 
 violent and lawless seizure and confiscation in the ports of 
 Mexico and the Spanish American States, when these coun- 
 tries may be in a disturbed and revolutionary condition. The 
 mere knowledge that such an authority had been conferred, 
 as I have already stated, would of itself, in a great degree, 
 prevent the evil. Neither would this require any additional 
 appropriation for the naval service. 
 
 The chief objection urged against the grant of this authority 
 is that Congress, by conferring it, would violate the Constitu- 
 tion — that it would be a transfer of the war-making, or, strictly 
 speaking, the war-declaring power to the Executive. If this 
 were well founded it would, of course, be conclusive. A very 
 brief examination, however, will place this objection at rest. 
 
122 MESSAftES OF PRESIDENT BUCHANAN. 
 
 Congress possess the sole and exclusive power, under the 
 Constitution, " to declare war." They alone can " raise and 
 support armies," and " provide and maintain a navy." But 
 after Congress shall have declared war, and provided the force 
 necessary to carry it on, the President, as commander-in-chief 
 of the army and navy, can alone employ this force in making 
 war against the enemy. This is the plain language, and his- 
 tory proves that it was the well known intention of the framers 
 of the Constitution. 
 
 It will not be denied that the general "power to declare 
 war" is without limitation, and embraces within itself not only 
 what writers on the law of nations term a public or perfect 
 war, but also an imperfect war, and, in short, every species of 
 hostility however confined or limited. Without the authority 
 of Congress the President cannot fire a hostile gun in any case 
 except to repel the attacks of an enemy. It will not be 
 doubted that under this power Congress could, if they thought 
 proper, authorize the President to employ the force at his 
 command to seize a vessel belonging to an American citizen 
 which had been illegally and unjustly captured in a foreign 
 port and restore it to its owner. But can Congress only act 
 after the fact, after the mischief has been done ? Have they 
 no power to confer upon the President the authority in ad- 
 vance to furnish instant redress should such a case afterward 
 occur ? Must they wait until the mischief has been done, and 
 can they apply the remedy only when it is too late ? To con- 
 fer this authority to meet future cases, under circumstances 
 strictly specified, is as clearly within the war-declaring power 
 as such an authority conferred upon the President by act of 
 Congress after the deed had been done. In the progress of a 
 great nation many exigencies must arise imperatively requiring 
 that Congress should authorize the President to act promptly 
 on certain conditions which may or may not afterward arise. 
 Our history has already presented a number of such cases. I 
 shall refer only to the latest. 
 
 Under the resolution of June 2, 1858, " for the adjustment 
 of difficulties with the republic of Paraguay," the President 
 is " authorized to adopt such measures and use such force as 
 in his judgment may be necessary and advisable in the event 
 
MESSAGES OF PRESIDENT BTTCHANAN. 123 
 
 of a refusal of just satisfaction by the government of Para- 
 guay." " Just satisfaction" for what ? For " the attack on 
 the United States steamer Water Witch," and " other matters 
 referred to in the annual message of the President." Here 
 the power is expressly granted upon the condition that the 
 government of Paraguay shall refuse to render this " just 
 satisfaction." In this and other similar cases Congress have 
 conferred upon the President power in advance to employ the 
 army and navy upon the happening of contingent future 
 events ; and this most certainly is embraced within the power 
 to declare war. 
 
 Now, if this conditional and contingent power could be con- 
 stitutionally conferred upon the President in the case of Para- 
 guay, why may it not be conferred for the purpose of protect- 
 ing the lives and property of American citizens in the event 
 that they may be violently and unlawfully attacked in passing 
 over the transit routes to and from California, or assailed by 
 the seizure of their vessels in a foreign port ? To deny this 
 power is t© render the navy in a great degree useless for the 
 protection of the lives and property of American citizens in 
 countries where neither protection nor redress can be otherwise 
 obtained. 
 
 The thirty-fifth Congress terminated on the 3d of March, 
 1859, without having passed the " act making appropriations 
 for the service of the Post Office Department during the fiscal 
 year ending the 30th of June, 1860." This act also contained 
 an appropriation " to supply deficiencies in the revenue of the 
 Post Office Department for the year ending 30th June, 1859. " 
 I believe this is the first instance since the origin of the federal 
 government, now more than seventy years ago, when any 
 Congress went out of existence without having passed all the 
 general appropriation bills necessary to carry on the govern- 
 ment until the regular period for the meeting of a new Con- 
 gress. This event imposed on the Executive a grave responsi- 
 bility. It presented a choice of evils. 
 
 Had this omission of duty occurred at the first session of the 
 last Congress, the remedy would have been plain. I might 
 then have instantly recalled them to complete their work, and 
 this without expense to the government. But on the ith of 
 
124 MESSAGES OF PRESIDENT BUCHANAN. 
 
 March last there were fifteen of the thirty-three States which 
 had not elected any representatives to the present Congress. 
 Had Congress been called together immediately, these States 
 would have been virtually disfranchised. If an intermediate 
 period had been selected, several of the States would have 
 been compelled to hold extra sessions of their legislatures, at 
 great inconvenience and expense, to provide for elections at 
 .an earlier day than that previously fixed by law. In the reg- 
 ular course, ten of these States would not elect until after the 
 beginning of August, and five of these ten not until October 
 and November. 
 
 On the other hand, when I came to examine carefully the 
 condition of the Post Office Department, I did not meet as 
 many or as great difficulties as I had apprehended. Had the 
 bill which failed been confined to appropriations for the fiscal 
 year ending on the 30th June next, there would have been 
 no reason of pressing importance for the call of an extra ses- 
 sion. Nothing would become due on contracts (those with 
 railroad companies only excepted) for carrying the mail for 
 the first quarter of the present fiscal year, commencing on the 
 1st of July, until the 1st of December — ^less than one week 
 before the meeting of the present Congress. The reason is, 
 that the mail contractors for this and the current year did not 
 complete their first quarter's service until the 30th September 
 last ; and by the terms of .their contracts sixty days more are 
 allowed for the settlement of their accounts before the depart- 
 ment could be called upon for payment. 
 
 The great difficulty and the great hardship consisted in the 
 failure to provide for the payment of the deficiency in the 
 fiscal year ending the 30th June, 1859. The department had 
 entered into contracts, in obedience to existing laws, for the 
 service of that fiscal year, and the contractors were fairly enti- 
 tled to their compensation as it became due. The deficiency, 
 as stated in the bill, amounted to $3,838,728 ; but, after a 
 careful settlement of all these accounts, it has been ascertained 
 that it amounts to $4,296,009. With the scanty means at his 
 command, the Postmaster General has managed to pay that 
 portion of this deficiency which occurred in the first two quar- 
 ters of the past fiscal year ending on the 31st December last. 
 
MESSAGES GE PRESIDENT BUOHANAIf. 125 
 
 In tte mean time, the contractors themselves, under these try- 
 ing circumstances, have beha.ved in a manner worthy of all 
 commendation. They had one resource in the midst of their 
 embarrassments. After the amount due to each of them had 
 been ascertainedi and finaJly settled, according to law, this 
 became a specific debt of record against the Ui}ited States, 
 which enabled them to borrow money on this unquestionable 
 security. Still, they were obliged to pay interest, in conse- 
 quence of the default of Congress, and, on every principle of 
 justice, ought to receive interest frona the government. This 
 interest should commence from, the date when a. warrant would 
 have issued for the payment of the principal, had an appropri- 
 ation been made for this purpose. Calculated up to the 1st 
 Pecember, it will not exceed $96,660 — a sum not to be taken 
 into, account when contrasted with the great difficulties and 
 embarrassments of a public a,nd private character, botli to the 
 people and the States, which would, have resulted from con- 
 vening and holding a special session of Congress. 
 
 For these reasons, I recommend the passage of a bill, at as 
 early a, day as may be practicable, to provide for the payment 
 of the amount, with interest,, due to these last-mentioned eon- 
 tractors, as well as, to make; the necessary appropriations for 
 the service of t}ie Post OlHce Department for the current 
 fiscal year. 
 
 The failure to pass the post office bill necessarily gives birth 
 to serious reflections. Congress, by refuging to pass the gen- 
 eral appropriation biUs necessary to carry on the government, 
 may not only arrest its action, but might even destroy its ex- 
 istence. The army, the navy, the judiciary,, in short, every 
 department of the government, can no longer perform their 
 functions if Congress refuse the money necessary for their 
 support. If this failure should teach the country the necessity 
 of; electing a full Congress in suffipient time to enable the 
 ^'resident to convene t|iem in any emergency, even immedi- 
 ately after the old Congress has expired, it will haye been pro- 
 djictiye of great good. In a time of sudden and, alarming 
 danger, , foreign or domestic, which all, nations must expect to 
 encounter in their progress, the very salvation of our institu- 
 tions may be staked upon, the assembling of Congress without 
 
126 MESSAGES OF PKESIDENT BUCHANAN. 
 
 delay. If, under such circumstances, the President should 
 find himself in the condition in which he was placed at the 
 close of the last Congress, with nearly half the States of the 
 Union destitute of representatives, the consequences might be 
 disastrous. I therefore recommend to Congress to carry into 
 effect the provisions of the Constitution on this subject, and 
 to pass a law appointing some day previous to the 4th March 
 .in each year of odd number for the election of representatives 
 throughout all the States. They have already appointed a 
 day for the election of electors for President and Vice Presi- 
 dent, and this measure has been approved by the country. 
 
 I would again express a most decided opinion in favor of 
 the construction of a Pacific railroad, for the reasons stated in 
 my two last annual messages. When I reflect upon what 
 would be the defenceless condition of our States and Territories 
 west of the Rocky mountains in case of a war with a naval 
 power sufficiently strong to interrupt all intercourse with them 
 by the routes across the isthmus, I am still more convinced 
 than ever of the vast importance of this railroad. I have 
 never doubted the constitutional competency of Congress to 
 provide for its construction, but this exclusively under the 
 war-making power. Besides, the Constitution expressly re- 
 quires, as an imperative duty, that ' ' the United States shall 
 protect each of them [the States] against invasion." I am at 
 a loss to conceive how this protection can be afforded to Cali- 
 fornia and Oregon against such a naval power by any other 
 means. I repeat the opinion contained in my last annual 
 message, that it would be inexpedient for the government to 
 undertake this great work by agents of its own appointment, 
 and under its direct and exclusive control. This would in- 
 crease the patronage of the Executive to a dangerous extent, 
 and would foster a system of jobbing and corruption which 
 no vigilance on the part of federal officials could prevent. 
 The construction of this road ought, therefore, to be intrusted 
 to incorporated companies, or other agencies, who would exer- 
 cise that active and vigilant supervision over it which can be 
 inspired alone by a sense of corporate and individual interest. 
 I venture to assert that the additional cost of transporting 
 troops, munitions of war, and necessary supplies for the army 
 
MESSAGES OF PKESIDEWT BTJCHANAK. 127 
 
 across the vast intervening plains to our possessions on the 
 Pacitic coast would be greater in such a war than the whole 
 amount required to construct the road. And yet this resort 
 would, after all, be inadequate for their defence and protec- 
 tion. 
 
 We have yet scarcely recovered from the habits of extrava- 
 gant expenditure produced by our overflowing treasury during 
 several years prior to the commencement of my administration. 
 The financial reverses which we have since experienced ought 
 to teach us all to scrutinize our expenditures with the greatest 
 vigilance, and to reduce them to the lowest possible point. 
 The .executive departments of the government have devoted 
 themselves to the accomplishment of this object with consider- 
 able success, as will appear from their different reports and 
 estimates. To these I invite the scrutiny of Congress, for the 
 purpose of reducing them still lower, if this be practicable, 
 consistent with the great public interests of the country. In 
 aid of the policy of retrenchment, I pledge myself to examine 
 closely the bills appropriating lands or money, so that if any 
 of these should inadvertently pass both houses, as must some- 
 times be the case, I may afford them an opportunity for re- 
 consideration. At the same time we ought never to forget 
 that true public economy consists, not in withholding the 
 means necessary to accomplish important national objects con- 
 fided to us by the Constitution, but in taking care that the 
 money appropriated for these purposes shall be faithfully and 
 frugally expended. 
 
 It will appear from the report of tlie Secretary of the 
 Treasury that it is extremely doubtful, to say the least, 
 whether we shall be able to pass through the present and the 
 next fiscal year without providing additional revenue. This 
 can only be accomplished by strictly confining the appropria- 
 tions within the estimates of the different departments, with- 
 out making an allowance for any additional expenditures 
 which Congress may think proper, in their discretion, to 
 authorize, and without providing for the redemption of any 
 portion of the $20,000,000 of treasury notes which have been 
 already issued. In the event of a deficiency, which I consider 
 probable, this ought never to be supplied by a resort to addi- 
 
128 MESSAGES OF PRESIDEWT BUCHANAN. 
 
 tional loans. It would be a ruinous practice in the days of 
 peace and prosperity to go on increasing the national debt to 
 meet the ordinary expenses of the government. This policy 
 would cripple our resources and impair our credit in ease the 
 existence of war should render it necessary to borrow money. 
 Should such a deficiency occur as I apprehend, I would recom- 
 mend that the necessary revenue be raised by an increase of 
 our present duties on imports. I need not repeat the opinions 
 expressed in my last annual message as to the best mode and 
 manner of accomplishing this object, and shall now merely 
 observe that these have since undergone no change. 
 
 The Report of the Secretary of the Treasury will explain la 
 detail the operations of that department of the government. 
 
 The receipts into the treasury from all sources during 
 the fiscal year ending June 30, 1859, including the loan 
 authorized by the act of June 14, 1858, and the issues of 
 treasury notes authorized by existing laws, were eighty-one 
 million six hundred and ninety-two thousand four hundred 
 and seventy-one dollars and one cent, ($81,692,471 01,) which 
 sum, with the balance of six million three hundred and ninety- 
 eight thousand three hundred and sixteen dollars and ten cents 
 ($6,398,316 10) remaining in the treasury at the commence- 
 ment of that fiscal year, made an aggregate for the service of 
 the year of eighty-eight milhon ninety thousand seven hundred 
 and eighty-seven dollars and eleven cents, ($88,090,787 11.) 
 
 The pubhc expenditures during the fiscal year ending June 
 30, 1859, amounted to eighty-three million seven hundred 
 and fifty-one thousand five hundred and. eleven dollars and 
 fifty-seven cents, ($83,751,511 57.) Of this sum seventeen 
 million four hundred and five thousand two hundred and 
 eighty-five dollars and forty-four cents ($17,405,285 44) were 
 applied to, the payment of interest on the public debt and the 
 redemption of the issues of treasury notes. The expenditures 
 for all other branches of the public service during that fiscal 
 year were, therefore, sixty-six million three hundred and 
 forty-six thousand two hundreds and twenty -six dollars and 
 thirteen cents, ($66,346,226 13.) 
 
 The balance remaining in the treasury on the 1st July, 1859, 
 being the commencement of the present fiscal year, was four 
 
MESSAGES OF* PRESIDENT BUOHANAIT. 129 
 
 million three hundred and thirty-nine thousand two hundred 
 and seventy-five dollars and fifty-four cents, ($4,339,275 54.) 
 
 The receipts into the treasury during the first quarter of the 
 present fiscal year, commencing July 1, 1855, were twenty 
 million six hundred and eighteen thousand eight hundred and 
 sixty-five dollars and eighty-five cents, ($20,618,865 86.) Of 
 this amount three million eight hundred and twenty-one thou- 
 sand three hundred dollars ($3,821,300) was received on ac- 
 count of the loan and the issue of treasury notes — the amount 
 of sixteen million seven hundred and ninety-seven thousand 
 five hundred and sixty-five dollars and eighty-five cents 
 ($16,797,565 85) having been received during the quarter 
 from the ordinary sources of public revenue. The estimated 
 receipts for the remaining three-quarters of the present fiscal 
 year to June 30, 1860, are fifty million four hundred and 
 twenty-six thousand four hundred dollars, ($50,426,400.) Of 
 this amount it is estimated that five million seven hundred and 
 fifty-six thousand four hundred dollars ($5,756,400) will be 
 received for treasury notes which may be reissued under the 
 fifth section of the act of 3d March last, and one million one 
 hundred and seventy thousand dollars ($1,170,000) on account 
 of the loan authorized by the act of June 14, 1858 — making 
 six million nine hundred and twenty-six thousand four hun- 
 dred dollars ($6,926,400) from these extraordinary sources, 
 and forty-three million five hundred thousand dollars ($43,- 
 500,000) from the ordinary sources of the public revenue — 
 making an aggregate, with the balance in the treasury on the 
 Ist July, 1859, of seventy-five million three hundred and 
 eighty-four thousand five hundred and forty-one dollars and 
 eighty-nine cents ($75,384,541 89) for the estimated means of 
 the present fiscal year ending June 30, 1860. 
 
 The expenditures during the first quarter of the present 
 fiscal year were twenty million seven thousand one hundred 
 and seventy-four dollars and seventy-six cents, ($20,007,- 
 174 76.) Four million six hundred and sixty-four thousand 
 three hundred and sixty-six dollars and seveaty-six cents 
 ($4,664,366 76) of this sum were applied to the payment of 
 interest on the public debt and the redemption of the issues 
 of treasury notes, and the remainder, being fifteen millioil 
 9 
 
130 MESSAGES OF PRESIDENT BUCHANAN. 
 
 three hundred and forty-two thousand eight hundred and eight 
 dollars, ($15,34:2,808,) were applied to ordinary expenditures 
 during the quarter. The estimated expenditures during the 
 remaining three quarters, to June 30, 1860, are forty million 
 nine hundred and ninety-five thousand five hundred and fifty- 
 eight dollars and twenty-three cents, ($40,995,558 23.) Of 
 which sum two million eight hundred and eighty-six thousand 
 six hundred and twenty-one dollars and thirty-four cents 
 ($2,886,621 34) are estimated for the interest on the public 
 debt. The ascertained and estimated expenditures for the 
 fiscal year ending June 30, 1860, on account of the public 
 debt, are accordingly seven million five hundred and fifty 
 thousand nine hundred and eighty-eight dollars and ten cents, 
 ($7,550,988 10 ;) and for the ordinary expenditures of the 
 government fifty-three million four hundred and fifty-one 
 thousand seven hundred and forty -four dollars and eighty-nine 
 cents, ($53,451,744 89,) making an aggregate of sixty-one 
 million two thousand seven hundred and thirty-two dollars 
 and ninety- nine cents, ($61,002,732 99 ;) leaving an estimated 
 balance in the treasury on June 30, 1860, of fourteen million 
 three hundred and eighty- one thousand eight hundred and 
 eight dollars and forty cents, ($14,381,808 40.) 
 
 The estimated receipts during the next fiscal year ending 
 June 30, 1861, are sixty-six million two hundred and twenty- 
 five thousand dollars, ($66,225,000,) which, with the balance 
 estimated, as before stated, as remaining in the treasury on 
 the 30th June, 1860, will make an aggregate for the service 
 of the next fiscal year of eighty million six hundred and six 
 thousand eight hundred and eight dollars and forty cents, 
 ($80,606,808 40.) 
 
 The estimated expenditures during the next fiscal year end- 
 ing 30th June, 1861, are sixty-six million seven hundred and 
 fourteen thousand nine hundred and twenty-eight dollars and 
 seventy-nine cents, ($66,714,928 79.) Of this amount three 
 million three hundred and eighty-six thousand six hundred 
 and twenty-one dollars and thirty-four cents ($3,386,621 34) 
 will be required to pay the interest on the public debt, leaving 
 the sum of sixty-three million three hundred and twenty-eight 
 thousand three hundred and seven dollars and forty-five cents 
 
MESSAGES OF PRESIDENT BUCHANAN. 131 
 
 ($63,328,307 45) for the estimated ordinary expenditures dur- 
 ing the fiscal year ending 30th June, 1861. Upon these esti- 
 mates a balance will be left in the treasury on the 30th June, 
 1861, of thirteen million eight hundred and ninety-one thou- 
 sand eight hundred and seventy-nine dollars and sixty-one 
 cents, ($13,891,879 61.) 
 
 But this balance, as well as that estimated to remain in the 
 treasury on the 1st July, 1860, will be reduced by such appro- 
 priations as shall be made by law to carry into efEect certain 
 Indian treaties during the present fiscal year, asked for by the 
 Secretary of the Interior, to the amount of five hundred and 
 thirty-nine thousand three hundred and fifty dollars, ($539,- 
 350 ;) and upon the estimates of the Postmaster General for 
 the service of his department the last fiscal year ending 30th 
 June, 1859, amounting to four million two hundred and 
 ninety-six thousand and nine dollars, ($4,296,009,) together 
 with the further estimate of that oflicer for the service of the 
 present fiscal year ending 30th June, 1860, being five million 
 five hundred and twenty-six thousand three hundred and 
 twenty-four dollars, ($5,526,324) — making an aggregate of 
 ten million three hundred and sixty-one thousand six hundred 
 and eighty-three dollars, ($10,361,683.) 
 
 Should these appropriations be made as requested by the 
 proper departments, the balance in the treasury on the 30th 
 June, 1861, will not, it is estimated, exceed three milhon five 
 hundred and thirty thousand one hundred and ninety-six 
 dollars and sixty-one cents, ($3,530,196 61.) 
 
 I transmit herewith the reports of the Secretaries of War, 
 of the N^avy, of the Interior, and of the Postmaster General. 
 They each contain valuable information and important recom- 
 mendations well worthy of the serious consideration of Congress 
 
 It will appear from the report of the Secretary of War that 
 the army expenditures have been materially reduced by a 
 system of rigid economy, which, in his opinion, offers every 
 guarantee that the reduction will be permanent. The esti- 
 mates of the department for the next have been reduced nearly 
 two millions of dollars below the estimates for the present 
 fiscal year, and half a million of dollars below the amount 
 granted for this year at the last session of Congress. 
 
132 MESSAGES OF PEESIDENT BUCHANAN. 
 
 The expenditares of the Post Office Department during the 
 past fiscal year, ending on the 30th June, 1859, exclusive of 
 payments for mail service, specially provided for by Congress 
 out of the general treasury, amounted to $14,964,493 33, and 
 its receipts to $7,968,484 07, showing a deficiency to be sup- 
 plied from the treasury of $6,996,009 26, against $5,235,- 
 677 15 for the year ending 30th June, 1858. The increased 
 cost of transportation, growing out of the expansion of the 
 service required by Congress, explains this rapid augmentation 
 of the expenditures. It is gratifying, however, to observe an 
 increase of receipts for the year ending on the 30th of Jime, 
 1859, equal to $481,691 21, compared with those in the year 
 ending on the 30th June, 1858. 
 
 It is estimated that the deficiency for the current fiscal year 
 will be $5,988,424 04, but that for the year ending 30th June, 
 1861, it will not exceed $1,342,473 90, should Congress adopt 
 the measures of reform proposed and urged by the Postmaster 
 General. Since the month of March retrenchments have been 
 made in the expenditures amounting to $1,826,471 annually, 
 which, however, did not take effect until after the commence- 
 ment of the present fiscal year. The period seems to have 
 arrived for determining the question whether this department 
 shall become a permanent and ever increasing charge upon 
 the treasury or shall be permitted to resume the self-sustaining 
 policy which had so long controlled its administration. The 
 course of legislation recommended by the Postmaster General 
 for the relief of the department from its present embarrass- 
 ments, and for restoring it to its original independence, is de- 
 serving of your early and earnest consideration. 
 
 In conclusion, I would again commend to the just liberality 
 of Congress the local interests of the District of Columbia. 
 Surely the city bearing the name of Washington, and destined, 
 I trust, for ages to be the capital of our united, free, and pros- 
 perous confederacy, has strong claims on our favorable regard. 
 
 JAMES BUCHANAK. 
 
 Washington Citt, Decernher 19, 1859. 
 
ANNUAL MESSAGE TO THE TWO HOUSES OF 
 CONGRESS AT THE COMMENCEMENT OF 
 THE SECOND SESSION OF THE 
 THIRTY-SIXTH CONGRESS. ^ 
 
 Great material prosperity of the nation in the past year. — Why, then, dis- 
 content, and the Union, source of all these blessings, threatened with 
 destruction ? — Long continued interference by the North with slavery in 
 the Southern States, and the formation of hostile geographical parties the 
 cause. — Apprehension of servile insurrections and danger to the family 
 in Southern homes must imperil the Union. — The question of slavery in 
 ^he States should be left to them. — As sovereign States they alone are 
 responsible before God and the world.— The election of no man a just 
 cause for dissolving the Union.— Only a deliberate, palpable, and danger- 
 ous exercise of powers not granted by the Constitution a sufficient cause. 
 — Apprehensions of future danger no sufficient reason. — Factious ques- 
 tioning of the oorreefcness of the Supreme Court's decision. — Acts of 
 State Legislatures to defeat the fugitive slave law unconstitutional and 
 void. — Admitting the right of revolution, secession as a Constitutional 
 remedy denied. — Wholly inconsistent with the history and character of 
 the Constitution. — The doctrine of secession refuted by General Jackson 
 in his message of 16th January, 1833. — The Government of the United 
 States operates directly on persons and things, and has at its command a 
 physical force for executing its powers, and was intended to be perpetual. 
 — It acts directly upon all the people within the limits of the Union, and 
 executes its own laws without the agency of the States. — Its framers never 
 intended to implant in its bosom the seeds of its own destruction. — The 
 Act of Congress of 28th February, 1795, and 3d March, 1807, insufficient 
 without further legislation to enable the President to enforce the laws in 
 seceding States. — The President submits the whole question to Congress 
 for its action. — He finds no power delegated to Congress by the Constitu- 
 tion to declare a war against a State as such. — The President urges an 
 amendment to the Constitution to settle the slavery question beyond dis- 
 pute for all time. — Our relations with Great Britain most satisfactory. — 
 Amicable settlemeiit of the Clayton and Bulwer treaty question and the 
 question of the right of search. — Disputed title to the Island of San Juan 
 still under negotiation. — Ilecent visit of the Prince of Wales to the United 
 States. — France. — The right of expatriation recognized by her. — Russia. 
 — Our relations with Spain more complicated but less dangerous than for 
 many years. — Claims of our citizens admitted. —The President reiterates 
 his recommendation of the acquisition of Cuba by fair purchase, and 
 
134 MESSAGES OP PEE8IDENT BTJCHANAN. 
 
 cites the sale of Louisiana by France.— China.— There will be a surplus 
 of $200,000 over all just claims of our citizens.— Kecommends that this 
 sum be appropriated to some benevolent object in which the Chinese 
 may be specially interested. — Katification of our treaty with Japan. — 
 Brazil,— Eatification of treaty with New Granada.— Treaty with Costa 
 Bica. — Nicaragua. — Our relations with Mexico still most unsatisfactory. 
 — The President recommended such measures in regard to Mexico as 
 would deprive European governments of any pretext to interfere in the 
 territorial or domestic concerns of Mexico. — Treaty negotiated with the 
 constitutional Government of that country. — Eeview of Kansas affairs. — 
 Peace in Utah. 
 Finances of the Government. — With economy sixty-one or at most sixty- 
 two million dollars ample to administer the Government and pay the 
 interest on the public debt. — No more slaves imported and no more mil- 
 itary expeditions set on foot against peaceful nations. — The President 
 renews his recommendation of Pacific Eailroad and other measures. — 
 Eecommends a law appointng a day certain previous to 4th March in 
 each year of an odd number for the election of representatives in all the 
 States. — Modification of tariff to Increase revenue needed. — Specific 
 rather than ad valorem duties urged. — Eeports of Departments. — Cornelfus 
 Yanderbilt. — Land claims in California. — Famine in Kansas, relief urged. 
 — District of Columbia. 
 
 FeUow-oitizens of the Senate and House of Sepresentalmes : 
 
 Throughout the year since our last meeting, the country has 
 been eminently prosperous in all its material interests. The 
 general health has been excellent, our harvests have been 
 abundant, and plenty smiles throughout the land. Our com- 
 merce and manufactures have been prosecuted with energy 
 and industry, and have yielded fair and ample returns. In 
 short, no nation in the tid^of time Ijas ever presented a spec- 
 tacle of greater material prosperity than we have done, until 
 within a very recent period. 
 
 Why is it, then, that discontent now so extensively prevails, 
 and the union of the States, which is the source of all these 
 blessings is threatened with destruction ? 
 
 The long continued and intemperate interference of the 
 northern people with the question of slavery in the southern 
 States has at length produced its natural effects. The differ- 
 ent sections of the Union are now arrayed against each other, 
 and the time has arrived, so much dreaded by the Father of 
 his Country, when hostile geographical parties have been 
 formed. 
 
MESSAGES OP PRESIDENT BUCHANAN. 135 
 
 I have long foreseen, and often forewarned my countrymen 
 of the now impending danger. This does not proceed solely 
 from the claim on the part of Congress or the territorial legis- 
 latures to exclude slavery from the Territories, nor from the 
 efforts of different States to defeat the execution of the fugi- 
 tive slave law. All or any of these evils might have been 
 endured by the South, without danger to the Union, (as others 
 have been,) in the hope that time and reflection might apply 
 the remedy. The immediate peril arises, not so much from 
 these causes, as from the fact that the incessant and violent 
 agitation of the slavery question throughout the North for 
 the last quarter of a century has at length produced its malign 
 influence on the slaves, and inspired them with vague notions 
 of freedom. Hence a sense of security no longer exists around 
 the family altar. This feeling of peace at home has given 
 place to apprehensions of servile insurrections. Many a 
 matron throughout the South retires at night in dread of what 
 may befall herself and her children before the morning. 
 Should this apprehension of domestic danger, whether real or 
 imaginary extend, and intensify itself, until it shall pervade 
 the masses of the southern people, then disunion will become 
 inevitable. Self-preservation is the flrst law of nature, and 
 has been implanted in the heart of man by his Creator, for 
 the wisest purpose ; and no political union, however fraught 
 with blessings and beneflts in all other respects, can long con- 
 tinue, if the necessary consequence be to render the homes 
 and the firesides of nearly half the parties to it habitually and 
 hopelessly insecure. Sooner or later the bonds of such a 
 Union must be severed. It is my conviction that this fatal 
 period has not yet arrived ; and my prayer to God is, that he 
 would preserve the Constitution and the Union throughout all 
 generations. 
 
 But let us take warning in time, and remove the cause of 
 danger. It cannot be denied that for five and twenty years 
 the agitation at the North against slavery has been incessant. 
 In 1835, pictorial hand-bills and inflammatory appeals were 
 circulated extensively throughout the South of a character to 
 excite the passions of the slaves, and, in the language of Gen- 
 eral Jackson, " to stimulate them to insurrection and produce 
 
136 MESSAGES OF PEESIDENT BUOHAWAN. 
 
 all the horrors of a servile war." This agitation has ever 
 since been continued by the public press, by the proceedings 
 of State and county conventions, and by abolition sermons and 
 lectures. The time of Congress has been occupied in violent 
 speeches on this never-ending subject ; and appeals, in pam- 
 phlet and other forms, indorsed by distinguished names, have 
 been sent forth from this central point and spread broadcast 
 over the Union. 
 
 How easy would it be for the American people to settle the 
 slavery question forever, and to restore peace and harmony 
 to this distracted country ! They, and they alone, can do it. 
 All that is necessary to accomplish the object, and all for 
 which the slave States have ever contended, is to be let alone 
 and permitted to manage their domestic institutions in their 
 own way. As sovereign States, they and they alone are re- 
 sponsible before God and the world for the slavery existing 
 among them. For this the people of the JS^orth are not more 
 responsible, and have no more right to interfere, than with 
 similar institutions in Kussia or in Brazil. 
 
 Upon their good sense and patriotic forbearance, I confess, 
 I still greatly rely. Without their aid it is beyond the power 
 of any President, no matter what may be his own political 
 proclivities, to restore peace and harmony among the States. 
 Wisely limited and restrained as is his power under our Con- 
 stitution and laws, he alone can accomplish but little for good 
 or for evil on such a momentous question. 
 
 And this brings me to observe, that the election of any one 
 of our fellow-citizens to the office of President does not of 
 itself afiEord just cause for dissolving the Union. This is more 
 especially true if his election has been effected by a mere plu- 
 rality and not a majority of the people, and has resulted from 
 transient and temporary causes, which may probably never 
 again occur. In order to justify a resort to revolutionary re- 
 sistance the federal government must be guilty of " a deliber- 
 ate, palpable, and dangerous exercise" of powers not granted 
 by the Constitution. The late presidential election, however, 
 has been held in strict conformity with its express provisions. 
 How, then, can the result justify a revolution to destroy this 
 very Constitution ? Reason, justice, a regard for the Consti- 
 
MESSAGES OF PRESIDENT BUCHANAN". 137 
 
 tution, all require that we shall wait for some overt and dan- 
 gerous act on the part of the President elect, before resorting 
 to such a remedy. It is said, however, that the antecedents 
 of the President elect have been sufficient to justify the fears 
 of the South that he will attempt to invade their constitutional 
 rights. But are such apprehensions of contingent danger in 
 the future sufficient to justify the immediate destruction of 
 the noblest system of government ever devised by mortals ? 
 From the very nature of his office, and its high responsibilities, 
 he must necessarily be conservative. The stern duty of ad- 
 ministering the vast and complicated concerns of this govern- 
 ment affords in itself a guarantee that he will not attempt any 
 violation of a clear constitutional right. 
 
 After all, he is no more than the chief executive officer of 
 the government. His province is not to make but to execute 
 the laws ; and it is a remarkable fact in our history that, not- 
 withstanding the repeated efforts of the anti-slavery party, no 
 single act has ever passed Congress, unless we may possibly 
 except the Missouri compromise, impairing in the sKghtest 
 degree the rights of the South to their property in slaves. 
 And it may also be observed, judging from present indications, 
 that no probability exists of the passage of such an act by a 
 majority of both houses, either in the present or the next Con- 
 gress. Surely, under these circumstances we ought to be re- 
 strained from present action by the precept of Him who spake 
 as man never spoke that " sufficient unto the day is the evil 
 thereof." The day of evil may never come unless we shall 
 rashly bring it upon ourselves. 
 
 It is alleged as one cause for immediate secession, that. the 
 southern States are denied equal rights with the other States 
 in the common Territories. But by what authority are these 
 denied ? Not by Congress, which has never passed, and I 
 believe never will pass, any act to exclude slavery from these 
 Territories. And certainly not by the Supreme Court, which 
 has solemnly decided that slaves are property, and like all 
 other property their owners have a right to take them into 
 the common Terntories and hold them there under the protec- 
 tion of the Constitution. 
 
 So far then as Congress is concei'ned the objection is not to 
 
138 MESSAGES OF PRESIDENT BUCHANAN. 
 
 anything thej' have already done, but to what they may do 
 hereafter. It will surely be admitted that this apprehension 
 of future danger is no good reason for an immediate dissolu- 
 tion of the Union. It is true that the territorial legislature of 
 Kansas on the 23d February, 1860, passed in great haste an 
 act over the veto of the governor, declaring that slavery " is 
 and shall be forever prohibited in this Territory." Such an 
 act, however, plainly violating the rights of property secured 
 by the Constitution, will surely be declared void by the judi- 
 ciary, whenever it shall be presented in a legal form. 
 
 Only three days after my inauguration the Supreme Court 
 of the United States solemnly adjudged that this power did 
 not exist in a territorial legislature. Yet such has been the 
 factious temper of the times that the correctness of this deci- 
 sion has been extensively impugned before the people, and the 
 question has given rise to angry political conflicts throughout 
 the country. Those who have appealed from this judgment 
 of our highest constitutional tribunal to popular assemblies, 
 would, if they could, invest a territorial legislature with power 
 to annul the sacred rights of property. This power Congress 
 is expressly forbidden by the federal Constitution to exercise. 
 Every State legislature in the Union is forbidden by its own 
 constitution to exercise it. It cannot be exercised in any 
 State except by the people in their highest sovereign capacity 
 when framing or amending their State constitution. In like 
 manner it can only be exercised by the people of a territory, 
 represented in a convention of delegates, for the purpose of 
 framing a constitution preparatory to admission as a State into 
 the Union. Then and not until then, are they invested with 
 power to decide the question whether slavery shall or shall not 
 exist within their limits. This is an act of sovereign authority 
 and not of subordinate territorial legislation. "Were it other- 
 wise, then indeed would the equality of the States in the Ter- 
 ritories be destroyed and the rights of property in slaves would 
 depend not upon the guarantees of the Constitution, but upon 
 the shifting majorities of an irresponsible territorial legisla- 
 ture. Such a doctrine, from its intrinsic unsoundness, cannot 
 long influence any considerable portion of .our people, much 
 less can it afiPord a good reason for a dissolution of the Union. 
 
MESSAGES OF PRESIDENT BUCHANAN". 139 
 
 The most palpable violations of constitutional duty which 
 have yet been committed consist in the acts of different State 
 legislatures to defeat the execution of the fugitive slave law. 
 It ought to be remembered, however, that for these acts 
 neither Congress nor any President can justly be held respon- 
 sible. Having been passed in violation of the federal Consti- 
 tution, they are therefore null and void. All the courts, 
 both State and national, before whom the question has arisen, 
 have, from the beginning, declared the fugitive slave law to 
 be constitutional. The single exception is that of a State 
 court in "Wisconsin ; and this has not only been reversed by 
 the proper appellate tribunal, but has met with such universal 
 reprobation, that there can be no danger from it as a pre- 
 cedent. The validity of this law has been established over 
 and over again by the Supreme Court of the United States 
 with perfect unanimity. It is founded upon an express pro- 
 vision of the Constitution, requiring that fugitive slaves who 
 escape from service in one State to another shall be " delivered 
 up" to their masters. Without this provision it is a well 
 known historical fact that the Constitution itself could never 
 have been adopted by the convention. In one form or other 
 under the acts of 1Y93 and 1850, both being substantially the 
 same, the fugitive slave law has been the law of the land from 
 the days of Washington until the present moment. Here, 
 then, a clear case is presented, in which it will be the duty of 
 the next President, as it has been my own, to act with vigor 
 in executing this supreme law against the conflicting enact- 
 ments of State legislatures. Should he fail in the perform- 
 ance of this high duty, he will then have manifested a disre- 
 gard of the Constitution and laws, to the great injury of the 
 people of nearly one half of the States of the Union. Eut 
 are we to presume in advance that he will thus violate his 
 duty ? This would be at war with every principle of justice 
 and of Christian charity. Let us wait for the overt act. The 
 fugitive slave law has been carried into execution in every 
 contested case since the commencement of the present adminis- 
 tration ; though often, it is to be regretted, with great loss 
 and inconvenience to the master, and with considerable ex- 
 pense to the government. Let us trust that the State legisla- 
 
V 
 
 140 MESSAGES OF PRESIDENT BUCHANAN. 
 
 tnres will repeal their unconstitutional and obnoxious enact- 
 ments. Unless this shall be done without unnecessary delay, 
 it is impossible for any human power to save the Union. 
 
 The southern States, standing on the basis of the Constitu- 
 tion, have a right to demand this act of justice from the States 
 of the North. Should it be refused, then the Constitution, 
 to which all the States are parties, will have been wilfully 
 violated by one portion of them in a provision essential to the 
 domestic security and happiness of the remainder. In that 
 event, the injured States, after having first used all peaceful 
 and constitutional means to obtain redress, would be justified 
 in revolutionary resistance to the government of the Union. 
 
 I have purposely confined my remarks to revolutionary re- 
 sistance, because it has been claimed within the last few years 
 that any State, whenever this shall be its sovereign will and 
 pleasure, may secede from the Union in accordance with the 
 Constitution, and without any violation of the constitutional 
 rights of the other members of the Confederacy. That as 
 each became parties to the Union by the vote of its own peo- 
 ple assembled in convention, so any one of them may retire 
 from the Union in a similar manner by the vote of such a con- 
 vention. 
 
 In order to justify secession as a constitutional remedy it 
 must be on the principle that the federal government is a mere 
 voluntary association of States, to be dissolved at pleasure by 
 any one of the contracting parties. If this be so, the Confed- 
 eracy is a rope of sand, to be penetrated and dissolved by the 
 first adverse wave of public opinion in any of the States. In 
 this manner our thirty-three States may resolve themselves 
 into as many petty, jarring, and hostile republics, each one 
 retiring from the Union without responsibility whenever any 
 sudden excitement might impel them to such a course. By 
 this process a Union might be entirely broken into fragments 
 in a few weeks which cost our forefathers many years of toil, 
 privation, and blood to establish. 
 
 Such a principle is wholly inconsistent with the history as 
 well as the character of the federal Constitution. After it 
 was framed with the greatest deliberation and care it was sub- 
 mitted to conventions of the people of the several States for 
 
MESSAGES OF PRESIDENT BUCHAWAN. ' 141 
 
 ratification. Its provisions were discussed at lengtli in these 
 bodies, composed of the first men of the country. Its oppo- 
 nents contended that it conferred powers upon the federal gov- 
 ernment dangerous to the rights of the States, whilst its advo- 
 cates maintained that, under a fair construction of the instru- 
 ment, there was no foundation for such apprehensions. In 
 that mighty struggle between the first intellects of this or any 
 other country it never occurred to any individual, either 
 among its opponents or advocates, to assert or even to intimate 
 that their efforts were all vain labor, because the moment that 
 any State felt herself aggrieved she might secede from the 
 Union. What a crushing argument would this have proved 
 against those who dreaded that the rights of the States would 
 be endangered by the Constitution. The truth is, that it was 
 not until many years after the origin of the federal govern- 
 ment that such a proposition was first advanced. It was then 
 met and refuted by the conclusive arguments of General 
 Jackson, who, in his message of the 16th January, 1833, 
 transmitting the nullifying ordinance of South Carolina to 
 Congress, employs the following language : " The right of 
 the people of a single State to absolve themselves at will and 
 without the consent of the other States from their most solemn 
 obligations, and hazard the liberty and happiness of the mill- 
 ions composing this Union, cannot be acknowledged. Such 
 authority is believed to be utterly repugnant both to the prin- 
 ciples upon which the general government is constituted, and 
 to the objects which it was expressly formed to attain." 
 
 It is not pretended that any clause in the Constitution gives 
 countenance to such a theory. It is altogether founded upon 
 inference not from any language contained in the instrument 
 itself, but from the sovereign character of the several States 
 by which it was ratified. But is it beyond the power of a 
 State, like an individual, to yield a portion of its sovereign 
 rights to secure the remainder ? In the language of Mr. 
 Madison, who has been called the father of the Constitution, 
 " It was formed by the States — that is, by the people in each 
 of the States acting in their highest sovereign capacity, and 
 formed consequently by the same authority which formed the 
 State constitutions." " Nor is the government of the United 
 
142 MESSAGES OF PRESIDENT BUCHANABT. 
 
 States, created by the Constitution, less a government, in the 
 strict sense of the term, within the sphere of its powers, than 
 the governmeats created by the constitutions of the States are 
 within their several spheres. It is, like them, organized into 
 legislative, executive, and judiciary departments. It operates, 
 like them, directly on persons and things ; and, like them, it 
 has at command a physical force for executing the powers 
 committed to it." 
 
 It was intended to be perpetual, and not to be annulled at 
 the pleasure of any one of the contracting parties. The old 
 articles of confederation were entitled " Articles of confedera- 
 tion and perpetual union between the States ;" and by the 
 thirteenth article it is expressly declared that " the articles of 
 this confederation shall be inviolably observed by every State, 
 and the union shall be perpetual. " The preamble to the Con- 
 stitution of the United States having express reference to the 
 articles of confederation, recites that it was established "in 
 order to form a more perfect union. ' ' And yet it is contended 
 that this " more perfect union" does not include the essential 
 attribute of perpetuity. 
 
 But that the union was designed to be perpetual, appears 
 conclusively from the nature and extent of the powers con- 
 ferred by the Constitution on the federal government. These 
 powers embrace the very highest attributes of national sover- 
 eignty. They place both the sword and the purse under its 
 control. Congress has power to make war and to make 
 peace ; to raise and support armies and navies, and to con- 
 clude treaties with foreign governments. It is invested with 
 the power to coin money, and to regulate the value thereof, 
 and to regulate commerce with foreign nations and among the 
 several States. It is not necessary to enumerate the other 
 high powers which have been conferred upon the federal gov- 
 ernment. In order to carry the enumerated powers into effect, 
 Congress possesses the exclusive right to lay and collect duties 
 on imports, and, in common with the States, to lay and col- 
 lect all other taxes. 
 
 But the Constitution has not only conferred these high 
 powers upon Congress, but it has adopted effectual means to 
 restrain the States from interfering with their exercise. For 
 
MEvSSAGES OF PEESIDENT BUOHANAK. 143 
 
 that purpose it lias in strong prohibitory language expressly 
 declared that " no State shall enter* into any treaty, alliance, 
 or confederation ; grant letters of marque and reprisal ; coin 
 money ; emit bills of credit ; make anything but gold and 
 silver coin a tender in payment of debts ; pass any bill of 
 attainder, exjposf facto law, or law impairing the obligation 
 of contracts." Moreover, " without the consent of Congress 
 no State shall lay any imposts or duties on any imports or ex- 
 ports, except what may be absolutely necessary for executing 
 its inspection laws," and if they exceed this amount, the ex- 
 cess shall belong to the United States. And " no State shall, 
 without the consent of Congress, lay any duty of tonnage, 
 keep troops or ships of war in time of peace, enter into any 
 agreement or compact with another State, or with a foreign 
 Power, or engage in war, unless actually invaded or in such 
 imminent danger as will not admit of delay." 
 
 In order still further to secure the uninterrupted exercise of 
 these high powers against State interposition, it is provided 
 " that this Constitution and the laws of the United States 
 which shall be made in pursuance thereof, and all treaties 
 made or which shall be made under the authority of the 
 United States, shall be the supreme law of the land ; and the 
 judges in every State shall be bound thereby, anything in the 
 constitution or laws of any State to the contrary notwith- 
 standing." 
 
 The solemn sanction of religion has been superadded to the 
 obligations of official duty, and all senators and representatives 
 of the United States, all members of State legislatures, and all 
 executive and judicial officers, " both of the United States 
 and of the several States, shall be bound by oath or affirmation 
 to support tliis Constitution." 
 
 In order to carry into effect these powers, the Constitution 
 has estabhshed a perfect government in all its forms, legisla- 
 tive, executive, and judicial ; and this government to the ex- 
 tent of its powers acts directly upon the individual citizens of 
 every State, and executes its own decrees by the agency of its 
 own officers. In this respect it differs entirely from the gov- 
 ernment under the old confederation, which was confined to 
 making requisitions on the States in their sovereign character. 
 
144 MESSAGES OE PRESIDENT BUCHANAN. 
 
 This left it in the discretion of each whether to obey or to re- 
 fuse, and they often declinfed to comply with such requisitions. 
 It thus became necessary for the purpose of removing this 
 barrier, and, "in order to forma more perfect union," to 
 establish a government which could act directly upon the 
 people and execute its own laws without the intermediate 
 agency of the States. This has been accomplished by the 
 Constitution of the United States. In short, the government 
 created by the Constitution, and deriving its authority from 
 the sovereign people of each of the several States, has pre- 
 cisely the same right to exercise its power over the people of 
 all these States in the enumerated cases, that each one of them 
 possesses over subjects not delegated to the United States, but 
 " reserved to the States respectively or to the people." 
 
 To the extent of the delegated powers the Constitution of 
 the United States is as much a part of the constitution of each 
 State, and is as binding upon its people, as though it had been 
 textually inserted therein. 
 
 This government therefore is a great and powerful govern- 
 ment, invested with all the attributes of sovereignty over the 
 special subjects to which its authority extends. Its framers 
 never intended to implant in its bosom the seeds of its own 
 destruction, nor were they at its creation guilty of the ab- 
 surdity of providing for its own dissolution. It was not in- 
 tended by its framers to be the baseless fabric of a vision, 
 which, at the touch of the enchanter, would vanish into thin 
 air, but a substantial and mighty fabric, capable of resisting 
 the slow decay of time, and of defying the storms of ages. 
 Indeed, well may the jealous patriots of that day have in- 
 dulged fears that a government of such high powers might 
 violate the reserved rights of the States, and wisely did they 
 adopt the rule of a strict construction of these powers to pre- 
 vent the danger. But they did not fear, nor had they any 
 reason to imagine that the Constitution would ever be so inter- 
 preted as to enable any State by her own act, and without the 
 consent of her sister States, to discharge her people from ail 
 or any of their federal obligations. 
 
 It may be asked, then, are the people of the States without 
 redress against the tyranny and oppression of the federal gov- 
 
MESSAGES OF PBESIDENT BtTCHAWAN. 145 
 
 ernment ? By no means. The right of resistance on the part 
 of the governed against the oppression of their governments 
 cannot be denied. It exists independently of all constitutions, 
 and has been exercised at all periods of the world's history. 
 Under it, old governments have been destroyed and new ones 
 have taken their place. It is embodied in strong and express 
 language in our own Declaration of Independence. Bat the 
 distinction must ever be observed that this is revolution 
 against an established government, and not a voluntary seces- 
 sion from it by virtue of an inherent constitutional right. In 
 short, let us look the danger fairly in the face ; secession is 
 neither more nor less than revolution. It may or it may not be 
 a justifiable revolution ; but still it is revolution. 
 
 Wha.t, in the mean time, is the responsibility and true posi- 
 tion of the Executive ? He is bound by solemn oath, before 
 God and the country, " to take care that the laws be faithfully 
 executed," and from this obligation he cannot be absolved by 
 any human power. But what if the performance of this 
 duty, in whole or in part, has been rendered impracticable by 
 events over which he could have exercised no control ? Such, 
 at the present moment, is the case throughout the State of 
 South Carolina, so far as the laws of the United States to 
 secure the administration of justice by means of the federal 
 judiciary are concerned. All the federal officers within its 
 limits, through whose agency alone these laws can be carried 
 into execution, have already resigned. We no longer have a 
 district judge, a district attorney, or a marshal in South Caro- 
 lina. In fact, the whole machinery of the federal government 
 necessary for the distribution of remedial justice among the 
 people has been demolished, and it would be difficult, if not 
 impossible, to replace it. 
 
 The only acts of Congress on the statute book bearing upon 
 this subject are those of the 28th February', 1T95, and 3d 
 March, 180Y. These 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 forth the militia and employ the army and navy 
 to aid him in performing this service, having first by proc- 
 lamation commanded the insurgents " to disperse and retire 
 10 
 
146 MESSAGES OF PRESIDENT BITCHAWAlSr. 
 
 peaceably to their respective abodes within a limited time." 
 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. 
 
 The bare enumeration of these provisions proves how inad- 
 equate they are without further legislation to overcome a 
 united opposition in a single State, not to speak of other States 
 who may place themselves in a similar attitude. Congress 
 alone has power to decide whether the present laws can or can- 
 not be amended so as to carry out more effectually the objects 
 of -the Constitution. 
 
 The same insuperable obstacles do not lie in the way of ex- 
 ecuting the laws for the collection of the customs. The rev- 
 enue still continues to be collected, as heretofore, at the 
 custom-house in Charleston, and should the collector unfor- 
 tunately resign a successor may be appointed to perform this 
 duty. 
 
 Then, in regard to the property of the United States in 
 South Carolina. This has been purchased for a fair equiva- 
 lent, " by the consent of the legislature of the State," "for 
 the erection of forts, magazines, arsenals," &c., and over 
 these the authority " to exercise exclusive legislation," has 
 been expressly granted by the Constitution to Pongress. It 
 is not believed that any attempt will be made to expel the 
 United States from this property by force ; but if in this 1 
 should prove to be mistaken, the officer in command of the 
 forts has received orders to act strictly on the defensive. In 
 such a contingency the responsibility for consequences would 
 rightfully rest upon the heads of the assailants. 
 
 Apart from the execution of the laws, so far as this may be 
 practicable, the Executive has no authority to decide what 
 shall be the relations between the federal government and 
 South Carolina. He has been invested with no such dis- 
 cretion. He possesses no power to change the relations here- 
 tofore existing between them, much less to acknowledge the 
 independence of that State. This would be to invest a mere 
 executive officer with the power of recognizing the dissolution 
 
MESSAGES OF PRESIDENT BUCHANAN. 147 
 
 of tlie Confederacy among onr thirty-tbree sovereign States. 
 It bears no resemblance to the recognition of a foreign de facto 
 government, involving no such responsibility. Any attempt 
 to do this would, on his part, be a naked act of usurpation. 
 It is, therefore, my duty to submit to Congress the whole 
 question in all its bearings. The course of events is so rapidly 
 hastening forward .that the emergency may soon arise when 
 you may be called upon to decide the momentous question 
 whether you possess the power, by force of arms, to compel a 
 State to remain in the Union. I should feel myself recreant 
 to my duty were I not to express an opinion on this important 
 subject. 
 
 The question fairly stated is : Has the Constitution dele- 
 gated to Congress the power to coerce a State into submission 
 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 to 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. It is manifest, 
 upon an inspection of the Constitution, that this is not among 
 the specific and enumerated powers granted to Congress ; and 
 it is equally apparent that its exercise is not " necessary and 
 proper for Carrying into execution" any one of these powers. 
 So far from this power having been delegated to Congress, it 
 was expressly refused by the convention which framed the 
 Constitution. 
 
 It appears from the proceedings of that body that on the 31st 
 May, 1787, the clause '^ authorizvng an exertion of the force 
 of the whole against a delinquent State'''' came up for consider- 
 ation. Mr. Madison opposed it in a brief, but powerful 
 speech, from which I shall extract but a single sentence. He 
 observed : " The use of force against a State would look more 
 like a declaration of war than an infliction of punishment, and 
 would probably be considered by the party attacked as a dis- 
 solution of all previous compacts by which it might be bound. " 
 Upon his motion the clause was unanimously postponed, and 
 was never, I believe, again presented. Soon afterwards, on 
 
148 MESSAGES OF PRESIDENT BUCHANAN. 
 
 the 8th June, 178Y, when incidentally adverting to the subject, 
 he said : " Any government for the United States, formed 
 on the supposed practicability of using force against the un- 
 constitutional proceedings of the States, would prove as vision- 
 ary and fallacious as the government of Congress," evidently 
 meaning the then existing Congress of the old confederation. 
 
 Without descending to particulars, it may be safely as- 
 serted that the power to make war against a State is at vari- 
 ance with the whole spirit and intent of the Constitution. 
 Suppose such a war should result in the conquest of a State : 
 how are we to govern it afterwards ? Shall we hold it as a 
 province and govern it by despotic power ? In the nature of 
 things, we could not, by physical force, control the will of 
 the people and compel them to elect senators and representa- 
 tives to Congress, and to perform all the other duties depend- 
 ing upon their own volition and required from the free citi- 
 zens of a free State as a constituent member of the Confed- 
 eracy. 
 
 But, if we possessed this power, would it be wise to exer- 
 cise it under existing circumstances ? The object would 
 doubtless be to preserve the' Union. War would not only 
 present the most effectual means of destroying it, but would 
 banish all hope of its peaceable reconstruction. Besides, in 
 the fraternal conflict a vast amount of blood and treasure 
 would be expended, rendering future reconciliation between 
 the States impossible. In the mean time, who can foretell 
 what would be the sufferings and privations of the people dur- 
 ing its existence ? 
 
 The fact is, that our Union rests upon public opinion, and 
 can never be cemented by the blood of its citizens shed in 
 civil war. If it cannot live in the affections of the people, it 
 must one day perish. Congress possesses many means of pre- 
 serving it by conciliation ; but the sword was not placed in 
 their hand to preserve it by force. 
 
 But may 1 be permitted solemnly to invoke my country- 
 men to pause and deliberate, before they determine to destroy 
 this, the grandest temple which has ever been dedicated to 
 human freedom since the world began. It has been conse- 
 crated by the blood of our fathers, by the glories of the past, 
 
MESSAGES OP PRESIDENT BUCHANAK. 149 
 
 and by the hopes of the future. The Union has already made 
 us the most prosperous, and ere long will, if preserved, render 
 us the most powerful nation on the face of the earth. In 
 every foreign region of the globe the title of American citi- 
 zen is held in the highest respect, and when pronounced in a 
 foreign land it causes the hearts of our countrymen to swell 
 with honest pride. Surely, when we reach the brink of the 
 yawning abyss we shall recgil with horror from the last fatal 
 plunge. 
 
 By such a dread catastrophe, the hopes of the friends of 
 freedom throughout the world would be destroyed, and a long 
 night of leaden despotism would enshroud the nations. Our 
 example for more than eighty years would not only be lost, 
 but it would be quoted as a conclusive proof that man is unfit 
 for self-government. 
 
 It is not every wrong— nay, it is not every grievous wrong 
 — which can justify a resort to such a fearful alternative. 
 This ought to be the last desperate remedy of a despairing 
 people, after every other constitutional means of conciliation 
 had been exhausted. We should reflect that, under this free 
 government, there is an. incessant ebb and flow in public 
 opinion. The slavery question, like everything human, will 
 have its day. I firmly believe that it has reached and passed 
 the culminating point. But if, in the midst of the existing 
 excitement, the Union shall perish, the evil may then become 
 irreparable. 
 
 Congress can contribute much to avert it, by proposing 
 and recommending to the legislatures of the several States the 
 remedy for existing evils which the Constitution has itself 
 provided for its own preservation. This has been tried at dif- 
 ferent critical periods of our history, and always with eminent 
 success. It is to be found in the fifth article, providing for 
 its own amendment. Under this article amendments have 
 been proposed by two thirds of both houses of Congress, and 
 have been " ratified by the legislatures of three fourths of the 
 several States," and have consequently become parts of the 
 Constitution. To this process the country is indebted for the 
 clause prohibiting Congress from passing any law respecting 
 an establishment of religion, or abridging the freedom of 
 
150 MESSAGES OF PRESIDENT BFOHANAN. 
 
 Speech or of the press, or of the right of petition. To this 
 we are, also, indebted for the Bill of Rights, which secures 
 the people against any abuse of power by the federal gOYern- 
 ment. Such were the apprehensions justly entertained by the 
 friends of State rights at that period as to have rendered it 
 extremely doubtful whether the Constitution could hare long 
 survived without those amendments. 
 
 Again, the Constitution was amended by the same process, 
 after the election of President JefEerson by the House of Eep- 
 resentatives, in February, 1803. This amendment was ren- 
 dered necessary to prevent a recurrence of the dangers, which 
 had seriously threatened the existence of the government dur- 
 ing the pendency of that election. The article for its own 
 amendment was intended to secure the amicable adjustment 
 of conflicting constitutional questions like the present, which 
 might arise between the governments of the States and that 
 of the United States. This appears from contemporaneous 
 history. In this connection, I shall merely call attention to a 
 few sentences in Mr. Madison's justly celebrated report, in 
 1799, to the legislature of Virginia. In this, he ably and 
 conclusively defended the resolutions of the preceding legisla- 
 ture, against the strictures of several other State legislatures. 
 These were mainly founded upon the protest of the Virginia 
 legislature against the " alien and sedition acts," as " palpable 
 and alarming infractions of the Constitution." In pointing 
 out the peaceful and constitutional remedies — and he referred 
 to none other — to which the States were authorized to resort 
 on such occasions, he concludes by saying, " that the legisla- 
 tures of the States might have made a direct representation to 
 Congress, with a view to obtain a rescinding of the two ofiEen- 
 sive acts, or they might have represented to their respective 
 senators in Congress, their wish that two thirds thereof would 
 propose an explanatory amendment to the Constitution, or 
 two thirds of themselves, if such had been their option, 
 might by an application to Congress, have obtained a con- 
 vention for the same object." This is the very course 
 which I earnestly recommend, in order to obtain an " ex- 
 planatory amendment " of the Constitution on the subject 
 of slavery. This might originate with Congress or the State 
 
MESSAGES OF PRESIDENT BTJCHAKAU". 151 
 
 legislatures, as may be deemed most advisable to attain the 
 object. 
 
 The explanatory amendment might be confined to the final 
 settlement of the true construction of the Constitution on three 
 special points : 
 
 1. An express recognition of the right of property in slaves 
 in the States where it now exists or may hereafter exist. 
 
 2. The duty of protecting this right in all the common 
 Territories throughout their territorial existence, and until 
 they shall be admitted as States into the Union, with or with- 
 out slavery, as their constitutions may prescribe. 
 
 3. A like recognition of the right of the master to have his 
 slave, who has escaped from one State to another restored and 
 " delivered up" to him, and of the validity of the fugitive 
 slave law enacted for this purpose, together with a declaration 
 that all State laws impairing or defeating this right, are vio- 
 lations of the Constitution, and are consequently null and 
 void. It may be objected that this construction of the Con- 
 stitution has already been settled by the Supreme Court of 
 the United States, and what more ought to be required ? The 
 answer is, that a very large proportion of the people of the 
 United States still contest the correctness of this decision, and 
 never will cease from agitation and admit its binding force 
 until clearly established by the people of the several States in 
 their sovereign character. Such an explanatory amendment, 
 would, it is believed, forever terminate the existing dissen- 
 sions, and restore peace and harmony among the States. 
 
 It ought not to be doubted that such an appeal to the arbit- 
 rament established by the Constitution itself would be re- 
 ceived with favor by all the States of the Confederacy. In 
 any event, it ought to be tried in a spirit of conciliation before 
 any of these States shall separate themselves from' the Union. 
 
 When I entered upon the duties of the presidential office 
 the aspect neither of our foreign nor domestic affairs was at 
 all satisfactory. We were involved in dangerous complica- 
 tions with several nations, and two of our Territories were in 
 a state of revolution against the government. A restoration 
 of the African slave trade had numerous and powerful advo- 
 cates. Unlawful military expeditions were countenanced by 
 
152 MESSAGES OF PRESIDENT BXJCHANAIir. 
 
 many of our citizens, and were suffered, in defiance of the 
 efforts of the government, to escape from our shores for the 
 purpose of making war upon the unoffending people of neigh- 
 boring repuWics with whom we were at peace. In addition 
 to these and other diflBculties, we experienced a revulsion in 
 monetary affairs, soon after my advent to power, of unex- 
 ampled severity, and of ruinous consequences to all the great 
 interests of the country. When we take a retrospect of what 
 was then our condition, and contrast this with its material 
 prosperity at the time of the late presidential election, we 
 have abundant reason to return our grateful thanks to that 
 merciful Providence which has never forsaken us as a nation 
 in all our past trials. 
 
 Our relations with Great Britain are of the most friendly 
 character. Since the commencement of my administration 
 the two dangerous questions arising from the Clayton and 
 Bulwer treaty, and from the right of search claimed by the 
 British government, have been amicably and honorably 
 adjusted. 
 
 The discordant constructions of the Clayton and Bulwer 
 treaty betweefi the two governments, which at- different 
 periods of the discussion bore a threatening aspect, have re- 
 sulted in a final settlement entirely satisfactory to this govern- 
 ment. In my last annual message I informed Congress that 
 the British government had not then " completed treaty ar- 
 rangements with the Eepublics of Honduras and Nicaragua 
 in pursuance of the understanding between the two govern- 
 ments. It is, nevertheless, confidently expected that this 
 good work will erelong be accomplished." This confident 
 expectation has since been fulfilled. Her Britannic Majesty 
 concluded a treaty with Honduras on the 28th November, 
 1859, and with Nicaragua on the 28th August, 1860, relin- 
 quishing the Mosquito protectorate. Besides, by the former, 
 the Bay Islands are recognized as a part of the Republic of 
 Honduras. It may be observed that the stipulations of these 
 treaties conform in every important particular to the amend- 
 ments adopted by the Senate of the United States to the treaty 
 concluded at London on the 17th October, 1856, between the 
 two governments. It will be recollected that this treaty was 
 
MESSAGES OF PKESIDENT BUCHAWA]«r. 153 
 
 rejected by the British government, because of its objection 
 to the jnst and important amendment of the Senate to the 
 article relating to Enatan and the other islands in the bay of 
 Honduras. 
 
 It must be a source of sincere satisfaction to all classes of our 
 fellow citizens, and especially to those engaged in foreign 
 commerce, that the claim on the part of Great Britain forcibly 
 to visit and search American merchant vessels on the high 
 seas in time of peace, has been abandoned. This was, by far, 
 the most dangerous question to the peace of the two countries 
 •which has existed since the war of 1812. Whilst it remained 
 open, they might at any moment have been precipitated into 
 a war. This was rendered manifest by the exasperated state 
 of public feeling throughout our entire country, produced by 
 the forcible search of American merchant vessels by British 
 cruisers on the coast of Cuba, in the spring of 1858. The 
 American people hailed with general acclaim the orders of the 
 Secretary of the Navy to our naval force in the Gulf of Mex- 
 ico " to protect all vessels of the United States on the high 
 seas from search or detention by the vessels of war of any 
 other nation." These orders might have produced an imme- 
 diate collision between the naval forces of the two countries. 
 This was most fortunately prevented by an appeal to the jus- 
 tice of Great Britain, and to the law of nations as expounded 
 by her own most eminent jurists. 
 
 The only question of any importance which still remains 
 open, is the disputed title between the two governments to 
 the Island of San Juan, in the vicinity of Washington Terri- 
 tory. As this question is still under negotiation, it is not 
 deemed advisable at the present moment to make any other 
 allusion to the subject. 
 
 The recent visit of the Prince of Wales, in a private charac- 
 ter, to the people of this country, has proved to be a most 
 auspicious event. In its consequences, it cannot fail to in- 
 crease the kindred and kindly feelings which I trust may ever 
 actuate the government and people of both countries in their 
 political and social intercourse with each other. 
 
 With France, our ancient and powerful ally, our relations 
 continue to be of the most friendly character. A decision has 
 
154 MESSAGES OF PRESIDENT BUCHANAN. 
 
 recently been made by a French judicial tribunal, with the 
 approbation of the Imperial government, which cannot fail to 
 foster the sentiments of mutual regard that have so long ex- 
 isted between the two countries. Under the French law, no 
 person can serve in the armies of France, unless he be a 
 French citizen. The law of France recognizing the natural 
 right of expatriation, it follows as a necessary consequence, 
 that a Frenchman by the fact of having become a "citizen of 
 the United States has changed his allegiance, and has lost his 
 native character. He cannot therefore be compelled to serve 
 in the French armies, in case he should return to his native 
 country. These principles were announced in 1852 by the 
 French Minister of War, and in two late cases have been con- 
 firmed by the French judiciary. In these, two natives of 
 France have been discharged from the French army, because 
 they had become American citizens. To employ the language 
 of our present minister to France, who has rendered good 
 service on this occasion : " I do not think our French natur- 
 alized fellow-citizens will hereafter experience much annoy- 
 ance on this subject." I venture to predict that the time is 
 not far distant when the other continental powers will adopt 
 the same wise and just policy which has done so much honor 
 to the enlightened government of the Emperor. In any 
 event, our government is bound to protect the rights of our 
 naturalized citizens everywhere, to the same extent as though 
 they had drawn their first breath in this country. We can 
 recognize no distinction between our native and naturalized 
 citizens. 
 
 Between the great empire of Russia and the United States, 
 the nmtual friendship and regard which has so long existed 
 still continues to prevail, and if possible to increase. Indeed 
 our relations with that empire are all that we could desire. 
 Our relations with Spain are now of a more complicated though 
 less dangerous character than they have been for many years. 
 Our citizens have long held and continue to hold numerous 
 claims against the Spanish government. These had been ably 
 urged for a series of years by our successive diplomatic repre- 
 sentatives, at Madrid, but without obtaining redress. The 
 Spanish government finally agreed to institute a joint com- 
 
MESSAGES OF PRESIDENT BUCHANAN". 155 
 
 mission for the adjustment of these claims, and on the 5th day 
 of March, 1860, concluded a convention for this purpose with 
 our present minister at Madrid. 
 
 Under this convention, what have been denominated the 
 " Cuban claims," amounting to $128,635 54, in which more 
 than one hundred of our fellow-citizens are interested, were 
 recognized ; and the Spanish government agreed to pay 
 $100,000 bf this amount " within three months following the 
 exchange of ratifications." The payment of the remaining 
 $28,635 54 was to await the decision of the commissioners for 
 or against the " Amistad claim ;" but in any event the bal- 
 ance was to be paid to the claimants either by Spain or the 
 United States. These terms, I have every reason to know, 
 are highly satisfactory to the holders of the Cuban claims. 
 Indeed, they have made a formal offer, authorizing the State 
 Department to settle these claims, and to deduct the amount 
 of the Amistad claim from the sums which they are entitled 
 to receive from Spain. This offer, of course, cannot be ac- 
 cepted. All other claims of citizens of the United States 
 against Spain, or of subjects of the Queen of Spain against 
 the United States, including the " Amistad claim," were by 
 this convention referred to a board of commissioners in the 
 usual form. Neither the validity of the Amistad claim, nor 
 of any other claim against either party, with the single excep- 
 tion of the Cuban claims, was recognized by the convention. 
 Indeed, the Spanish government did not insist that the valid- 
 ity of the Amistad claim should be thus recognized, notwith- 
 standing its payment had been recommended to Congress by 
 two of my predecessors, as well as by myself, and an appro- 
 priation for that purpose had passed the Senate of the United 
 States. 
 
 They were content that it should be submitted to the board 
 for ex-amination and decision like the other claims. Both 
 governments were bound respectively to pay the amounts 
 awarded to the several claimants " at such times and places 
 as may be fixed by and according to the tenor of said 
 awards." 
 
 I transmitted this convention to the Senate for their consti- 
 tutional action on the 3d of May, 1860, and on the 27th of 
 
156 MESSAGES OP PRESIDENT BUCHANAN. 
 
 the succeeding June tliey determined that they would " not 
 advise and consent " to its ratification. 
 
 These proceedings place our relations with Spain in an awk- 
 ward and embarrassing position. It is more than probable 
 that the final adjustment of these claims will devolve upon 
 my successor. 
 
 I reiterate the recommendation contained in my aimual 
 message of December, 1858, and repeated in that o'f Decem- 
 ber, 1859, in favor of the acquisition of Cuba from Spain by 
 fair purchase. I firmly believe that such an acqiiisition would 
 contribute essentially to the well-being and prosperity of both 
 countries in all future time, as well as prove the certain means 
 of immediately abolishing the African slave trade throughout 
 the world. 1 would not repeat this recommendation upon the 
 present occasion if I believed that the transfer of Cuba to the 
 United States, upon conditions highly favorable to Spain, 
 could justly tarnish the national honor of the proud and 
 ancient Spanish monarchy. Surely no person ever attributed 
 to the First Napoleon a disregard of the national honor of 
 France for transferring Louisiana to the United States for a 
 fair equivalent, both in money and commercial advantages. 
 
 With the Emperor of Austria and the remaining continental 
 powers of Europe, including that of the Sultan, our relations 
 continue to be of the most friendly character. 
 
 The friendly and peaceful policy pursued by the govern- 
 ment of the United States toward the empire of China has 
 produced the most satisfactory results. The treaty of Tien- 
 tsin of the 18th June, 1858, has been faithfully observed by 
 the Chinese authorities. The convention of the 8th Novem- 
 ber, 1858, supplementary to this treaty for the adjustment 
 and satisfaction of the claims of our citizens on China, referred 
 to in my last annual message, has been already carried into 
 effect, so far as this was practicable. Under this convention 
 the sum of 500,000 taels, equal to about $700,000, was stipu- 
 lated to be paid in satisfaction of the claims of American cit- 
 izens out of the one fifth of the receipts for tonnage, import, 
 and export duties on American vessels at the ports of Canton, 
 Shanghai, Fuchau ; and it was " agreed that this amount 
 shall be in full liquidation of all claims of American citizens 
 
MESSAGES OF PEESIDENT BUCHANAN. 157 
 
 at the various ports to this date." Debentures for this 
 amount, to wit : 300,000 taels for Canton, 100,000 for 
 Shanghai, and 100,000 for Fuchau, were delivered, according 
 to the terms of the convention, by the respective Chinese col- 
 lectors of the customs of these ports to the agent selected by 
 our minister to receive the same. Since that time the claims 
 of our citizens have been adjusted by the board of commis- 
 sioners appointed for that purpose under the act of March 3, 
 1859, and their awards, which proved satisfactory to the 
 claimants, have been approved by our minister. In the 
 aggregate they amount to the sum of $498,694 78. The 
 claimants have already received a large proportion of the sums 
 awarded to them out of the fund provided, and it is confi- 
 dently expected that the remainder will, ere long, be entirely 
 paid. After the awards shall have been satisfied, there will 
 remain a surplus of more than $200,000 at the disposition of 
 Congress. As this will in equity belong to the Chinese gov- 
 ernment, would not justice require its appropriation to some 
 benevolent object in which the Chinese may be specially 
 interested ? 
 
 Our minister to China, in obedience to his instructions, has 
 remained perfectly neutral in the war between Great Britain 
 and France and the Chinese empire, although, in conjunction 
 with the Russian minister, he was ever ready and willing, had 
 the opportunity oilered, to employ his good offices in restor- 
 ing peace between the parties. It is but an act of simple jus- 
 tice, both to our present minister and his predecessor, to state 
 that they have proved fully equal to the delicate, trying, and 
 responsible positions in which they have on different occasions 
 been placed. 
 
 The ratifications of the treaty with Japan, concluded at 
 Yeddo on the 29th July, 1858, were exchanged at Washing- 
 ton on the 22d May last, and the treaty itself was proclaimed 
 on the succeeding day. There is good reason to expect that, 
 under its protection and influence, our trade and intercourse 
 with that distant and interesting people will rapidly increase. 
 
 The ratifications of the treaty were exchanged with unusual 
 solemnity. For this purpose the Tycoon had accredited three 
 of his most distinguished subjects as envoys extraordinary and 
 
158 MESSAGES OE PBESIDENT BTJCHAIirAN, 
 
 ministers plenipotentiary, who were received and treated with 
 marked distinction and kindness, both by the government and 
 people of the United States. There is every reason to believe 
 that they have returned to their native land entirely satisfied 
 with their visit, and inspired by the most friendly feelings for 
 OTir country. Let us ardently hope, in the language of the 
 treaty itself, that ' ' there shall henceforward be perpetual 
 peace and friendship between the United States of America 
 and his Majesty the Tycoon of Japan and his successors." 
 
 With the wise, conservative, and liberal government of the 
 empire of Brazil our relations continue to be of the most ami- 
 cable character. 
 
 The exchange of the ratifications of the convention with the 
 republic of New Granada, signed at Washington on the 10th 
 September, 185Y, has been long delayed from accidental 
 causes, for which neither party is censurable. These ratifica- 
 tions were duly exchanged in this city on the 5th of Novem- 
 ber last. Thus has a controversy been amicably terminated, 
 which had become so serious at the period of my inauguration, 
 as to require me, on the 17th April, 1857, to direct our min- 
 ister to demand his passports and return to the United States. 
 
 Under this convention the government of New Granada has 
 specially acknowledged itself to be responsible to our citizens 
 " for damages which were caused by the riot at Panama on 
 the loth April, 1856." These claims, together with other 
 claims of our citizens which had been long urged in vain, are 
 referred for adjustment to a board of commissioners. I sub- 
 mit a copy of the convention to Congress, and recommend 
 the legislation necessary to carry it into effect. 
 
 Persevering efforts have been made for the adjustment of 
 the claims of American citizens against the government of 
 Costa Rica, and I am happy to inform you that these have 
 finally prevailed. A convention was signed at the city of 
 San Jose on the 2d July last, between the minister resident 
 of the United States in Costa Kica and the plenipotentiaries 
 of that republic, referring these claims to a board of commis- 
 sioners, and providing for the payment of their awards. This 
 convention will be submitted immediately to the Senate for 
 their constitutional action. 
 
MESSAGES OF PRESIDENT BTJCHAlSrAN. 159 
 
 The claims of our citizens upon the republic of Nicaragua 
 have not yet been provided for by treaty,' although diligent 
 efforts for this purpose have been made by our minister resi- 
 dent to that republic. TJiese are still continued with a fair 
 prospect of success. 
 
 Our relations with Mexico remain in a most unsatisfactory 
 condition. In my last two annual messages I discussed exten- 
 sively the subject of these relations, and do not now propose 
 to repeat at length the facts and arguments then presented. 
 They proved conclusively that our citizens residing in Mexico, 
 and our merchants trading thereto, had suffered a series of 
 wrongs and outrages such as we have never patiently borne 
 from any other nation. For these our successive ministers, 
 invoking the faith of treaties, had, in the name of their coun- 
 try, persistently demanded redress and indemnification, but 
 without the slightest effect. Indeed, so confident had the 
 Mexican authorities become of our patient endurance, that 
 they universally believed they might commit these outrages 
 upon American citizens with absolute impunity. Thus wrote 
 our minister in 1856, and expressed the opinion, that " noth- 
 ing but a manifestation of the power of the government and 
 of its purpose to punish these wrongs will avail." 
 
 Afterward, in 1857, came the adoption of a new constitu- 
 tion for Mexico, the election of a president and congress under 
 its provisions, and the inauguration of the president. Within 
 one short month, however, this president was expelled from 
 the capital by a rebellion in the army ; and the supreme power 
 of the republic was assigned to General Zuloaga. This 
 usurper was, in his turn, soon compelled to retire, and give 
 place to General Miramon. 
 
 Under the constitution which had thus been adopted, Sefior 
 Juarez, as chief justice of the supreme court, became the law- 
 ful president of the republic ; and it was for the maintenance 
 of the constitution and his authority derived from it, that the 
 civil war commenced, and still continues to be prosecuted. 
 
 Throughout the year 1858, the constitutional party grew 
 stronger and stronger. In the previous history of Mexico, a 
 successful military revolution at the capital had almost univer- 
 sally been the signal for submission throughout the republic. 
 
160 MESSAGES OF PRESIDENT BUCHANAN. 
 
 Not SO on the present occasion. A majority of the citizens 
 persistently sustained the constitutional government. Whea 
 this was recognized in April, 1859, by the government of the 
 United States, its authority extended over a large majority of 
 the Mexican States and people, including Vera Cruz, and all 
 the other important sea-ports of the republic. From that 
 period our commerce with Mexico began to revive, and the 
 constitutional government has afforded it all the protection in 
 its power. 
 
 Meanwhile, the government of Miramon still held sway at 
 the capital and over the surrounding country, and continued 
 its outrages against the few American citizens who still had 
 the courage to remain within its power. To cap the climax, 
 after the battle of Tacubaya, in April, 1859, General Marquez 
 ordered three citizens of the United States, two of them 
 physicians, to be seized in the hospital at that place, taken out 
 and shot, without crime, and without trial. This was done, not- 
 withstanding our unfortunate countrymen were at the moment 
 engaged in the holy cause of affording relief to the soldiers of 
 both parties who had been wounded in the battle, without 
 making any distinction between them. 
 
 The time had arrived, in my opinion, when this govern- 
 ment was bound to exert its power to avenge and redress the 
 wrongs of our citizens, and to afford them protection in MeX' 
 ico. The interposing obstacle was that the portion of the 
 country under the sway of Miramon, could not be reached 
 without passing over territory under the jurisdiction of the 
 constitutional government. Under these circumstances, I 
 deemed it my duty to recommend to Congress, in my last 
 annual message, the employment of a sufficient military force 
 to penetrate into the interior, where the government of Mir- 
 amon was to be found, with, or if need be, without the con- 
 sent of the Juarez government, though it was not doubted 
 that this consent could be obtained. Never have I had a 
 clearer conviction on any subject than of the justice, as well 
 as wisdom, of such a policy. No other alternative was left, 
 except the entire abandonment of our fellow-citizens who had 
 gone to Mexico under the faith of treaties to the systematic 
 injustice, cruelty, and oppression of Miramon's government. 
 
MESSAGES OF PKESIDENT BUCHANAN. 161 
 
 Besides, it is almost certain that the simple authority to em- 
 ploy this force would of itself have accomplished all our 
 objects, without striking a single blow. The constitutional 
 government would, then, ere this have been established at 
 the city of Mexico, and would have been ready and willing, 
 to the extent of its ability, to do us justice. 
 
 In addition, and 1 deem this a most important considera- 
 tion, European governments would have been deprived of all 
 pretext to interfere in the territorial and domestic concerns of 
 Mexico. We should thus have been relieved from the obli- 
 gation of resisting, even by force, should this become neces- 
 sary, any attempt by these governments to deprive oar neigh- 
 boring republic of portions of her territory, a duty from 
 which we could not shrink without abandoning the traditional 
 and established policy of the American people. I am happy 
 to observe that, firmly relying upon the justice and good faith 
 of these governments, there is no present danger that such a 
 contingency will happen. 
 
 Having discovered that my recommendations would not be 
 sustained by Congress, the next alternative was to accom- 
 plish, in some degree, if possible, the same objects by treaty 
 stipulations Avith the constitutional government. Such treaties 
 were accordingly concluded by our late able and excellent 
 minister to Mexico, and on the 4th of January last were sub- 
 mitted to the Senate for ratification. As these have not yet 
 received the final action of that body, it would be improper 
 for me to present a detailed statement of their provisions. 
 Still, I may be permitted to express the opinion in advance, 
 that they are calculated to promote the agricultural, manufac- 
 turing, and commercial interests of the country, and to secure 
 our just influence with an adjoining republic as to whose for- 
 tunes and fate we can never feel indifferent ; whilst at the same 
 time they provide for the payment of a considerable amount 
 towards the satisfaction of the claims of our injured fellow- 
 citizens. 
 
 At the period of my inauguration I was confronted in Kan- 
 sas by a revolutionary government existing under what is 
 called the " Topeka Constitution." Its avowed object was to 
 subdue the territorial government by force, and to inaugurate 
 11 
 
162 MESSAGES OF PRESIDENT BUCHANAN'. 
 
 what was called the " Topeka Government" in its stead. To 
 accomplish this object an extensive military organization was 
 formed, and its command intrusted to the most violent revo- 
 Intionary leaders. Under these circumstances it became my 
 imperative duty to exert the whole constitutional power of the 
 Executive to prevent the flames of civil war from again raging 
 in Kansas ; which, in the excited state of the public mind, 
 both North and South, might have extended into the neigh- 
 boring States. The hostile parties in Kansas had been in- 
 flamed against each other, by emissaries both from the North 
 and the South, to a degree of malignity without parallel in 
 our history. To prevent actual collision, and to assist the 
 civil magistrates in enforcing the laws, a strong detachment of 
 the army was stationed in the Territory, ready to aid the 
 marshal and his deputies when lawfully called upon as a posse 
 comitatus in the execution of civil and criminal process. Still 
 the troubles in Kansas could not have been permanently settled 
 without an election by the people. 
 
 The ballot-box is the surest arbiter of disputes among free- 
 men. Under this conviction fevery proper effort was employed 
 to induce the hostile parties to vote at the election of delegates 
 to frame a State constitution, and afterwards at the election 
 to decide whether Kansas should be a slave or free State. 
 
 The insurgent party refused to vote at either, lest this might 
 be considered a recognition on their part of the territorial gov- 
 ernment established by Congress. A better spirit, however, 
 seemed soon after to prevail, and the two parties met face to 
 face at the third election, held on the first Monday of January, 
 1858, for members of the legislature and State officers under 
 the Lecompton constitution. The result was the triumph of 
 the anti-slavery party at the polls. This decision of the ballot- 
 box proved clearly that this party were in the majority, and 
 removed the danger of civil war. From that time we have 
 heard little or nothing of the Topeka government, and all 
 serious danger of revolutionary troubles in Kansas was then at 
 an end. 
 
 The Lecompton constitution which had been thus recognized 
 at this State election, by the votes of both political parties in 
 Kansas, was transmitted to me with the request that 1 should 
 
MESSAGES OF PRESIDENT BUCHANAIir. 163 
 
 present it to Congress. This I could not have refused to do 
 without violating my clearest and strongest convictions of 
 duty. The constitution and all the proceedings which pre- 
 ceded and followed its formation, -we're fair and regular on 
 their face. I then believed, and experience has proved, that 
 the intere-sts of the people of Kansas would have been best 
 consulted by its admission as a State into the Union, especially 
 as the majority, within a brief period, could have amended 
 the constitution according to their will and pleasure. If fraud 
 existed in all or any of these proceedings, it was not for the 
 President but for Congress to investigate and determine the 
 question of fraud, and what ought to be its consequences. If 
 at the first two elections the majority refused to vote, it can- 
 not be pretended that this refusal to exercise the elective 
 franchise could invalidate an election fairly held under lawful 
 authority, even if they had not subsequently voted at the third 
 election. It is true that the whole constitution had not been 
 submitted to the people as I always desired ; but the prec- 
 edents are numerous of the admission of States into the 
 Union without such submission. It would not comport with 
 my present purpose to review the proceedings of Congress 
 upon the Lecompton constitution. It is sufficient to observe 
 that their final action has removed the last vestige of serious 
 revolutionary troubles. The desperate band recently assem- 
 bled under a notorious outlaw in the southern portion of the 
 Territory, to resist the execution of the laws, and to plunder 
 peaceful citizens, will, 1 doubt not, be speedily subdued and 
 brought to justice. 
 
 Had I treated the Lecompton constitution as a nullity and 
 refused to transmit it to Congress, it is not difficult to imagine, 
 whilst recalling the position of the country at that moment, 
 what would have been the disastrous consequences, both in 
 and out of the Territory, from such a dereliction of duty on 
 the part of the Executive. 
 
 Peace has also been restored within the Territory of Utah, 
 which at the commencement of my administration was in a 
 state of open rebellion. This was the more dangerous, as the 
 people animated by a fanatical spirit and eritrenched within 
 their distant mountain fastnesses, might have made a long and 
 
164 MESSAGES OP PRESIDENT BUOHAITAIT. 
 
 formidable resistance. Cost what it might it was necessary to 
 bring them into subjection to the Constitution and the laws. 
 Sound policy, therefore, as well as humanity, required that 
 this object should, if possible, be accomplished without the 
 effusion of blood. This could only be effected by sending a 
 military force into the Territory sufficiently strong to convince 
 the people that resistance would be hopeless, and at the same 
 time to offer them a pardon for past offences on condition of 
 immediate submission to the government. This policy was 
 pursued with eminent success, and the only cause for regret is 
 the heavy expenditure required to march a large detachment 
 of the army to that remote region, and to furm'sh it subsist- 
 ence. 
 
 Utah is now comparatively peaceful and quiet, and the mili- 
 tary force has been withdrawn, except that portion of it neces- 
 sary to keep the Indians in check, and to protect the emigrant 
 trains on their way to our Pacific possessions. 
 
 In my first annual message I promised to employ my best 
 exertions, in cooperation with Congress, to reduce the ex- 
 penditures of the government within the limits of a wise and 
 judicious economy. An overflowing treasury had produced 
 habits of prodigality and extravagance which could only be 
 gradually corrected. The work required both time and pa- 
 tience. I applied myself diligently to this task from the begin- 
 ning, and was aided by the able and energetic efforts of the 
 heads of the different executive departments. The result of 
 our labors in this good cause did not appear in the sum total 
 of our expenditures for the first two years, mainly in conse- 
 quence of the extraordinary expenditure necessarily incurred 
 in the Utah expedition, and the very large amount of the con- 
 tingent expenses of Congress during this period. These 
 greatly exceeded the pay and mileage of the members. For 
 the year ending June 30, 1858, whilst the pay and mileage 
 amounted to $1,490,214, the contingent expenses rose to 
 $2,093,309 79, and for the year ending June 30, 1859, whilst 
 the pay and mileage amounted to $859,093 66, the contingent 
 expenses amounted to $1,431,565 78. 1 am happy, however, to 
 be able to inform you that during the last fiscal year ending 
 June 30, 1860, the total expenditures of the government in 
 
MESSAGES OP PRESIDENT BUCHANAN. 165 
 
 all its branches, legislative, executive, and judicial, exclusive 
 of the public debt, were reduced to the sum of $55,402,- 
 465 46. This conclusively appears from the books of the 
 Treasury. In the year ending June 30, 1858, the total ex- 
 penditure, exclusive of the public debt, amounted to $71,901,- 
 129 77, and that for the year ending June 30, 1859, to 
 $66,346,226 13. Whilst the books of the Treasury show an 
 actual expenditure of $59,848,474 72 for the year ending 
 June 30, 1860, including $1,040,667 71 for the contingent 
 expenses of Congress, there must be deducted from this 
 amount the sum of $4,296,009 26, with the interest upon it 
 of $150,000, appropriated by the act of February 15, 1860, 
 " for the purpose of supplying the deficiency in the revenues 
 and defraying the expenses of the Post Office Department for 
 the year ending June 30, 1859." This sum, therefore, justly 
 chargeable to the year 1859, must be deducted from the sum 
 of $69,848,474 72 in order to ascertain the expenditure for the 
 year ending June 30, 1860, which leaves a balance for the 
 expenditures of that year of $55,402,465 46. The interest on 
 the public debt, including treasury notes for the same fiscal 
 year, ending June 30, 1860, amounted to $3,177,314 62, 
 which, added to the above sum of $55,402,465 46, makes the 
 aggregate of $58,579,780 08. 
 
 It ought, in justice to be observed, that several of the esti- 
 mates from the departments for the year ending June 30, 
 1860, were reduced by Congress below what was and still is 
 deemed compatible with the public interest. Allowing a lib- 
 eral margin of $2,500,000 for this reduction and for other 
 causes, it may be safely asserted that the sum of $61,000,000, 
 or, at the most, $62,000,000, is amply sufficient to administer 
 the government and to pay the interest on the public debt, 
 unless contingent events should hereafter render extraordinary 
 expenditures necessary. 
 
 This result has been attained in a considerable degree by the 
 care exercised by the appropriate departments in entering into 
 public contracts. I have myself never interfered with the 
 award of any such contract, except in a single case, with the 
 Colonization Society, deeming it advisable to cast the whole 
 responsibility in each case on the proper head of the depart- 
 
166 MESSAGES OF PRESIDENT BUCHANAN". 
 
 ment, witli the general instruction that these contracts should 
 always be given to the lowest and best bidder. It has ever 
 been my opinion that public contracts are not a legitimate 
 source of patronage, to be conferred upon personal or political 
 favorites ; but that, in all such cases, a public officer is bound ^ 
 to act for the government as a prudent individual would a^f^ 
 for himself. / 
 
 It is with great satisfaction I communicate the fact that 
 since the date of my last annual message not a single slavey has 
 been imported into the United States in violation of the laws 
 prohibiting the African slave trade. This statemenit is 
 founded upon a thorough examination and investigation of\the 
 subject. Indeed, the spirit which prevailed some time sin&e 
 among a portion of our fellow-citizens in favor of this trade 
 seems to have entirely subsided. 
 
 1 also congratulate you upon the public sentiment which 
 now exists against the crime of setting on foot military ex- 
 peditions within the limits of the United States, to proceed 
 from thence and make war upon the people of unoffending 
 States with whom we are at peace. In this respect a happy 
 change has been eflEected since the commencement of my 
 administration. It surely ought to be the prayer of every 
 Christian and patriot that such expeditions may never again 
 receive countenance in our country, or depart from our shores. 
 
 It would be a useless repetition to do more than refer with 
 earnest commendation to my former recommendations in favor 
 of the Pacific railroad ; of the grant of power to the President 
 to employ the naval force in the vicinity for the protection of 
 the lives and property of our fellow-citizens passing in transit 
 over the different Central American routes against sudden and 
 lawless outbreaks and depredations ; and also to protect 
 American merchant vessels, their crews and cargoes, against 
 violent and unlawful seizure and confiscation in the ports of 
 Mexico and the South American republics, when these may 
 be in a disturbed and revolutionary condition. It is my settled 
 conviction, that without such a power we do not afford that 
 protection to those engaged in the commerce of the country 
 which they have a right to demand. 
 
 I again recommend to Congress the passage of a law, in 
 
MESSAGES OF PRESIDENT BTTCHAHTAN. 167 
 
 pursuance of the provisions of the Constitution, appointing a 
 day certain previous to the 4th March in each year of an odd 
 number, for the election of representatives throughout all the 
 States. A similar power has already been exercised, with 
 general approbation, in the appointment of the same day 
 throughout the Union for holding the election of electors for 
 President and Vice-President of the United States. My 
 attention was earnestly directed to this subject from the fact 
 that the Thirty- fifth Congress terminated on the 3d March, 
 1859, without making the necessary appropriation for the ser- 
 vice of the Post Office Department. I was then forced to 
 consider the best remedy for this omission, and an immediate 
 call of the present Congress was the natural resort. Upon 
 inquiry, however, I ascertained that fifteen out of the thirty- 
 three States composing the Confederacy were without repre- 
 sentatives, and that consequently these fifteen States would be 
 disfranchised by such a call. These fifteen States would be 
 in the same condition on the 4th March next. Ten of them 
 cannot elect representatives, according to existing State laws, 
 until different periods, extending from the beginning o£ 
 August next until the months of October and ]!Tovember. In 
 my last message I gave warning that in a time of sudden and 
 alarming danger the salvation of our institutions might depend 
 upon the power of the President immediately to assemble a 
 full Congress to meet the emergency. 
 
 It is now quite evident that the financial necessities of the 
 government will require a modification of the tariff during 
 your present session for the purpose of increasing the revenue. 
 In this aspect, I desire to reiterate the reqpmmendation con- 
 tained in my last two annual messages in favor of imposing 
 specific, instead of ad naalorem, duties on all imported articles 
 to which these can be properly applied. From long observa- 
 tion and experience, I am convinced that specific duties are 
 necessary, both to protect the revenue and to secure to our 
 manufacturing interests that amount of incidental encourage- 
 ment which unavoidably results from a revenue tariff. 
 
 As an abstract proposition, it may be admitted that ad 
 valorem duties would in theory be the most just and equal. 
 But if the experience of this and of all other commercial 
 
t> 
 
 168 MESSAGES OF PEE8IDENT BUCHANAN. 
 
 nations has demonstrated that such duties cannot be assessed 
 and collected without great frauds upon the revenue, then it 
 is the part of wisdom to resort to specific duties. Indeed, 
 from the very nature of an ad valorem duty, this must be the 
 result. Under it the inevitable consequence is, that foreign 
 goods will be entered at less than their true value. The 
 Treasury will, therefore, lose the duty on the difEerence 
 between their real and fictitious value, and to this extent we 
 are defrauded. 
 
 The temptations which ad valorem, duties present to a dis- 
 honest importer are irresistible. His object is to pass his 
 goods through the custom-house at the very lowest valuation 
 necessary to save them from confiscation. In this he too 
 often succeeds, in spite of the vigilance of the revenue officers. 
 Hence the resort to false invoices, one for the purchaser and 
 another for the custom-house, and to other expedients to de- 
 fraud the government. The honest importer produces his 
 invoice to the collector, stating the actual price at which he 
 purchased the articles abroad. Not so the dishonest importer, 
 and the agent of the foreign manufacturer. And here it may 
 be observed that a very large proportion of the manufactures 
 imported from abroad are consigned for sale to commission 
 merchants, who are mere agents employed by the manufac- 
 turers. In such cases no actual sale has been made to fix their 
 value. The foreign manufacturer, if he be dishonest, pre- 
 pares an invoice of the goods, not at their actual value, but at 
 the very lowest rate necessary to escape detection. In this 
 manner the dishonest importer and the foreign manufacturer 
 enjoy a decided adj^antage over the honest merchant. They 
 are thus enabled to undersell the fair trader, and drive him 
 from the market. In fact, the operation of this system has 
 already driven from the pursuits of honorable commerce many 
 of that class of regular and conscientious merchants whose 
 character throughout the world is the pride of our country. 
 
 The remedy for these evils is to be found in specific duties, 
 so far as this may be practicable. They dispense with any 
 inquiry at the custom-house into the actual cost or value of 
 the article, and it pays the precise amount of duty previously 
 fixed by law. They present no temptations to the appraisers 
 
MESSAGES OF PRESIDENT BUCHANAN. 169 
 
 of foreign goods, who receive but small salaries, and might, 
 by undervaluation in a few cases, render themselves inde- 
 pendent. 
 
 Besides, specific duties best conform to the requisition in 
 the Constitution, that " no preference shall be given by any 
 regulation of commerce or revenue to the ports of one State 
 over those of another." Under- our ad valorem system, such 
 preferences are to some extent inevitable, and complaints have 
 often been made that the spirit of this provision has been vio- 
 lated by a lower appraisement of the same articles at one port 
 than at another. 
 
 An impression strangely enough prevails, to some extent, 
 that specific duties are necessarily protective duties. Nothing 
 can be more fallacious. Great Britain glories in free "trade, 
 and yet her whole revenue from imports is at the present 
 moment collected under a system of specific duties. It is a 
 striking fact in this connection, that in the commercial treaty 
 of January 23, 1860, between France and England, one of the 
 articles provides that the ad valorem duties which it imposes 
 shall be converted into specific duties within six months from 
 its date, and these are to be ascertained by making an average 
 of the prices for six months previous to that time. The re- 
 verse of the propositions would be nearer to the truth, because 
 a much larger amount of revenue would be collected by merely 
 converting the ad valorem duties of a tariff into equivalent 
 specific duties. To this extent the revenue would be in- 
 creased, and in the same proportion the specific duty might 
 be diminished. 
 
 Specific duties would secure to the American manufacturer 
 the incidental protection to which he is fairly entitled under 
 a revenue tariff, and to this surely no person would object. 
 The framere of the existing tariff have gone further, and in a 
 liberal spirit have discriminated in favor of large and useful 
 branches of our manufactures, not by raising the rate of duty 
 upon the importation of similar articles from abroad, but, 
 what is the same in effect, by admitting articles free of duty 
 which enter into the composition of their fabrics. 
 
 Under the present system, it has been often truly remarked 
 that this incidental protection decreases when the manufac- 
 
170 MESSAGES OV PBESIDENT BUCHANATiT. 
 
 tnrer needs it most and increases when he needs it least, and 
 constitutes a sliding scale which always operates against him. 
 The revenues of the country are subject to similar fluctuations. 
 Instead of approaching a steady standard, as would be the 
 case under a system of specific duties, they sink and rise with 
 the sinking and rising prices of articles in foreign countries. 
 It would not be difficult for Congress to arrange a system of 
 specific duties which would afEord additional stability both to 
 our revenne and our manufactures, and without injury or in- 
 justice to any interest of the country. This might be accom- 
 plished by ascertaining the average value of any given article 
 for a series of years at the place of exportation, and by simply 
 converting the rate of ad valorem duty upon it, which might 
 be deemed necessary for revenue purposes, into the form of a 
 specific duty. Such an arrangement could not injure the con- 
 sumer. If he should pay a greater amount of duty one year, 
 this would be counterbalanced by a lesser amount the next, 
 and in the end the aggregate would be the same. 
 
 I desire'to call your immediate attention to the present con- 
 dition of the Treasury, so ably and clearly presented by the 
 Secretary, in his report to Congress ; and to recommend that 
 measures be promptly adopted, to enable it to discharge its 
 pressing obligations. The other recommendations of the re- 
 port are well worthy of your favorable consideration. 
 
 I herewith transmit to Congress the reports of the Secre- 
 taries of War, of the Navy, of the Interior, and of the Post- 
 master General. The recommendations and suggestions which 
 they contain are highly valuable, and deserve your careful 
 attention. 
 
 The report of the Postmaster General details the circum- 
 stances under which Cornelius Vanderbilt, on my request, 
 agreed, in the month of July last, to carry the ocean mails 
 between our Atlantic and Pacific coasts.' Had he not thus 
 acted, this important intercommunication must have been sus- 
 pended, at least for a season. The Postmaster General had 
 no power to make him any other compensation than the post- 
 ages on the mail matter, which he might carry. It was known 
 at the time that these postages would fall far short of an 
 adequate compensation, as well as of the sum which the same 
 
MESSAGES OF PRESIDENT BUCHANAK. lYl 
 
 service had previously cost the government. Mr. Vanderbilt, 
 in a commendable spirit, wsls willing to rely upon the justice 
 of Congress to make up the deficiency ; and I, therefore, 
 recommend that an appropriation may be granted for this 
 purpose. 
 
 I should do great injustice to the Attorney General, were 
 I to omit the mention of his distinguished services in the 
 measures adopted and prosecuted by him for the defence of 
 the government against numerous and unfounded claims to 
 land in California, purporting to have been made by the 
 Mexican government previous to the treaty of cession. The 
 successful opposition to these claims has saved the United 
 States public property, worth many millions of dollars, and to 
 individuals holding title under them to at least an equal 
 amount. 
 
 ; It has been represented to me, from sources which I deem 
 reliable, that the inhabitants in several portions of Kansas 
 have been reduced nearly to a state of starvation, on account 
 of the almost total failure of their crops, whilst the harvests 
 in every other portion of the country have been abundant. 
 The prospect before them for the approaching winter is well 
 calculated to enlist the sympathies of every heart. The desti- 
 tution appears to be so general that it cannot be relieved by 
 private contributions, and they are in such indigent circum- 
 stances as to be unable to purchase the necessaries of life for 
 themselves. I refer the subject to Congress. If any consti- 
 tutional measure for their relief can be devised, I would 
 recommend its adoption. 
 
 I cordially commend to your favorable regard the interests 
 of the people of this District. They are eminently entitled 
 to your consideration, especially since, unlike the people of 
 the States, they can appeal to no government except that of 
 the Union. 
 
 JAMES BUCHANAN. 
 
 WASHmoTON CiTT, December 3, 1860. 
 
SPECIAL MESSAGE OF THE PRESIDENT ON THE 
 VIOLATION OF N];CAEAGUAN TERRITORY. 
 
 The President transmits to the Senate the papers called for. — Commodore 
 Paulding erred in capturing Walker and his command after they had 
 landed in Nicaragua. — His action from pure and patriotic motives. — 
 Obedience to law and conformity to instructions are the best and safest 
 guides for all officers, civil and military. — ^The Executive does not recog- 
 nize General Walker as a prisoner. — The neutrality laws must be executed. 
 — The crime of setting on foot military expeditions in the United States 
 against a foreign State at peace with us, is a crime deserving the severest 
 punishment. — It is the violation of the principles of Christianity, moral- 
 ity, and humanity. — To be criminal, under the Act of April 20th, 1818, 
 the military expedition must " begin' ' or be " set on foot " in the United 
 States, and the Act authorizes the President to prevent the" carrying on" 
 of such expeditions to their consummation after leaving our shores. — 
 Had Commodore Paulding intercepted Walker on the seas, before land- 
 ing in Nicaragua, it would have been legal and praiseworthy.— It is the 
 destiny of our race to spread themselves over the Continent of North 
 America at no distant day, but peacefully. 
 
 To the Senate of the United States : 
 
 In submitting to the Senate the papers for which they have 
 called, I deem it proper to make a few observations. 
 
 In capturing General Walker and his command after they 
 had landed on the soil of Nicaragua, Commodore Paulding 
 has, in my opinion, committed a grave error. It is quite evi- 
 dent, however, from the communications herewith transmitted, 
 that this was doae from pure and patriotic motives, and in the 
 sincere conviction that he was promoting the interests and 
 vindicating the honor of his country. In regard to Nicaragua, 
 she has sustained no injury by the act of Commodore Pauld- 
 ing. This has inured to her benefit, and relieved her from 
 a dreaded invasion. She alone would have any right to com- 
 plain of the violation of her territory, and it is quite certain 
 she will never exercise this right. It unquestionably does not 
 lie in the mouth of her invaders to complain in her name that 
 she has been rescued by Commodore Paulding from their 
 assaults. The error of this gallant officer consists in exceeding 
 his instructions, and landing his sailors and marines in Nica- 
 
MESSAGES OF PRESIDENT BTTCHAITAN. 173 
 
 ragua, whetlier with or without her consent, for the purpose of 
 making war upon any military force whatever which he might 
 find in the country, no matter from whence they came. This 
 power certainly did not belong to him. Obedience to law and 
 conformity to instructions are the best and safest guides for 
 all officers, civil and military, and when they transcend these 
 limits, and act upon their own personal responsibility, evil 
 consequences almost inevitably follow. 
 
 Under these circumstances, when Marshal Rynders pre- 
 sented himself at the State Department on the 29th ultimo, 
 with General Walker in custody, the Secretary informed him 
 that the Executive department of the Government did not 
 recognize General Walker as a prisoner, that it had no direc- 
 tions to give concerning him, and that it is only through the 
 action of the judiciary that he could be lawfully held in cus- 
 tody to answer any charges that might be brouglit against him. 
 In thus far disapproving the conduct of Commodore Pauld- 
 ing, no inference must be drawn that I am less determined 
 than I ever have been to execute the neutrality laws of the 
 "United States. This is my imperative duty, and I shall con- 
 tinue to perform it by all the means which the Constitution 
 and the laws have placed in my power. 
 
 My opinion of the value and importance of these laws cor- 
 responds entirely with that expressed by Mr. Monroe, in his 
 message to Congress of December 7, 1819. That wise, 
 prudent, and patriotic statesman says : " It is of the highest 
 importance to our national character, and indispensable to the 
 morality of our citizens, that all violations of our neutrality 
 should be prevented. No door should be left open for the 
 evasion of our laws ; no opportunity afforded to any who may 
 be disposed to take advantage of it to compromit the interests 
 or the honor of the nation. " 
 
 The crime of setting on foot or providing the means for a 
 military expedition within the United States to make war 
 against a foreign State with which we are at peace, is one of 
 an aggravated and dangerous character, and early engaged the 
 attention of Congress. Whether the Executive Government 
 possessed any, or what power, under the Constitution, inde- 
 pendently of Congress, to prevent or punish this and similar 
 
174 MESSAaES OF PRESIDENT BFCHANAH". 
 
 offences against the law o£ nations, was a subject which en- 
 gaged the attention of our most eminent statesmen in the time 
 of the administration of General Washington, and on the occa- 
 sion of the French Eevolution. The act of Congress of the 
 5th of June, 1794, fortunately removed all the difficulties on 
 this question which had theretofore existed. The fifth and 
 seventh sections of this act, which relate to the present ques- 
 tion, are the same in substance with the sixth and eighth sec- 
 tions of the act of April 20, 1818, and have now been in force 
 for a period of more than sixty years. 
 
 The military expedition rendered criminal by the act, must 
 have its origin, must "begin," or be "set on foot," in the 
 United States ; but the great object of the law was to save 
 foreign States with whom we were at peace, from the ravages 
 of these lawless expeditions proceeding from our shores. The 
 seventh section aloae, therefore, which simply defines the 
 crime and its punishment, would have been inadequate to 
 accomplish this purpose and enforce our international duties. 
 In order to render the law effectual, it was necessary to pre- 
 vent " the carrying on" of such expeditions to their consum- 
 mation after they had succeeded in leaving our shores. 
 
 This has been done effectually, and in clear and explicit 
 language, by the authority given to the President under the 
 eighth section of the act to employ the land and naval forces 
 of the United States " for the purpose of preventing the carry- 
 ing on of any such expedition or enterprise from the territories 
 or jurisdiction of the United States against the territories or 
 domain of any foreign prince or State, or of any colony, dis- 
 trict, or people with whom the United States are at peace." 
 
 For these reasons, had Commodore Paulding intercepted the 
 steamer " Fashion," with General Walker and his command 
 on board, at any period before they entered the port of San 
 Juan de Nicaragua, and conducted them back to Mobile, this 
 would have prevented them from " carrying on" the expedi- 
 tion, and have been not only a justification but a praiseworthy 
 act. 
 
 The crime well deserves the severe punishment inflicted 
 upon it by our laws. It violates the principles of Christianity, 
 morality, and humanity, held sacred by all civilized* nations. 
 
MESSAGES OF PEESIDENT BUOHANAH", 175 
 
 and by none more than by the people of the United States. 
 Disguise it as we may, such a military expedition is an invita- 
 tion to reckless and lawless men to enlist under the banner of 
 any adventurer to rob, plunder, and murder the unoffending 
 citizens of neighboring States who have never done theih 
 harm. It is a usurpation of the war-making power which 
 belongs alone to Congress ; and the Government itself, at 
 least in the estimation of the world, becomes an accomplice in 
 the commission of this crime, unless it adopts all the means 
 necessary to prevent and to punish it. It would be far better, 
 and more in accordance with the bold and manly character of 
 our countrymen, for the Government itself to get up such 
 expeditions than to allow them to proceed under the command 
 of irresponsible adventurers. We could then, at least, exer- 
 cise some control over our own agents, and prevent them from 
 burning down cities, and committing other acts of enormity 
 of which we have read. 
 
 The avowed principle which lies at the foundation of the 
 law of nations is contained in the Divine command that " All 
 things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye 
 even so to them." Tried by this unerring rule, we should be 
 severely condemned if we shall not use our best exertions to 
 arrest such expeditions against our feeble sister Republic of 
 Nicaragua. One thing is very certain, that people never ex- 
 isted who would call any other nation to a stricter account 
 than we should ourselves for tolerating lawless expeditions 
 from their shores to make war upon any portion of our terri- 
 tories. 
 
 Bj tolerating such expeditions, we shall soon lose the high 
 character which we have enjoyed ever since the days of Wash- 
 ington, for the faithful performance of our international obli- 
 gations and duties, and inspire distrust against us among the 
 members of the great family of civilized nations. 
 
 But if motives of duty were not sufficient to restrain us 
 from engaging in such lawless enterprises, our evident interest 
 ought to dictate this policy. These expeditions are the most 
 effectual mode of retarding American progress ; although to 
 promote this is the avowed object of the leaders and contrib- 
 utors in such undertakings. 
 
176 MESSAGES OF PEESIDETfT BTTCHANAN. 
 
 It is beyond question the destiny of our race to spread them- 
 selves over the Continent of North America, and this at no 
 distant day, should events be permitted to take their natural 
 course. The tide of emigration will flow to the South, and 
 nothing can eventually arrest its progress. If permitted to go 
 there, peacefully, Central America will soon contain an Amer- 
 ican population which will confer blessings and benefits as 
 well upon the natives as their respective Governments. Lib- 
 erty, under the restraint of law, will preserve domestic peace ; 
 whilst the different transit routes across the Isthmus, in which 
 we are so deeply interested, will have assured protection. 
 
 Nothing has retarded this happy condition of things so 
 much as the unlawful expeditions which have been fitted out 
 in the United States to make war upon the Central American 
 States. Had one half of the number of American citizens 
 who have miserably perished in the first disastrous expedition 
 of General "Walker settled in Nicaragua as peaceful emi- 
 grants, the object which we all desire would ere this have been 
 in a great degree accomplished. These expeditions have 
 caused the people of the Central American States to regard us 
 with dread and suspicion. It is our true policy to remove 
 this apprehension, and to convince them that we intend to do 
 them good, and not evil. We desire, as the leading Power on 
 this continent, to open, and, if need be, to protect every 
 transit route across the Isthmus, not only for our own benefit, 
 but that of the world, and thus open a free access to Central 
 America, and through it to our Pacific possessions. This 
 policy was commenced under favorable auspices, when the ex- 
 pedition, under the command of General Walker, escaped 
 from our territories and proceeded to Punta Arenas. Should 
 another expedition of a similar character again evade the vigi- 
 lance of our officers, and proceed to Nicaragua, this would be 
 fatal, at least for a season, to the peaceful settlement of these 
 countries, and to the policy of American progress. The truth 
 is, that no Administration can successfully conduct the affairs 
 of the country in Central America, or anywhere else, if it is 
 to be interfered with at every step by lawless military expedi- 
 tions " set on foot" in the United States. 
 
 JAMES BUCHANAI^'. 
 
 "Washington, January 7, 1858, 
 
SPECIAL MESSAGE OF THE PKESIDENT, 
 TRANSMITTING TO CONGRESS THE 
 CONSTITUTION OF KANSAS, 
 FEBRUARY 2, ^1858. 
 
 The President transmits to Congress a duly certified copy of the Constitu- 
 tion and Ordinance adopted by the Constitutional Convention of Kansas 
 at Lecompton. — A portion of the people of Kansas hare been in a state 
 of rebellion, seeking to overthrow the territorial goyemment established 
 by Congress. — The attempt to establish a revolutionary government under 
 the so-called Topeka Constitution.— Beport of Governor Walker. — De- 
 scribes the situation in Kansas, and refusal of the adherents of the so- 
 called Topeka Constitution to participate in the election of delegates to 
 the Constitutional Convention, and to vote on the question of slavery 
 submitted by it to the people. — The election sufEered to pass by default, 
 and of this the electors refusing to vote cannot justly complain. — -The 
 
 ; Convention frames a constitution, and decides to submit the question 
 whether the new State shall be free or slave to the popular vote. — The 
 President expresses the belief that under the organic act the Convention 
 was bound to submit the question of slavery to the people, but that inde- 
 pendently of that act, it was under no obligation to submit any por- 
 tion of the Constitution to popular vote to give it validity. — The people, 
 after admission as a State, will have the power to change their constitu- 
 tion or laws at their own pleasure. — A better spirit subsequently pre- 
 vailed, and the majority of the people voted for governor and State offi- 
 cers, and member of Congress, under the Lecompton Constitution. — They 
 now apply to Congress for admission into the Union. — The President, as 
 a question of expediency, advocates their admission, and assigns his 
 reasons therefor. — It will restore peace and prosperity to Kansas, and 
 quiet to the whole country. ^ — The United States troops in Kansas can 
 then be employed elsewhere where much needed. 
 
 To the Senate and Mouse of Bepresentati/ves of the United 
 States : 
 
 I have received from J. Calhoun, Esq., president of the 
 late constitutional convention of Kansas, a copy, duly certified 
 by himself, of the constitution framed by that body, with the 
 expression of a hope that I would submit the same to the con- 
 sideration of Congress, "with the , view of ■ the admission of 
 • 12 
 
178 MESSAGES OF PRESIDENT BUCHAWAN. 
 
 Kansas into the Union as an independent State." Incom- 
 pliance -with this request, I herewith transmit to Congress, for 
 their action, the constitution of Kansas, with the ordinance 
 respecting the public lands, as well as the letter of Mr. Cal- 
 houn, dated at Lecompton on the 14th ultimo, by which they 
 were accompanied. Having received but a single copy of the 
 constitution and ordinance, I send this to the Senate. 
 
 A great delusion seems to pervade the public mind in rela- 
 tion to the condition of parties in Kansas. This arises from 
 the difficulty of inducing the American people to realize the 
 fact that any portion of them should be in a state of rebellion 
 against the government under which they live. When we 
 speak of the afifairs of Kansas, we are apt to refer merely to 
 the existence of two violent political parties in that Territory, 
 divided on the question of slavery, just as we speak of such 
 parties in the States. This presents no adequate idea of the 
 true state of the case. The dividing line there is not between 
 two political parties, both acknowledging the lawful existence 
 of the government, but between those who are loyal to this 
 government and those who have endeavored to destroy its ex- 
 istence by force and by usurpation — between those who sustain 
 and those who have done all in their power to overthrow the 
 
 '^Tierritorial government established by Congress. This govern- 
 ment they would long since have subverted had it not been 
 protected from their assaults by the troops of the United 
 States. Such has been the condition of affairs since my in- 
 auguration. Ever since that period a large portion of the 
 people of Kansas have been in a state of rebellion against the 
 government, with a military leader at their head of a most 
 turbulent and dangerous character. They have never acknowl- 
 edged, but have constantly renounced and defied the govern- 
 ment to which they owe allegiance, and have been aU the 
 time in a state of resistance against its authority. They have 
 all the time been endeavoring to subvert it and to establish a 
 revolutionary government, under the so-called Topeka consti- 
 tution, in its stead. Even at this very moment the Topeka 
 
 ,^ legislature are in session. Whoever has read the correspond- 
 ence of Governor Walker with the State Department, recently 
 communicated to the ■Sena'fee, will be convinced that this pic- 
 
MESSAGES OP PRESIDENT BTJCHANAW. 179 
 
 tnre is not overdrawn. He always protested against the with- 
 drawal of any portion of the military force of the United 
 States from the Territory, deeming its presence absolutely 
 necessary for the preservation of the regular government and 
 the execution of the laws. In his very first despatch to the 
 Secretary of State, dated June 2, 1857, he says : " The most 
 alarming movement, however, proceeds from the assembling 
 on the 9th June of the so-called Topeka legislature, with a 
 view to the enactment of an entire code of laws. Of course 
 it will be my endeavor to prevent such a result, as it would 
 lead to inevitable and disastrous collision, and, in fact, renew 
 the civil war in Kansas." This was with diflSculty prevented 
 by the efforts of Governor Walker ; but soon thereafter, on 
 the 14th of July, we find him requesting General Harney to 
 furnish him a regiment of dragoons to proceed to the city of 
 Lawrence — and this for the reason that he had received 
 authentic intelligence, verified by his own actual observation, 
 that a dangerous rebellion had occurred, " involving an open 
 defiance of the laws and the establishment of an insurgent 
 government in that city." 
 
 In the governor's despatch of July 15, he informs the 
 Secretary of State " that this movement at Lawrence was the 
 beginning of a plan, originating in that city, to organize insur- 
 rection throughout the Territory ; and especially in all towns, 
 cities, or counties where the republican party have a majority. 
 Lawrence is the hot bed of all the abolition movements in this 
 Territory. It is the town established by the abolition societies 
 of the east, and whilst there are respectable people there, it 
 is filled by a considerable number of mercenaries who are paid 
 by abolition societies to perpetuate and diffuse agitation 
 throughout Kansas, and prevent a peaceful settlement of this 
 question. Having failed in inducing their own so-called 
 Topeka State legislature to organize this insurrection, Law- 
 rence has commenced it herself, and, if not arrested, the rebel- 
 lion will extend throughout the Territory." 
 
 And again : " In order to send this communication imme- 
 diately by mail, I must close by assuring you that the spirit of 
 rebellion pervades the great mass of the republican party of 
 this Territory, instigated, as I entertain no doubt they are, by 
 
180 MESSAGES OF PRESIDENT BUCHANAN. 
 
 eastern societies, having in view results most disastrous to the 
 government and to the Union ; and that the continued pres- 
 ence of General Harney here is indispensable, as originally 
 stipulated by me, with a large body of dragoons and several 
 batteries." 
 
 On the 20th July, 1857, General Lane, under the authority 
 of the Topeka convention, undertook, as Governor Walker 
 informs us, ' ' to organize the whole so-called free State party 
 into volunteers, and to take the names of all who refuse enrol- 
 ment. The professed object is to protect the polls, at the 
 election in August, of the new insurgent Topeka State legis- 
 lature." 
 
 " The object of taking the names of all who refuse enrol- 
 ment is to terrify the free State conservatives into submission. 
 This is proved by recent atrocities committed on such men by 
 Topekaites. The speedy location of large bodies of regular 
 troops here, with two batteries, is necessary. The Lawrence 
 insurgents await the development of this new revolutionary 
 military organization," &c., &c. 
 
 In the governor's despatch of July 27th, he says that 
 " General Lane and his staff everywhere deny the authority 
 of the territorial laws, and counsel a total disregard of these 
 enactments." 
 
 Without making further quotations of a similar character 
 from other despatches of Governor Walker, it appears by a 
 reference to Mr. Stanton's communication to General Cass, of 
 the 9th of December last, that the " important step of calling 
 the legislature together was taken after I [he] had become 
 satisfied that the election ordered by the convention on the 
 21st instant could not be conducted without collision and 
 bloodshed." So intense was the disloyal feeling among the 
 enemies of the government established by Congress, that an 
 election which afforded them an opportunity, if in the major- 
 ity, of making Kansas a free State, according to their own 
 professed desire, could not be conducted without collision and 
 bloodshed ! 
 
 The truth is, that, up till the present moment, the enemies 
 of the existing government still adhere to their Topeka revo- 
 lutionary constitution and government. The very first para- 
 
MESSAGES OF PRESIDENT BUOHAKAir. 181 
 
 graph of the message of Governor Eobinson, dated on the 7th 
 of December, to the Topeka legislature, now assembled at 
 Lawrence, contains an open defiance of the Constitution and 
 laws of the United States. The governor says : " The con- 
 vention which framed the constitution at Topeka originated 
 with the people of Kansas Territory. They have adopted and 
 ratified the same "twice by a direct vote, and also indirectly 
 through two > elections of State officers and members of the 
 State legislature. Yet it has pleased the administration to 
 regard the whole proceeding revolutionary." 
 
 This Topeka government, adhered to with such treasonable 
 pertinacity, is a government in direct opposition to the exist- 
 ing government prescribed and recognized by Congress. It is 
 a usurpation of the same character as it would be for a portion 
 of the people of any State of the Union to undertake to estab- 
 lish a separate government, within its limits, for the purpose 
 of redressing any grievance, real or imaginary, of which they 
 might complain, against the legitimate State government. 
 Such a principle, if carried into execution, would destroy all 
 lawful authority and produce universal anarchy. 
 
 From this statement of facts, the reason becomes palpable 
 why the enemies of the government authorized by Congress 
 have refused to vote for delegates to the Kansas constitutional 
 convention, and also afterwards on the question of slavery 
 submitted by it to the people. It is because they have ever 
 refused to sanction or recognize any other constitution than 
 that framed at Topeka. 
 
 Had the whole Lecompton constitution been submitted to 
 the people, the adherents of this organization would doubtless 
 have voted against it, because, if successful, they would thus 
 have removed an obstacle out of the way of their own revo- 
 lutionary constitution. They would have done this, not upon 
 a consideration of the merits of the whole or any part of the 
 Lecompton constitution, but simply because they have ever 
 resisted the authority of the government authorized by Con- 
 gress, from which it emanated. 
 
 Such being the unfortunate condition of affairs in the Terri- 
 tory, what was the right, as well as the duty, of the law abid- 
 ing people ? Were they silently and patiently to submit to 
 
183 MESSAGES OF PRESIDENT BUCHANAlf. 
 
 the Topeka usurpation, or adopt the necessary measures to 
 establish a constitution under the authority of the organic law 
 of Congress ? 
 
 That this ' law recognized the right of the people of the 
 Territory, without any enabling act from Congress, to form a 
 State constitution, is too clear for argument. For Congress 
 "to leave the people of the Territory perfectly free," in 
 framing their constitution, " to form and regulate their do- 
 mestic institutions in their own way, subject only to the Consti- 
 tution of the United States," and then to say that they shall 
 not be permitted to proceed and frame a constitution in their 
 own way, without an express authority from Congress, appears 
 to be almost a contradiction in terms. It would be much 
 more plausible to contend that Congress had no power to pass 
 such an enabling act, than to argue that the people of a Terri- 
 tory might be kept out of the Union for an indefinite period, 
 and until it might please Congress to permit them to exercise 
 the right of self-government. This would be to adopt not 
 " their own way," but the way which Congress might pre- 
 scribe. 
 
 It is impossible that any people could have proceeded with 
 more regularity in the formation of a constitution than the 
 people of Kansas have done. It was necessary, first, to ascer- 
 tain whether it was the desire of the people to be relieved 
 from their territorial dependence and establish a State govern- 
 ment. For this purpose, the territorial legislature, in 1855, 
 passed a law " for taking the sense of the people of this Terri- 
 tory upon the expediency of calling a convention to form a 
 State constitution" at the general election to be held in Octo- 
 ber, 1856. The " sense of the people" was accordingly taken, 
 and they decided in favor of a convention. It is true that at 
 this election the enemies of the territorial government did not 
 vote, because they were then engaged at Topeka, without the 
 slightest pretext of lawful authority, in framing a constitution 
 of their own for the purpose of subverting the territorial 
 government. 
 
 In pursuance of this decision of the people in favor of a 
 convention, the territorial legislature, on the 27th day of 
 February, 185Y, passed an act for the election of delegates on 
 
MESSAGES OF PEESIDENT BUOHANAlf. 183 
 
 the third Monday of June, 185Y, to frame a State constitution. 
 This law is as fair in its provisions as any that ever passed a 
 legislative body for a similar purpose. The right of suffrage 
 at this election is clearly and justly defined. " Every lona 
 fide inhabitant of the Territory of Kansas" on the third 
 Monday of June, the day of the election, who was a citizen 
 of the United States above the age of twenty-one, and had 
 resided therein for three months previous to that date, was 
 entitled to vote. In order to avoid all interference from 
 neighboring States or Territories with the freedom and fair- 
 ness of the election, provision was made for the registry of the 
 qualified voters ; and, in pursuance thereof, nine thousand two 
 hundred and fifty-one voters were registered. Governor 
 Walker did his whole duty in urging all the qualified citizens 
 of Kansas to vote at this election. In his inaugural address, 
 on the 27th May last, he informed them that " under our 
 practice the preliminary act of framing a State constitution is 
 uniformly performed through the instrumentality of a conven- 
 tion of delegates chosen by the people themselves. That con- 
 vention is now about to be elected by you under the call of 
 the territorial legislature, created and still recognized by the 
 authority of Congress, and clothed by it, in the comprehen- 
 sive language of the organic law, with full power to make 
 such an enactment. The territorial legislature, then, in 
 assembling this convention, were fully sustained by the act of 
 Congress, and the authority of the convention is distinctly 
 recognized in my instructions from the President of the United 
 States." 
 
 The governor also clearly and distinctly warns them what 
 would be the consequences if they should not participate in 
 the election. " The people of Kansas, then, (he says) are in- 
 vited by the highest authority known to the Constitution, to 
 participate, freely and fairly, in the election of delegates to 
 frame a constitution and State government. The law has 
 performed its entire appropriate function when it extends to 
 the people the right of suffrage, but it cannot compel the 
 performance of that duty. Throughout our whole Union, 
 however, and wherever free government prevails, those who 
 abstain from the exercise of the right of suffrage authorize 
 
184 MESSAGES OF PRESIDENT BTJOHAWAlir. 
 
 those who do vote to act for them in that contingency : and 
 the absentees are as much bound, under the law and Constitu- 
 tion, where there is no fraud or violence, by the act of the 
 majority of those who do vote, as if all had participated in 
 the election. Otherwise, as voting must be voluntary, self- 
 government would be impracticable, and monarchy or despot- 
 ism would remain as the only alternative.' ' 
 
 It may also be observed, that at this period any hope, if 
 such had existed, that the Topeka constitution would ever be 
 recognized by Congress, must have been abandoned. Con- 
 gress had adjourned on the 3d March previous, having recog- 
 nized the legal existence of the territorial legislature in a 
 variety of forms, which I need not enumerate. Indeed, the 
 delegate elected to the House of Representatives, under g, 
 territorial law, had been admitted to his seat, and had just 
 completed his term of service on the day previous to my 
 inauguration. 
 
 This was the propitious moment for settling all difficulties 
 in Kansas. This was the time for abandoning the revolu- 
 tionary Topeka organization, and for the enemies of the exist- 
 ing government to conform to the laws, and to unite with its 
 friends in framing a State constitution. But this they refused 
 to do, and the consequences of their refusal to submit to law- 
 ful authority and vote at the election of delegates may yet 
 prove to be of a most deplorable character. Would that the 
 respect for the laws of the land which so eminently distin- 
 guished the men of the past generation could be revived ! It 
 is a disregard and violation of law which have for years kept 
 the Territory of Kansas in a state of almost open rebellion 
 against its government. It is the same spirit which has pro- 
 duced actual rebellion in Utah. Our only safety consists in 
 obedience and conformity to law. Should a general spirit 
 against its enforcement prevail, this will prove fatal to us as a 
 nation. We acknowledge no master but the law ; and should 
 we cut loose from its restraints, and every one do what seemeth 
 good in his own eyes, our case will indeed be hopeless. 
 
 The enemies of the territorial government determined' still 
 to resist the authority of Congress. They refused to vote for 
 delegates to the convention, not because, from circumstances 
 
HESS AGES OF PRESIDENT BUCHANAN. 185 
 
 which I need not detail, there was an omission to register the 
 comparatively few voters who were inhabitants of certain 
 counties of Kansas in the early spring of 1857, but because 
 they had predetermined, at all hazards, to adhere to thfeir 
 revolutionary organization, and defeat the establishment of 
 any other constitution than that which they had framed at 
 Topeka. The election was, therefore, suffered to pass by 
 default ; but of this result the qualified electors who refused 
 to vote can never justly complain. 
 
 From this review, it is manifest that the Lecompton conven- 
 tion, according to every principle of constitutional law, was 
 legally constituted and was invested with power to frame a 
 constitution. 
 
 The sacred principle of popular sovereignty has been in- 
 voked in favor of the enemies of law and order in Kansas. 
 But in what manner is popular sovereignty to be exercised in 
 this country, if not through the instrumentality of established 
 law ? In certain small republics of ancient times the people 
 did assemble in primary meetings, passed laws, and directed 
 public affairs. In our country this is manifestly impossible. 
 Popular sovereignty can be exercised here only through the 
 ballot-box ; and if the people will refuse to exercise it in this 
 manner, as they have done in Kansas at the election of dele- 
 gates, it is not for them to complain that their rights have 
 been violated. 
 
 The Kansas convention, thus lawfully constituted, pro- 
 ceeded to frame a constitution, and, having completed their 
 work, finally adjourned on the Yth day of November last. 
 They did not think proper to submit the whole of this consti- 
 tution to a popular vote, but they did submit the question 
 whether Kansas should be a free or a slave State to the people. 
 This was the question which had convulsed the Union and 
 shaken it to its very centre. This was the question which had 
 lighted up the flames of civil war in Kansas, and had produced 
 dangerous sectional parties throughout the confederacy. It 
 was of a character so paramount in respect to the condition of 
 Kansas as to rivet the anxious attention of the people of the 
 whole country upon it, and it alone. No person thought of 
 any other question. For my own part, when I instructed 
 
186 MESSAGES OF PRESIDENT BUCHAWAN. 
 
 Governor Walker, in general terms, in favor of submitting 
 the constitution to the people, I had no object in view except 
 the all-absorbing question of slavery. In what manner the 
 people of Kansas might regulate their other concerns was not 
 a subject which attracted any attention. In fact, the general 
 provisions of our recent State constitutions, after an experi- 
 ence of eighty years, are so similar and so excellent that it 
 would be difficult to go far wrong at the present day in fram- 
 ing a new constitution. 
 
 I then believed, and still believe, that, under the organic 
 act, the Kansas convention were bound to submit this all- 
 important question of slavery to the people. It was never, 
 however, my opinion that, independently of this act, they 
 would have been bound to submit any portion of the constitu- 
 tion to a popular vote, in order to give it validity. Had I 
 entertained such an opinion, this would have been in opposi- 
 tion to many precedents in our history, commencing in the 
 very best age of the republic. It would have been in opposi- 
 tion to the principle which pervades our institutions, and 
 which is every day carried out into practice, that the people 
 have the right to delegate to representatives, chosen by them- 
 selves, their sovereign power to frame constitutions, enact 
 laws, and perform many other important acts, without requir- 
 ing that these should be subjected to their subsequent appro- 
 bation. It would be a most inconvenient limitation of their 
 own power, imposed by the people upon themselves, to ex- 
 clude them from exercising their sovereignty in any lawful 
 manner they think proper. It is true that the people of 
 Kansas might, if they had pleased, have required the conven- 
 tion to submit the constitution to a popular vote ; but this 
 they have not done. The only remedy, therefore, in this 
 case, is that which exists in all other similar cases. If the 
 delegates who framed the Kansas constitution have in any 
 manner violated the will of their constituents, the people 
 always possess the power to change their constitution or their 
 laws, according to their own pleasure. 
 
 The question of slavery was submitted to an election of the 
 people of Kansas on the 21st December last, in obedience to 
 the mandate of the Constitution. Here, again, a fair oppor- 
 
MESSAGES OP PRESIDENT BUCHANAlir. 187 
 
 tunity was presented to the adherents of the Topeka constitu- 
 tion, if they were the majority, to decide this exciting ques- 
 tion " in their own way," and thus restore peace to the dis- 
 tracted Territory ; but they again refused to exercise their 
 right of popular sovereignty, and again suffered the election 
 to pass by default. 
 
 1 heartily rejoice that a wiser and better spirit prevailed 
 among a large majority of these people on the first Monday 
 of January ; and that they did, on that day, vote under the 
 Lecompton constitution for a governor and other State officers, 
 a member of Congress, and for members of the legislature. 
 This election was warmly contested by the parties, and a 
 larger vote was polled than at any previous election in the 
 Territory. We may now reasonably hope that the revolu- 
 tionary Topeka organization will be speedily and finally aban- 
 doned, and this will go far towards the final settlement of the 
 imhappy differences in Kansas. If frauds have been com- 
 mitted at this election, either by one or both parties, the legis- 
 lature and the people of Kansas, under their constitution, will 
 know how to redress themselves and punish these detestable 
 but too common crimes without any outside interference. 
 
 The people of Kansas have, then, "in their own way," 
 and in strict accordance with the organic act, framed a consti- 
 tution and State government ; have submitted the all-impor- 
 tant question of slavery to the people, and have elected a gov- 
 ernor, a member to represent them in Congress, members of 
 the State legislature, and other State officers. They now ask 
 admission into the Dnion under this constitution, which is 
 republican in its form. It is for Congress to decide whether 
 they win admit or reject the State which has thus been 
 created. For my own part, I am decidedly in favor of its 
 admission, and thus terminating the Kansas question. This 
 will carry out the great principle of non-intervention recog- 
 nized and sanctioned by the organic act, which declares in 
 express language in favor of " non-intervention by Congress 
 with slavery in the States or Territories," leaving " the people 
 thereof perfectly free to form and regulate their domestic 
 institutions in their own way, subject only to the Constitution 
 of the United States." In this manner, by localizing the 
 
188 MESSAGES OP PRESIDENT BUCHANAN. 
 
 question of slavery, and conjBlning it to the people whom it 
 immediately concerned, every patriot anxiously expected that 
 this question would be banished from the halls of Congress, 
 where it has always exerted a baneful influence throughout 
 the whole country. 
 
 It is proper that 1 should briefly refer to the election held 
 under an act of the territorial legislature, on the first Monday 
 of January last, on the Lecompton constitution. This election 
 was held after the Territory had been prepared for admission 
 into the Union as a sovereign State, and when no authority 
 existed in the territorial legislature which could possibly de- 
 stroy its existence or change its character. The election, 
 which was peaceably conducted under my instructions, in- 
 volved a strange inconsistency. A large majority of the per- 
 sons who voted against the Lecompton constitution were at 
 the very same time and place recognizing its valid existence 
 in the most solemn and authentic manner, by voting under its 
 provisions. I have yet received no official information of the 
 result of this election. 
 
 As a question of expediency, after the right has been main- 
 tained, it may be wise to reflect upon the benefits to Kansas 
 and to the whole country which would result from its imme- 
 diate admission into the Union, as well as the disasters which 
 may follow its rejection. Domestic peace will be the happy 
 consequence of its admission, and that fine Territory, which 
 has hitherto been torn by dissensions, will rapidly increase in 
 population and wealth, and speedily realize the blessings and 
 the comforts which follow in the train of agricultural and 
 mechanical industry. The people will then be sovereign, and 
 can regulate their own affairs in their own way. If a majority 
 of them desire to abolish domestic slavery within the State, 
 there is no other possible mode by which this can be effected 
 so speedily as by prompt admission. The will of the majority 
 is supreme and irresistible when expressed in an orderly and 
 lawful manner. They can make and unmake constitutions at 
 pleafiure. It would be absurd to say that they can impose 
 fetters upon their own power which they cannot afterwards 
 remove. If they could do this, they might tie their own 
 hands for a hundred as well as for ten years. These are fun- 
 
MESSAGES OE PRESIDENT BTJOHANAN, 189 
 
 damental principles of American freedom, and are recognized, 
 1 believe, in some form or other, by every State constitution ; 
 and if Congress, in the act of admission, should think proper 
 to recognize them, I can perceive no objection to such a 
 course. This has been done emphatically in the constitution 
 of Kansas. It declares in the bill of rights that " all political 
 power is inherent in the people, and all free governments are 
 founded on their authority and instituted for their benefit, 
 and therefore they have at all times an inalienable and inde- 
 feasible right to alter, reform, or abolish their form of govern- 
 ment in such manner as they may think proper." The great 
 State of New York is Ut this moment governed under a con- 
 stitution framed and established in direct opposition to the 
 mode prescribed by the previous constitution. If, therefore, 
 the provision changing the Kansas constitution, after the year 
 one thousand eight hundred and sixty-four, could by possi- 
 bility be construed into a prohibition to make such a change 
 previous to that period, this prohibition would be wholly un- 
 availing. The legislature already elected may, at its very first 
 session, submit the question to a vote of the people whether 
 they will or will not have a convention to amend their consti- 
 tution and adopt all necessary means for giving effect to the 
 popular will. 
 
 It has been solemnly adjudged by the highest judicial trib- 
 unal known to our laws, that slavery exists in Kansas by virtue 
 of the Constitution of the United States. Kansas is, there- 
 fore, at this moment as much a slave State as Georgia or 
 South Carolina. Without this the equality of the sovereign 
 States composing the Union would be violated, and the use 
 and enjoyment of a Territory acquired by the common treasure 
 of all the States would be closed against the people and the 
 property of nearly half the members of the confederacy. 
 Slavery can therefore never be prohibited in Kansas except 
 by means of a constitutional provision, and in no other manner 
 can this be obtained so promptly, if a majority of the people 
 desire it, as by admitting it into the Union under its present 
 constitution. 
 
 On the other hand, should Congress reject the constitution, 
 under the idea of affording the disaffected in Kansas a third 
 opportunity of prohibiting slavery in the State, which they 
 
190 MESSAGES OF PEESIDENT BUCHANAK, 
 
 might have done twice before if in the majority, no man can 
 foretell the consequences. 
 
 If Congress, for the sake of those men who refused to vote 
 for delegates to the convention when they might have ex- 
 cluded slavery from the constitution, and who afterwards re- 
 fused to vote on the 21st December last, when they might, as 
 they claim, have stricken slavery from the constitution, should 
 now reject the State because slavery remains in the constitu- 
 tion, it is manifest that the agitation upon this dangerous sub- 
 ject will be renewed in a more alarming form than it has ever 
 yet assumed. 
 
 Every patriot in the country had indulged the hope that the 
 Kansas and Nebraska act would put a final end to the slavery 
 agitation, at least in Congress, which had for more than 
 twenty years convulsed the country and endangered the 
 Union. This act involved great and fundamental principles, 
 and if fairly carried into effect will settle the question. 
 Should the agitation be again revived, should the people of 
 the sister States be again estranged from each other with more 
 than their former bitterness, this will arise from a cause, so 
 far as the interests of Kansas are concerned, more trifling and 
 insignificant than has ever stirred the elements of a great 
 people into commotion. To the people of Kansas, the only 
 practical difference between admission or rejection depends 
 simply upon the fact whether they can themselves more 
 speedily change the present constitution if it does not accord 
 with the will of the majority, or frame a second constitution 
 to be submitted to Congress hereafter. Even if this were a 
 question of mere expediency, and not of right, the small difiEer- 
 ence of time, one way or the other, is of not the least importance, 
 when contrasted with the evils which must necessarily result 
 to the whole country from a revival of the slavery agitation. 
 
 In considering this question, it should never be forgotten 
 that, in proportion to its insignificance, let the decision be 
 what it may, so far as it may affect the few thousand inhabi- 
 tants of Kansas, who have from the beginning resisted the 
 constitution and the laws, for this very reason the rejection of 
 the constitution will be so much the more keenly felt by the 
 people of fourteen of the States of this Union, where slavery 
 is recognized under the Constitution of the United States. 
 
MESSAGES OP PRESIDENT BXJCHANAN. 191 
 
 Again : The speedy admission of Kansas into the Union 
 would restore peace and quiet to the whole country. Already 
 the affairs of this Territory have engrossed an undue propor- 
 tion of public • attention. They have sadly affected the 
 friendly relations of the people of the States with each other, 
 and alarmed the fears of patriots for the safety of the Union. 
 Kansas once admitted into the Union, the excitement becomes 
 localized, and will soon die away for want of outside aliment. 
 Then every difficulty will be settled at the ballot-box. 
 
 Besides — and this is no trifling consideration — 1 shall then 
 be enabled to withdraw the troops of the United States from 
 Kansas, and employ them on branches of service where they 
 are much needed. They have been kept there, on the earnest 
 importunity of Governor Walker, to maintain the existence of 
 the territorial government and secure the execution of the 
 laws. He considered that at least two thousand regular troops, 
 under the command of General Harney, were necessary for 
 this purpose. Acting upon his reliable information, I have 
 been obliged, in some degree, to interfere with the expedition 
 to Utah, in order to keep down rebellion in Kansas. This 
 has involved a very heavy expense to the government. Kan- 
 sas once admitted, it is believed there will no longer be any 
 occasion there for troops of the United States. 
 
 I have thus performed my duty on this important question, 
 under a deep sense of responsibility to God and my country. 
 My public life' will terminate within a brief period ; and I 
 have no other object of earthly ambition than to leave my 
 country in a peaceful and prosperous condition, and to live in 
 the affections and respect of my countrymen. The dark and 
 ominous clouds which now appear to be impending over the 
 Union, I conscientiously believe may be dissipated with honor 
 to every portion of it by the admission of Kansas during the 
 present session of Congress ; whereas, if she should be re- 
 jected, I greatly fear these clouds will become darker and 
 more ominous than any which have ever yet threatened the 
 
 Constitution and the Union. 
 
 JAMES BUCHANAN. 
 
 Washington, Febi'uary 2, 1858. 
 
SPECIAL MESSAGE OF THE PEESIDENT ON 
 UTAH AFFAIES. 
 
 Difficulties with that Territory happily terminated, and there will be no 
 occasion for any appropriation for the two regiments authorized by 
 Congress. 
 
 To the Senate a/nd House of Sepresentai/ives : 
 
 1 transmit the copy of a despatch from Governor Cnmming 
 to the Secretary of State, dated at Great Salt Lake City, on 
 the 2d of May, and received at the Department of State on 
 yesterday. From this there is reason to believe that our diflS- 
 culties with the Territory of Utah have terminated, and the 
 reign of the Constitution and the laws has been restored. I 
 congratulate you on this auspicious event. 
 
 I lose no time in communicating this information, and in 
 expressing the opinion that there will now be no occasion to 
 make any appropriation for the purpose of calling into service 
 the two regiments of volunteers authorized by the act of Con- 
 gress approved on the Tth April lastj " For the purpose of 
 quelling disturbances in the Territory of Utah, for the protec- 
 tion of supply and emigrant trains, and the suppression of 
 Indian hostilities on the frontiers." 
 
 I am the more gratified at this satisfactory intelligence from 
 Utah, because it will afEord some relief to the Treasury at a 
 time demanding from us the strictest economy, and when the 
 question which now arises upon every new appropriation is, 
 whether it be of a character so important and urgent as to 
 brook no delay, and to justify and require a loan, and most 
 probably a tax upon the people to raise the jnoney necessary 
 for its payment. 
 
 In regard to the regiment of volunteers authorized by the 
 same act of Congress to be called into service for the defence 
 
MESSAGES OF PRESIDENT BTJCHAHTAIT. 193 
 
 of the frontiers of Texas against Indian hostilities, I desire to 
 leave this question to Congress, observing at the same time 
 that, in my opinion, this State can be defended for the pres- 
 ent by the regular'troops, which have not yet been withdrawn 
 from its limits. 
 
 JAMES BUCHANAN. 
 Washington City, Jwne 10, 1858, 
 13 
 
SPECIAL MESSAGE ON THE ACQUISITION OF 
 
 CUBA. 
 
 To the Senate : 
 
 I transmit herewith a report from the Secretary of State, in 
 answer to a resolution of the Senate of the 18th instant, re- 
 questing the President, if not incompatible with the public 
 interest, " to communicate to the Senate any and all corre- 
 spondence between the Government of the United States and 
 the Government of Her Catholic Majesty relating to the pur- 
 chase of the Island of Cuba, which correspondence has not 
 been furnished to either House of Congress." From this it 
 appears that no such correspondence has taken place which has 
 not already been communicated to Congress. In ray late 
 annual message, I stated in reference to the purchase of Cuba, 
 that, " The publicity which has been given to our former nego- 
 tiations on this subject, and the large appropriation which 
 may be required to effect the piirpose, render it expedient, 
 before making another attempt to renew the negotiation, that 
 I should lay the whole subject before Congress." I still en- 
 tertain the same opinion, deeming it highly important, if not 
 indispensable for this purpose to the success of any negotiation 
 which I might institute for this purpose, that the measure 
 should recejve the previous sanction of Congress. 
 
 JAMES BUCHANAN. 
 
SPECIAL MESSAGE ON THE CONDITION" OF THE 
 TKEASUEY. 
 
 To the Senate and House of Representatives : 
 
 I feel it to be an indispensable duty to call your attention 
 to the condition of tlie Treasury. On the 19th of May last, 
 the Secretary of the Treasury submitted a report to Congress 
 " on the present condition of the finances of the Govern- 
 ment." In this report he states that, after a call upon the 
 heads of Departments, he had received official information 
 that the sum of $37,000,000 would probably be required dur- 
 ing the first two quarters of the next fiscal year, from the Ist 
 of July to the 1st of January. " This sum," the Secretary 
 says, " does not include such amounts as may be appropriated 
 by Congress over and above the estimates submitted to them 
 by the Departments, and I have no data on which to estimate 
 for such expenditures. Upon this point Congress is better 
 able to form a correct opinion than I am." 
 
 The Secretary • then estimates that the receipts into the 
 Treasury from all sources, between the 1st of July and the 
 1st of January, would amount to $25,000,000, leaving a deficit 
 of $15,000,000, inclusive of the sum of about three million 
 dollars, the least amount required to be in the Treasury at all 
 times to secure its successful operation. For this amount he 
 recommends a loan. This loan, it wiU be observed, was re- 
 quired, after a close calculation, to meet the estimates from 
 the different Departments, and not such appropriations as 
 might be made by Congress over and above these estimates. 
 
 There were embraced in this sum of $15,000,000 estimates to 
 the amount of about one million seven hundred and fifty 
 thousand dollars for the three volunteer regiments authorized 
 by the act of Congress approved April 7, 1858, for two of 
 which,, if not for the third, no appropriation will now be re- 
 
196 MESSAGES OF PEESIDENT BUCHANAN. 
 
 quired. To this extent a portion of the loan of $15,000,000 
 may be applied to pay the appropriations made by Congress 
 beyond the estimates from the different Departments referred 
 to in the report of the Secretary of the Treasury. 
 
 To what extent a probable deficiency may exist in the 
 Treasury between the 1st July and the 1st January next, can- 
 not be ascertained until the appropriation bills, as well as the 
 private bills containing appropriations, shall have finally 
 
 Adversity teaches useful lessons to nations as well as to indi- 
 viduals. The habit of extravagant expenditures, fostered by 
 a large surplus in the Treasury, must now be corrected, or 
 the country will be involved in serious financial difficulties. 
 
 Under any foj^n of government extravagance in expendi- 
 ture must be the natural consequence when those who author- 
 ize the expenditure feel no responsibility in providing the 
 means of payment. Such had been, for a number of years, 
 our condition previous to the late monetary revulsion in the 
 country. Fortunately, at least for the cause of public econ- 
 omy, the case is now reversed ; and to the extent of the 
 appropriations, whatever these may be, engrafted on the differ- 
 ent appropriation bills, as well as those made by private bills, 
 over and above the estimates of the different Departments, it 
 will be necessary for Congress to provide the means of pay- 
 ment before their adjournment. Without this, the Treasury 
 will be exhausted before the 1st January, and the public 
 credit will be seriously impaired. This disgrace must not fall 
 upon the country. 
 
 It is impossible for me, however, now to ascertain this 
 amount ; nor does there at present seem to be the least prob- 
 ability that this can be done, and the necessary means pro- 
 vided by Congress to meet any deficiency which may exist in 
 the Treasury before Monday next at twelve o'clock, the hour 
 fixed for adjournment, it being now Sunday morning at half- 
 past eleven o'clock. To accomplish this object, the appro- 
 priation bills, as they shall have finally passed Congress, must 
 be before me, and time must be allowed to ascertain the 
 amount of the moneys appropriated, and to enable Congress to 
 provide the necessary means. At this writing it is understood 
 
MESSAGES OF PRESIDENT BUCHANAH". 197 
 
 that several of these bills are yet before the committees of cour 
 ference, and the amendments to some of them have not even 
 been printed. 
 
 Foreseeing that such a state of things might exist at the 
 close of the session, I stated, in the annual message to Con- 
 gress, of December last, that " from the practice of Congress 
 such an examination of each bill as the Constitution requires 
 has been rendered impossible. The most important business 
 of each session is generally crowded into its last hours, and 
 the alternative presented to the President is either to violate 
 the constitutional duty which he owes to the people, and 
 approve bills which, for want of time, it is impossible he 
 should have examined, or, by his refusal to do this, subject 
 the country and individuals to great loss and inconven- 
 ience." . . . 
 
 " For my own part, I have deliberately determined that 1 
 shall approve no bills which I have not examined ; and it will 
 be a case of extreme and most urgent necessity which shall 
 ever induce me to depart from this rule." 
 
 The present condition of the Treasury absohitely requires 
 that 1 should adhere to this resolution on the present occasion 
 for the reasons which I have heretofore presented. 
 
 In former times it was believed to be the true character of 
 an appropriation bill simply to carry into effect existing laws, 
 and the established policy of the country. A practice has, hovr- 
 ever, grown up of late years to ingraft on such bills, at the last 
 hours of the session, large appropriations for new and impor- 
 tant objects not provided for by preexisting laws, and when no 
 time is left to the Executive for their examination and inves- 
 tigation. No alternative is thus left to the President but 
 either to approve measures without examination, or, by veto- 
 ing an appropriation bill, seriously to embarrass the operations 
 of the Government. This practice could never have prevailed 
 without a surplus in the Treasury sufficiently large to cover 
 an indefinite amount of appropriations. Necessity now com- 
 pels us to arrest it, at least so far as to afford time to ascertain 
 the amount appropriated, and to provide the means of its 
 payment. 
 
 For aU these reasons, 1 recommend to Congress to postpone 
 
198 MESSAGES OF PEESIDENT BUCHANABT. 
 
 the day of adjournment for a brief period. I promise that 
 not an hour shall be lost in ascertaining the amount of appro- 
 priations made by them for which it will be necessary to pro- 
 vide. I know it will be inconvenient for the members to 
 attend a called session, and this, above all things, I desire to 
 avoid. 
 
 JAMES BUCHANAN". 
 Washington City, Jime 12, 1858. 
 
SPECIAL MESSAGE OF THE PEESIDENT— 
 CALIFOKNIA MAILS. 
 
 To the House of H^yresentatives : 
 
 On the last day of the last session of Congress, as appears 
 by the Journal of the House of Representatives, " a joint 
 resolution in regard to the carrying of the United States mails 
 from Saint Joseph, Missouri, to Placerville, California," was 
 presented to me for my approval. This resolution authorized 
 and directed the Postmaster General " to order an increase of 
 speed upon said route, requiring the mails to be carried 
 through in thirty days, instead of thirty-eight days, according 
 to the existing contract : Provided, The same can be done 
 upon apro rata increase of compensation to the contractors." 
 I did not approve this joint resolution : First, because it was 
 presented to me at so late a period that I had not the time 
 necessary, on the day of the adjournment of the last session, 
 for an investigation of the subject. Besides, no injury could 
 result to the public, as the Postmaster General already pos- 
 sessed the discretionary power, under existing laws, to in- 
 crease the speed upon this as well as all other mail routes. 
 
 Second. Because the Postmaster-General, at the moment 
 in the Capitol, informed me that the contractors themselves 
 had offered to increase the speed on this route to thirty instead 
 of thirty-eight days, at a less cost than that authorized by the 
 joint resolution. Upon subsequent examination, it has been 
 ascertained at the Post-0 fl5ce Department that their bid, 
 which is still pending, proposes to perform this service for a 
 sum less by $49,000 than that authorized by the resolution. 
 
 JAMES BUCHANAN. , 
 
 JamMm/ 7, 1859. 
 
SPECIAL MESSAGE OF THE PRESIDENT ON THE 
 PROTECTION OF THE TRANSIT ROUTES 
 ACROSS THE ISTHMUS. 
 
 The President urges appropriate legislation for the protection of American 
 citizens and their property, while in transit across the Isthmus between 
 our Atlantic and Pacific possessions. ^Eevolutionary parties seize and 
 confiscate American vessels and cargoes in an arbitrary and lawless man- 
 ner, and exact forced loans. — The executives of Great Britain, France, 
 and other countries, possessing the war-making power, promptly enforce 
 immediate redress. — The Executive of the United States cannot do so, 
 and the commanders of our war vessels can only remonstrate. — American 
 citizens thus deprived of the protection under our flag which the subjects 
 of other nations enjoy. — Congress alone can remedy this by clothing the 
 Executive with power to protect our citizens. — Such a limited authority 
 not unconstitutional, — The knowledge of the existence of such a law 
 would go far to prevent such outrages. 
 
 To the Senate cmd Mouse of Representatives : 
 
 The brief period which remains of your present session, and 
 the great urgency and importance of legislative action, before 
 its termination, for the protection of American citizens and 
 their property whilst in transit across the Isthmus routes 
 between our Atlantic and Pacific possessions, render it my 
 duty again to recall this subject to your notice. I have here- 
 tofore presented it in my annual messages, both in December, 
 1857 and 1858, to which I beg leave to refer. In the latter, 
 I stated that " The Executive Government of this country, in 
 its intercourse with foreign nations, is limited to the employ- 
 ment of diplomacy alone. When this fails it can proceed no 
 further. It cannot legitimately resort to force, without the 
 direct authority of Congress, except in resisting and repelling 
 hostile attacks. It would have no authority to enter the terri- 
 tories of Nicaragua even to prevent the destruction of the 
 transit, and protect the lives and property of our own citizens 
 on their passage. It is true that, on a sudden emergency of 
 this character, the President would direct any armed force in 
 
MESSAGES OF PEESIDENT BTJOHANAN. 201 
 
 the vicinity to march to their relief ; but, in doing this, he 
 would act upon his own responsibility. 
 
 " Under these circumstances, I earnestly recommend to 
 Congress the passage of an act authorizing the Presidept, 
 under such restrictions as they may deem proper, to employ 
 the land and naval forces of the United States in preventing 
 the transit from being obstructed or closed by lawless violence, 
 and in protecting the lives and property of Amefican citizens 
 travelling thereupon, requiring, at the same time, that these 
 forces shall be withdrawn the moment the danger shall have 
 passed away. "Without such a provision, our citizens would 
 be constantly exposed to interruption in their progress, and to 
 lawless violence. 
 
 " A similar necessity exists for the passage of such an act 
 for the protection of the Panama and Tehuantepec routes." 
 Another subject, equally important, commanded the attention 
 of the Senate at the last session of Congress. 
 
 The republics south of the United States on this continent 
 have unfortunately been frequently in a state of revolution 
 arid civil war ever since they achieved their independence. 
 As one or the other party has prevailed, ani obtained posses- 
 sion of the ports open to foreign commerce, they have seized 
 and confiscated American vessels and their cargoes in an 
 arbitrary and lawless manner, and exacted money from Amer- 
 ican citizens by forced loans, and other violent proceedings, to 
 enable them to carry on hostilities. The Executive Govern- 
 ments of Great Britain, France, and other countries, possess- 
 ing the war-making power, can promptly employ the necessary 
 means to enforce immediate redress for similar outrages upon 
 their subjects. Not so the Executive Government of the 
 United States. 
 
 If the President orders a vessel of war to any bf these ports 
 to demand prompt redress for outrages committed, the ofiEend- 
 ing parties are well aware that, in case of refusal, the com- 
 mander can do no more than remonstrate. He can resort to 
 no hostile act. The question must then be referred to diplo- 
 macy, and in many cases adequate redress can never be ob- 
 tained. Thus, American citizens are deprived of the same 
 protection under the flag of their country which the subjects 
 
202 MESSAGES OP PRESIDENT BtTOHAKAN. 
 
 of other nations enjoy. The remedy for this state of things 
 can only be supplied by Congress, since the Constitution has 
 confided to that body alone the power to make war. Without 
 the authority of Congress, the Executive cannot lawfully 
 direct any force, however near it may be to the scene of 
 difficulty, to enter the territory of Mexico, Nicaragua or 'New 
 Granada, for the purpose of defending the persons and prop- 
 erty of American citizens, even though they may be violently 
 assailed whilst passing in peaceful transit over the Tehuan- 
 tepec, Nicaragua or Panama routes. He cannot, without 
 transcending his constitutional power, direct a gun to be fired 
 into a port, or land a seaman or marine to protect the lives of 
 our countrymen on shore, or to obtain redress for a recent out- 
 rage on their property. The banditti which infest our neigh- 
 boring Republic of Mexico, always claiming to belong to one 
 or other of the hostile parties, might make a sudden descent 
 on Vera Cruz, or on the Tehuantepec route, and he would 
 have no power to employ the force on shipboard in the vicinity 
 for their relief, either to prevent the plunder of our merchants 
 or the destruction of the transit. 
 
 In reference to countries where the local authorities are 
 strong enough to enforce the laws, the difficulty here indicated 
 can seldom happen ; but were this not the case, and the local 
 authorities do not possess the physical power, even if they 
 possess the will, tio protect our citizens within their limits, 
 recent experience has shown that the American Executive 
 should itself be authorized to render this protection. Such a 
 grant of authority, thus limited in its extent, could in no just 
 sense be regarded as a transfer of the war-making power to 
 the Executive, but only as an appropriate exercise of that 
 power by the body to whom it exclusively belongs. The riot 
 in Panama, in 1856, in which a great number of our citizens 
 lost their lives, furnishes a pointed illustration of the necessity 
 which may arise for the exertion of this authority. 
 
 I therefore earnestly recommend to Congress, on whom the 
 responsibility exclusively rests, to pass a law before their ad- 
 journment, conferring on the President the power to protect 
 the lives and property of American citizens in the cases which 
 I have indicated, under such restrictions and conditions as they 
 
MESSAGES OP PRESIDENT BUCHANAN. 203 
 
 may deem advisable. The knowledge that such a law exists 
 would of itself go far to prevent the outrages which it is 
 intended to redress, and to render the employment of force 
 unnecessary. 
 
 Without this, the President may be placed in a painful 
 position before the meeting of the next Congress. In the 
 present disturbed condition of Mexico, and one or more of the 
 other Eepublics south of us, no person can foresee what occur- 
 rences may take place before that period. In case of emer- 
 gency, our citizens, seeing that they do not enjoy the same 
 protection with subjects of European Governments, will have 
 just cause to complain. On the other hand, should the Ex- 
 ecutive interpose, and especially should the result prove dis- 
 astrous, and valuable lives be lost, he might subject himself to 
 severe censure for having assumed a power not confided to 
 him by the Constitution. It is to guard against this contin- 
 gency that I now appeal to Congress. 
 
 Having thus recommended to Congress a measure which 1 
 deem necessary and expedient for the interest and honor of 
 the country, I leave the whole subject to their wisdom and 
 discretion. 
 
 JAMES BUCHANAN. 
 
 Washington, February 18, 1859. 
 
SPECIAL MESSAGE OF THE PRESIDENT, 
 
 Eetuening with his Objections a Bill DoNATrao Public 
 Lands to the Several States and Teeeitoeies which 
 
 MIGHT PeOVIDE COLLEGES FOE THE BENEFIT OF AgEICUL- 
 
 tuee and THE Mechanic Aets. 
 
 This bill donates six million and sixty thousand acres of the minimum 
 value of $.7,575,000. — Keview of the provisions of the bill. — The effect of 
 this bill, if a law, would be to deprive the Treasury for the coming year 
 of an estimated income of $5,000,000, and this at a time the Government 
 can with difficulty raise sufficient revenue. — Bounty land warrants have 
 already reduced the sales of public lands greatly, and the scrip proposed 
 by this bill would dry up this source of revenue. — Such a grant injurious 
 to the relations between the Federal and State Governments. — Seview of 
 their several functions. — Demoralizing effect of such grants. — In a war 
 with a great naval power these lands would furnish the Government a 
 basis for effecting loans by pledge. — Injury to new States by this scrip 
 enabling speculators to acquire large tracts, and compelling settlers to 
 buy from them at increased prices. — The Federal Government has no 
 Constitutional power to follow the grant into the States, and enforce its 
 application to the intended object. — The surplus deposit of 1836. — It 
 would injure existing colleges. — Congress does not possess the Constitu- 
 tional power to appropriate money or lands for educating the people of 
 the States. — Meaning of the words " dispose of " used by the Constitu- 
 tion. — To make them mean " give away, ' 'would be to confer on Congress a 
 vast and irresponsible power. — The meaning as stated by Chief-Justice 
 Taney in the Supreme Court decision (19 Howard, p. 436).— If Congress 
 has no power to appropriate money raised by taxation to such an object, 
 the conversion of this money into laud would not enable Congress to do 
 so indirectly. — This doctrine applied to the lands within the Louisiana 
 and Florida purchases. — Grants which the United States, as a great and 
 prudent landed proprietor, might make to enhance the value of the 
 remainder. 
 
 To the House of Bepresentatvues of the United States : 
 
 I return, with my objections, to the House of Representa- 
 tives, in which it originated, the bill entitled " An act donat- 
 ing public lands to the several States and Territories which 
 
MESSAGES OF PRESIDENT BUOHANAJT. 205 
 
 may provide colleges for the benefit of agriculture and the 
 mechanic arts," presented to me on the 18th instant. 
 
 This bill makes a donation to the several States of twenty- 
 thousand acres of the public lands for each Senator and Rep- 
 resentative in the present Congress, and also an additional 
 donation of twenty thousand acres for each additional Repre- 
 sentative to which any State may be entitled under the census 
 of 1860. 
 
 According to a report from the Interior Department, based 
 upon the present number of Senators and Representatives, 
 the lands given to the States amount to six million and sixty 
 thousand acres, and their value, at the minimum Government 
 price of $1.25 per acre, to $7,575,000. 
 
 The object of this gift, as stated by the bill, is " the en- 
 dowment, support, and maintenance of at least one college [in 
 each State] where the leading object shall be, without exclud- 
 ing other scientific or classical studies, to teach such branches 
 of learning as are related to agriculture and the mechanic 
 arts, as the legislatures of the States may respectively pre- 
 scribe, in order to promote the liberal and practical education 
 of the industrial classes in the several pursuits and professions 
 in life." 
 
 As there does not appear from the bill to be any bene- 
 ficiaries in existence to which this endowment can be applied, 
 each State is required " to provide, within five years at least, 
 not less than one college, or the grant to said State shaL 
 cease." In that event the "said State shall be bound to pay 
 the United States the amount received of any lands previously 
 sold, and that the title to pui'chasers under the State shall be 
 valid." 
 
 The grant in land itself is confined to such States as have 
 public lands within their limits worth $1.25 per acre, in the 
 opinion of the governor. For the remaining States the Secre- 
 tary of the Interior is directed to issue "land scrip to the 
 amount of their distributive shares in acres under the provi- 
 sions of this act, said scrip to be sold by said States, and the 
 proceeds thereof applied to the uses and purposes prescribed 
 in this act, and for no other use or purpose whatsoever." 
 The lands are granted and the scrip is to be issued " in sec- 
 
206 MESSAGES OF PRESIDENT BUCHANAlir. 
 
 tions or subdivisions of sections of not less than one-quarter of 
 a section." 
 
 According to an estimate from the Interior Department, 
 the number of acres which will probably be accepted by 
 States having public lands within their own limits will not 
 exceed five hundred and eighty thousand acres, and it may be 
 much less, leaving a balance of five million four hundred and 
 eighty thousand acres to be provided for by scrip. These 
 grants of land and land scrip to each of the thirty-three States 
 are made upon certain conditions, the principal of which is 
 that if the fund shall be lost or diminished on account of un- 
 fortunate investments, or otherwise, the deficiency shall be 
 replaced and made good by the respective States. 
 
 I shall now proceed to state my objections to this bill. I 
 deem it to be both inexpedient and unconstitutional. 
 
 1. This bill has been passed at a period when we can with 
 great difficulty raise sufficient revenue to sustain the expenses 
 of the Government. Should it become a law the Treasury 
 will be deprived of the whole, or nearly the whole, of our 
 income from the sale of public lands, which, for the next 
 fiscal year, has been estimated at $5,000,000. 
 
 A bare statement of the case will make this evident. The 
 minimum price at which we dispose of our lands is $1.25 per 
 acre. At the present moment, however, the price has been 
 reduced to those who purchase the bounty-land warrants of 
 the old soldiers to eighty-five cents per acre, and of these 
 warrants there are still outstanding and unloeated, as appears 
 by a report (February 12, 1859) from the General Land Office, 
 the amount of eleven million nine hundred and ninety thou- 
 sand three hundred and ninety-one acres. This has already 
 greatly reduced the current sales by the Government and 
 diminished the revenue from this source. If, in addition, 
 thirty-three States shall enter the market with their land 
 scrip, the price must be greatly reduced below even eighty- 
 five cents per acre, as much to the prejudice of the old 
 soldiers who have not already parted with their land warrants 
 as to the Government. It is easy to perceive that with this glut 
 of the market the Government can sell little or no lands at $1.25 
 per acre, when the price of bounty-land warrants and scrip 
 
MESSAGES OF PRESIDENT BtTCHANATiT. 207 
 
 shall be reduced to half this sum. This source of revenue 
 will be almost entirely dried up. Under the bill the States 
 may sell their land scrip at any price it may bring. There is 
 no limitation whatever in this respect. Indeed, they must 
 sell for what the scrip will bring, for without this fund they 
 cannot proceed to establish their colleges within the five years 
 to which they are limited. It is manifest, therefore, that to 
 the extent to which this bill will prevent the sale of public 
 lands at $1.25 per acre, to that amount it will have precisely 
 the same effect upon the Treasury as if we should impose a 
 tax to create a loan to endow these State colleges. 
 
 Surely the present is the most unpropitious moment which 
 could have been selected for the passage of this bill. 
 
 2. Waiving for the present the question of constitutional 
 power, what effect "will this bill have on the relations estab- 
 lished between the Federal and State governments ? The 
 Constitution is a grant to Congress of a few enumerated but 
 most important powers, relating chiefly to war, peace, foreign 
 and domestic commerce, negotiation, and other subjects which 
 can be best or alone exercised beneficially by the common 
 Government. All other powers are reserved to the States 
 and to the people, for the efiScient and harmonious working 
 of both, it is necessary that their several spheres of action 
 should be kept distinct from each other. This alone can pre- 
 vent conflict and mutual injury. Should the time ever arrive 
 when the State governments shall look to the Federal Treasury 
 for the means of supporting themselves and maintaining their 
 systems of education and internal policy, the character of both 
 governments will be greatly deteriorated. The representa- 
 tives of the States and of the people, feeling a more imme- 
 diate interest in obtaining money to lighten the burdens of 
 their constituents than for the promotion of- the more distant 
 objects intrusted to the Federal Government, will naturally 
 • incline to obtain means from the Federal Government for 
 State purposes. If a question shall arise between an appro- 
 priation of land or money, to carry into effect the objects of 
 the Federal Government and those of the States, their feel- 
 ings will be enlisted in favor of the latter. This is human 
 nature ; and hence the necessity of keeping the two govern- 
 
208 MESSAGES OF PRESIDENT BrCHAJiTAIir. 
 
 ments entirely distinct. The preponderance of this home 
 feeling has been manifested by the passage of the present bill. 
 The establishment of these colleges has prevailed over the 
 pressing wants of the common treasury. No nation ever had 
 such an inheritance as we possess in the public lands. These 
 ought to be managed with the utmost care, but, at the same 
 time, with a liberal spirit toward actual settlers. 
 
 In the first year of a war with a powerful naval nation the 
 revenue from customs must, in a great degree, cease. A re- 
 sort to loans will then become necessary, and these can always 
 be obtained, as our fathers obtained them, on advantageous 
 terms, by pledging the public lands as security. In this view 
 of the subject, it would be wiser to grant money to the States 
 for domestic purposes than to squander away the public lands, 
 and transfer them in large bodies into the hands of specu- 
 lators. 
 
 A successful struggle on the part of , the State governments 
 with the General Government for the public lands would de- 
 prive the latter of the means of performing its high duties, 
 especially at critical and dangerous periods. Besides, it would 
 operate with equal detriment to the best interests of the States. 
 It would remove the most wholesome of all restraints on legis- 
 lative bodies — that of being obliged to raise money by taxation 
 from their constituents — and would lead to extravagance, if 
 not to corruption. What is obtained easily and without re- 
 sponsibility will be lavishly expended. 
 
 3. This bill, should it become a law, will operate greatly to 
 the injury of the new States. The progress of settlements 
 and the increase of an industrious population, owning an in- 
 terest in the soil they cultivate, are the causes which will 
 bnild them up into great and flourishing commonwealths. 
 Nothing could be more prejudicial to their interests than for 
 wealthy individuals to acquire, large tracts of the public land 
 and hold them for speculative purposes. The low price to 
 which this land scrip will probably be reduced will tempt 
 speculators to buy it in large amounts, and locate it on the 
 best lands belonging to the Government. The eventual con- 
 sequence must be, that the men who desire to cultivate the soil 
 wiU be compelled to purchase these very lands at rates much 
 
MESSAGES OP PRESIDENT BTJCHANAN'. 209 
 
 higher than the price at which they could be obtained from 
 the Government. 
 
 4c. It is extremely doubtful, to say the least, whether this 
 bill would contribute to the advancement of agriculture and 
 the mechanic arts — objects the dignity and value of whicli 
 cannot be too highly appreciated. 
 
 The Federal Government which makes the donation has 
 confessedly no constitutional power to follow it into the States 
 and enforce the application of the fund to the intended ob- 
 jects. As donors, we shall possess no control over our own 
 gift after it shall have passed from our hands. It is true that 
 the State legislatures are required to stipulate that they will 
 faithfully execute the trust in the manner prescribed by the 
 bill. But should they fail to do this, what would be the con- 
 sequence ? The Federal Government has no power, and 
 ought to have no power, to compel the execution of the trust. 
 It would be in as helpless a condition as if even in this, the 
 time of great need, we were to demand any portion of the 
 many millions of surplus revenue deposited with the States 
 for safe-keeping under the act of 1836. 
 
 5. This bill will injuriously interfere with existing colleges 
 in the different States, in many of which agriculture is taught 
 as a science, and in all of which it ought to be so taught. 
 These institutions of learning have grown up with the growth 
 of the country under the fostering care of the States and the 
 munificence of individuals to meet the advancing demands for 
 education. They have proved great blessings to the people. 
 Many, indeed most of them, are poor, and sustain themselves 
 with difiSculty. What the effect will be on these institutions 
 of creating an indefinite number of rival colleges, sustained 
 by the endowment of the Federal Government, it is not diflS- 
 cult to determine. 
 
 Under this bill it is provided, that scientific and classical 
 studies shall not be excluded from them. Indeed, it would 
 be almost impossible to sustain them without such a provision, 
 for no father would incur the expense of sending a son to one 
 of these institutions for the sole purpose of making him a 
 scientific farmer or mechanic. The bill itself negatives this 
 idea, and declares that their object is "to promote the liberal 
 14 
 
210 MESSAGES OF PKESIDEKT BtTCHAKATiT. 
 
 and practical education of the industrial classes in the several 
 pursuits and professions of life." This certainly ought to be 
 the case. In this view of the subject it would be far better, 
 if such an appropriation of lands must be made to institutions 
 of learning in the several States, to apply it directly to the 
 establishment of professorships of agriculture and the mechanic 
 arts in existing colleges without the intervention of the State 
 legislatures. It would be difficult to foresee how these legis- 
 latures will manage this fund. Each Representative in Con- 
 gress for whose district the proportion of twenty thousand 
 acres has been granted will probably insist that the proceeds 
 shall be expended within its limits. There will undoubtedly 
 be a struggle between different localities in each State concern- 
 ing the division of the gift, which may end in disappointing 
 the hopes of true friends of agriculture. For this state of 
 things we are without remedy. Not so in regard to State 
 colleges. We might grant land to these corporations to estab- 
 lish agricultural and mechanical professorships ; and, should 
 they fail to comply with the conditions on which they ac- 
 cepted the grant, we might enforce specific performance of 
 these before the ordinary courts of justice. 
 
 6. But does Congress possess the power, under the Consti- 
 tution, to make a donation of public lands to the different 
 States of the Union, to provide colleges for the purpose of 
 educating their own people ? 
 
 I presume the general proposition is undeniable, that Con- 
 gress does not possess the power to appropriate money in the 
 Treasury, raised by taxes on the people of the United States, 
 for the purpose of educating the people of the respective 
 States. It will not be pretended that any such power is to 
 be found among the specific powers granted to Congress, nor 
 that " it is necessary and proper for carrying into execution" 
 any one of these powers. • Should Congress exercise such a 
 power, this would be to break down the barriers which have 
 been so carefully constructed in the Constitution to separate 
 Federal from State authority. We should then not only 
 "lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts, and excises," for 
 Federal purposes, but for every State purpose which Congress 
 might deem expedient or useful. This would be an actual 
 
MESSAGES OP PRESIDENT BXJCHANATT. 311 
 
 consolidation of the Federal and State governments, so far as 
 the great taxing and money power is concerned, and constitute 
 a sort of partnership between the two in the Treasury of the 
 United States, equally ruinous to both. 
 
 But it is contended that the public lands are placed upon a 
 different footing from money raised by taxation, and that the 
 proceeds arising from their sale are not subject to the limita- 
 tions qf the Constitution, but may be appropriated or given 
 away by Congress, at its own discretion, to States, corpora- 
 tions, or individuals, for any purpose they may deem ex- 
 pedient. 
 
 The advocates of this bill attempt to sustain their position 
 upon the language of the second clause of the third section of 
 the fourth article of the Constitution, which declares that 
 " the Congress shall have power to dispose of, and make all 
 needful rules and regulations respecting, the territory, or 
 other property belonging to the United States. " They eon- 
 tend that by a fair interpretation of the words " dispose of " 
 in this clause, Congress possesses the power to make this gift 
 of public lands to the States for purposes of education. 
 
 It would require clear and strong evidence to induce the 
 belief that the framers of the Constitution, after having lim- 
 ited the powers of Congress to certain, precise, and specific 
 objects intended by employing the words "dispose of," to 
 give that body unlimited power over the vast public domain. 
 It would be a strange anomaly, indeed, to have created twq 
 funds — the one by taxation, confined to the execution of the 
 enumerated powers delegated to Congress, and the other from 
 the public lands, applicable to all subjects, foreign and do- 
 mestic, which Congress might designate. That this fund should 
 be " disposed of," not to pay the debts of the United States, 
 nor " to raise and support armies," nor " to provide and main- 
 tain a navy," nor to accomplish any one of the other great 
 objects enumerated in the Constitution ; but be diverted from 
 them to pay the debts of the States, to educate their people, 
 and to carry into effect any other measure of their domestic 
 policy. This would be to confer upon Congress a vast and 
 irresponsible authority, utterly at war with the well-known 
 jealousy of Federal power which prevailed at the formation of 
 
Sl2 MESSA&ES OF PRESIDENT BTTCHANAN'. 
 
 the Constitution. The natural intendment would be, that as 
 the Constitution confined Congress to well-defined specific 
 powers, the funds placed at their command, whether in land 
 or money, should be appropriated to the performance of the 
 duties corresponding with these powers. If not, a Govern- 
 ttient has been created with'all its other powers carefully lim- 
 ited, but without any limitation in respect to the public lands. 
 But I cannot so read the words " dispose of " as to make 
 them embrace the idea of " giving away." The true mean- 
 ing of words is always to be ascertained by the subject to 
 which they are applied, and the known general intent of the 
 law-giver. Congress is a trustee under the Constitution for 
 the people of the United States to " dispose of " their public 
 lands, and I think I may venture to assert with confidence, 
 that no case can be found in which a trustee in the position of 
 Congress has been authorized .to " dispose of " property by its 
 owner, where it has been held that these words authorized 
 such trustee to give away the fund intrusted to his care. No 
 trustee, when called upon to account for the disposition of the 
 property placed under his management before any judicial 
 tribunal, would venture to present such a plea in his defence. 
 The true meaning of these words is clearly stated by Chief 
 Justice Taney, in delivering the opinion of the court (19 
 Howard, page 436). He says, in reference to this clause of 
 the Constitution, ' ' it begins its enumeration of powers by 
 that of disposing ; in other words, making sale of the lands, 
 or raising money from them, which, as we have already said, 
 was the main object of the cession (from the States), and 
 Tivhich is the first thing provided for in the article. " It is 
 unnecessary to refer to the history of the times to establish 
 the known fact that this statement of the Chief Justice is per- 
 fectly well founded. That it never was intended by the 
 ffamers of the Constitution that these lands should be given 
 away by Congress is manifest from the concluding portion of 
 the same clause. By it Congress has power not only " to dis- 
 ipose of" the territory, but of the "other property of the 
 United States." In the language of the Chief Justice (page 
 43T) : " And the same power of making needful rules respect- 
 ing the territory is in precisely the same language applied to 
 
MESSAGES OP PEESIDENT BUCHANAN. 213 
 
 the other property of the United States, associating the powej 
 over the territory in this respect with the power over movable 
 or personal property ; that is, the ships, arms, or munitions 
 of war which then belonged in common to the State sover- 
 eignties." 
 
 The question is still clearer in regard to the public lands in 
 the States and Territories within the Louisiana and Florida 
 purchases. These lands were paid for out of the public 
 Treasury, from money raised by taxation, Now, if Congress 
 had no power to appropriate the money with which these 
 lands were purchased, is it not clear that the power over the 
 lands is equally limited ? The mere conversion of this money 
 into land could not confer upon Congress new power over the 
 disposition of land which they had not possessed over money. 
 If it could, then a trustee, by changing the character of the 
 fund intrusted to his care for special objects, from money into 
 land, might give the land away, or devote it to any purpose 
 he thought proper, however foreign from the trust. The in- 
 ference is irresistible, that this land partakes of the very same 
 character with the money paid for it, and can be devoted to 
 no objects difiEerent from those to which the money could have 
 been devoted. If this were not the case, then, by the pur- 
 chase of a new territory from a foreign Government, out 
 of the public Treasury, Congress could enlarge their own 
 powers and appropriate the proceeds of the sales of the land 
 thus purchased, at their own discretion, to other and far differ- 
 ent objects from what they could have applied the purchase 
 money which had -been raised by taxation. 
 
 It has been asserted truly that Congress, in numerous in- 
 stances, have granted lands for the purposes of education. 
 These grants have been chiefly, if not exclusively, made to 
 the new States as they successively entered the Union, and 
 consisted at the first of one section, and afterwards of two 
 sections of the public land in each township for the use of 
 schools, as well as of additional sections for a State university. 
 Such grants are not, in my opinion, a violation of the Con- 
 stitution. The United States is a great landed proprietor, 
 and from the very nature of this relation it is both the right 
 and the duty of Congress, as their trustee, to manage these 
 
214 MESSAGES OP PEESIDENT BTJCHAKAN. 
 
 lands as any other prudent proprietor would manage them for 
 his own best advantage. Now, no consideration could be 
 presented of a stronger character to induce the American 
 people to brave the difficulties and hardships of frontier life, 
 and to settle upon these lands, and to purchase them at a fair 
 price, than to give to them and to their children an assurance 
 of the means of education. If any prudent individual had 
 held these lands he could not have adopted a wiser course to 
 bring them into market and enhance their value than to give 
 a portion of them for purposes of education. As a mere 
 speculation, he would pursue this course. No person will 
 contend that donations of land to all the States of the Union 
 for the erection of colleges within the limits of each can be 
 embraced by this principle. It cannot be pretended that an 
 agricultural college in New York or Yirginia would aid the 
 settlement or facilitate the sale of public lands in Minnesota 
 Or California. This cannot possibly be embraced within the 
 authority which a prudent proprietor of land would exercise 
 over his own possessions. I purposely avoid any attempt to 
 define what portions of land may be granted, and for what 
 purposes, to improve the value and promote the settlement 
 and sale of the remainder without violating the Constitution. 
 In this case I adopt the rule that " sufficient unto the day is 
 the evil thereof." 
 
 JAMES BUCHANAN. 
 February 24, 1859. 
 
SPECIAL MESSAGE OF THE PRESIDENT URGING 
 CONGRESS TO PROVIDE FOR THE PRESER- 
 VATION OF THE PUBLIC CREDIT, 
 IN THE FEW" REMAINING 
 HOURS OF THE 
 SESSION. 
 
 To the Senate cmd Souse of Hepresentatives : 
 
 An iraperatire sense of duty compels me to make an appeal 
 to Congress to preserve the credit of the country. This is the 
 last day of the present Congress, and no provision has yet been 
 made for the payment of appropriations, and to meet the out- 
 standing Treasury notes issued under the authority of law. 
 From the information which has already been communicated 
 to Congress by the Secretary of the Treasury, it is manifest 
 that the ordinary receipts into the Treasury, even under the 
 most favorable circumstances, will scarcely meet the ordinary 
 expenses of the Government during the remainder of the pres- 
 ent fiscal year, ending the 30th of June. At that time nearly 
 eighteen millions of Treasury notes will have become due, 
 and many of these, not yet due, are daily paid for duties at the 
 different ports, and there will be no means in the Treasury to 
 meet them. Thus the country, which is full of resources, 
 will be dishonored before the world, and the American people, 
 who are a debt-paying people, will be disgraced by the omis- 
 siouon our part to do our duty. It is impossible to avoid this 
 catastrophe, unless we make provision this very day to meet 
 the lawful demands on the public Treasury. If this were the 
 first instead of the last session of a Congress, the case would 
 be different. Tou might then be convened by proclamation 
 for to-morrow morning. But there are now thirteen States 
 of the Union entitled to seventy-eight Representatives, in 
 which none have been elected. It will therefore be imprac- 
 
216 MESSAGES OF PRESIDENT BUCHANAH". 
 
 ticable for a large majority of these States to elect their mem- 
 bers before the Treasury shall be compelled to stop payment. 
 
 Under these circumstances, I earnestly recommend to Con- 
 gress to make provision within the few remaining hours of the 
 session for the preservation of the public credit. The urgency 
 of the case not only justifies, but demands that, if necessary, 
 this shall be done by a separate bill. We ought to incur no 
 risk when the good faith of the country is at stake. 
 
 JAMES BUCHANAN. 
 
 Washington, Ma/rcli 3, 1859. 
 
SPECIAL MESSAGE OF THE PEESIDENT. 
 
 Veto of a bill for the relief of Hockaday & Leggit. — ^As a precedent it will 
 in effect annul all restrictions contained in the mail contracts, enabling 
 the Postmaster-General to reduce or curtail postal service according to 
 the public needs. 
 
 To the House of Meprea&ntatimes of the United States : 
 
 I return, with my objections, to the house in which it orig- 
 inated, the bill entitled " An act for the relief of Hockaday 
 & Leggit, " presented to me on the 15th instant. 
 
 This bill appropriates $59,576 " to Hockaday & Leggit, in 
 full payment for damages sustained by them in reduction of 
 pay for carrying the mails on route No. 8911, and that said 
 amount be paid to Wilham Leggit for and on account of 
 Hockaday & Leggit, and for their benefit." 
 
 A bill containing the same language, with the single excep- 
 tion that the sum appropriated therein was $40,000 instead of 
 $59,5Y6, passed both houses of Congress at their last session ; 
 but it was presented to me at so late a period of the session 
 that I could not examine its merits before the time fixed for 
 the adjournment, and it therefore, under the Constitution, 
 failed to become a law. The increase of the sum appropriated, 
 in the present bill, over that in the bill of the last session, 
 being within a fraction of twenty thousand dollars, has in- 
 duced me to examine the question with some attention ; and 
 I find that the bill involves an important principle which, if 
 established by Congress, may take large sums out of the 
 Treasury. 
 
 It appears that, on the 1st day of April, 1858, John M. 
 Hockaday entered into a contract with the Postmaster Gen- 
 eral for transporting the mail on route No. 8911, from Saint 
 Joseph, Missouri, by Fort Kearney, Nebraska Territory, and 
 Fort Leavenworth, to Salt Lake City, for the sum of $190,000 
 
218 MESSAGES OF PRESIDENT BTTCHAWAB". 
 
 per annmn for a weekly service. The service was to com- 
 mence on the 1st day of May, 1858, and to terminate on the 
 30th November, 1860. By this contract the Postmaster-Gen- 
 eral reserved to himself the right " to reduce the service to 
 semi-monthly whenever the necessities of the public and the 
 condition of affairs in the Territory of Utah may not require 
 it more frequently." And again, " that the Postmaster-Gen- 
 eral may discontinue or curtail the service, in whole or in part, 
 in order to place on the route a greater degree of service, or 
 whenever the public interests require such discontinuance for 
 any other cause, he allowing one month's extra pay on the 
 amount of service dispensed with." 
 
 On the 11th April, 1859, the Postmaster-General curtailed 
 the service, which he had a clear right to do under the con- 
 tract, to semi-monthly, with an annual deduction of $65,000, 
 leaving the compensation $125,000 for twenty-four trips per 
 year, instead of $190,000 for fifty-two trips. This curtail- 
 ment was not to take effect tiU the 1st of July, 1859. 
 
 At the time the contract was made, it was expected that 
 the Army in Utah might be engaged in active operations ; 
 and hence the necessity of frequent communications between 
 the "War Department and that Territory. The reservation of 
 the power to curtail the service to semi-monthly trips itself 
 proves that the parties had in view the contingency of such 
 curtailment ." whenever the necessities of the public and the 
 condition of affairs in the Territory of Utah may not require 
 it more frequently." 
 
 Before the Postmaster- General ordered this curtailment, he 
 had an interview with the Secretaiy of War upon the subject, 
 in the course of which the Secretary agreed that a weekly mail 
 to Saint Joseph and Salt Lake City was no longer needed for 
 the purposes of the Government. This, evidently, because 
 the trouble in Utah had ended. 
 
 Mr. Hockaday faithfully complied with his contract, and 
 the full compensation was paid, at the rate of $190,000 per 
 annum, up to the 1st July, 1859, and " one month's extra 
 pay on the amount of service dispensed with," according to 
 the contract. 
 
 Previous to that date, as has been already stated, on the 
 
MESSAGES OF PRESIDENT BUCHANAM-. 319 
 
 14rth of April, 1859, the Postmaster-General curtailed the ser- 
 vice to twice per month ; and on the 11th May, 1859, Messrs. 
 Hockaday & Co. assigned the contract to Jones, Russell & Co. 
 for a bonus of $50,000. Their property connected with the 
 route was to be appraised, which was effected, and they re- 
 ceived on this account about ninety-four thousand dollars — 
 making the whole amount about one hundred and forty-four 
 thousand dollars. 
 
 There is no doubt that the contractors have sustained con- 
 siderable loss in the whole transaction. The amount I shall 
 not pretend to decide, whether $40,000 or $59,576, or any 
 other sum. 
 
 It wiU be for Congress to consider whether the precedent 
 established by this bill will not, in effect, annul aU restrictions 
 contained in the mail contracts enabling the Postmaster- Gen- 
 eral to reduce or curtail the postal service according to the 
 public exigencies as they may arise. I have no other solici- 
 tude upon the subject. I am informed that there are many 
 cases in the Post-Office Department depending upon the same 
 principle. 
 
 JAMES BUCHANAN. 
 
 Janua/ry 25, 1860. 
 
SPECIAL MESSAGE— THE SAINT CLAIR FLATS 
 
 BILL. 
 
 To require the President to approve a bill, when it is presented to him on 
 the last day of the Session, and it is impossible for him to examine into 
 its merits, would be to deprive him of his Oonstitntional discretion, and 
 convert him into a mere registrar of the decrees of Congress. — The object 
 of this bill, appropriating $55,000, had been already substantially accom- 
 plished before its passage by former appropriations. — No present neces- 
 sity for increasing the depth of this channel. — The Constitutional ques- 
 tion. — The power granted "to regulate commerce, etc.," does not em. 
 brace the power to create or construct. — Views of Chief -Justice Marshall 
 and President Madison stated.- — A proposal in the Constitutional Conven. 
 tion to give Congress power ' ' to provide for the cutting of canals when 
 deemed necessary, " rejected by the strong majority of eight States to three. 
 — Dangers of latitudinarian construction of the carefully limited powers 
 of the General Government. — The corrupting and seducing money influ- 
 ence exerted by the Federal Government in carrying on internal improve- 
 ments, and its danger to the States. — Inequity which such grants must 
 work among the States resulting in strife, jealousy, and dissensions. — 
 For more than thirty years after the adoption of the Constitution the 
 power to appropriate money for internal improvements neither claimed 
 nor exercised by Congress. — Vetoes of General Jackson. — Vast field for 
 corruption in Congressional "log-rolling." — The States may impose a 
 tonnage tax for improvement of rivers and harbors by consent of Con- 
 gress. — Precedents, and this a clear Constitutional method. — Light-houses 
 considered. — Congress may undoubtedly make improvements necessary 
 for defence against invasion by a foreign enemy. 
 
 To the Senate of the United States : 
 
 On the last day of the last Congress, a bill, which had 
 passed both houses, entitled " An act making an appropria- 
 tion for deepening the channel over the Saint Clair flats, in 
 the State of Michigan," was presented to me for approval. 
 
 It is scarcely necessary to observe, that during the closing 
 hours of a session it is impossible for the President, on the 
 instant, to examine into the. merits or demerits of an impor- 
 tant bill, involving, as this does, grave questions, both of ex- 
 
MESSAGES OF PEESIDENT BTJCHABTAM-. 231 
 
 pediency and of constitutional power, with that care and delib- 
 eration demanded by his public duty, as well as by the best 
 interests of the country. For this reason the Constitution 
 has, in all cases, allowed him ten days for deliberation ; be- 
 cause, if a bill be presented to him within the last ten days of 
 the session, he is not required to return it, either with an 
 approval or a veto, but may retain it, " in which case it shall 
 not be a law." Whilst an occasion can rarely occur when so 
 long a period as ten days would be required to enable the 
 President to decide whether he should approve or veto a bill, 
 yet, to deny him even two days on important questions before 
 the adjournment of each session for this purpose, as recom- 
 mended by a former annual message, would not only be un- 
 just to him, but a violation of the spirit ©f the Constitution. 
 To require him to approve a bill when it is impossible he 
 could examine into its merits, would be to deprive him of the 
 exercise of his constitutional discretion, and convert him into 
 a mere registrar of the decrees of Congress. 1 therefore deem 
 it a sufficient reason for having retained the bill in question 
 that it was not presented to me until the last day of the 
 session. 
 
 Since the termination of the last Congress, I have made a 
 thorough examination of the questions involved in the bill to 
 deepen the channel over the Saint Clair flats, and now proceed 
 to express the. opinions which I have formed upon the sub- 
 ject : 
 
 And 1. Even if this had been a mere question of expedi- 
 ency, it was, to say the least, extremely doubtful whether the 
 bill ought to have been approved ; because the object which 
 Congress intended to accomplish by the appropriation which 
 it contains of $55,000 had been already substantially accom- 
 plished. I do not mean to allege that the work had been 
 completed in the best manner, but it was suflBcient for all 
 practical purposes. 
 
 The Saint Clair flats are formed by the Saint Clair Eiver, 
 which empties into the lake of that name by several mouths, 
 and which forms a bar or shoal on which, in its natural state, 
 there is not more than six or seven feet of water. This shoal 
 is interposed between the mouth of the river and the deep 
 
222 MESSAGES OF PRESIDENT BUCHAlirAN, 
 
 water of the lake, a distance of six thousand feet, and in its 
 natural condition was a serious obstruction to navigation. 
 The obvious remedy for this was to deepen a channel through 
 these flats by dredging, so as to enable vessels which could 
 navigate the lake and the river to pass through this interme- 
 diate channel. This object had been already accomplished 
 by previous appropriations, but without my knowledge, when 
 the bill was presented to me. Captain Whipple, of the Topo- 
 graphical Engineers, to whom the expenditure of the last 
 appropriation of $4:5,000 for this purpose in 1856 was in- 
 trusted, in his annual report, of the 1st October, 1858, stated 
 that the dredging was discontinued on the 26th August, 1858, 
 when a channel had been cut averaging two hundred and 
 seventy-five feet wide, with a depth varying from twelve to 
 fifteen atid a half feet. He says, " so long as the lake retains 
 its present height we may assume that the depth in the chan- 
 nel will be at least thirteen and a half feet." "With this result, 
 highly creditable to Captain Whipple, he observes, that if he 
 has been correctly informed, "all the lake navigators are 
 gratified." Besides, afterwards, and during the autumn of 
 1858, the Canadian Government expended $20,000 in deepen- 
 ing and widening the inner end of the channel excavated by 
 the United States. No complaint had been made, previous 
 to the passage of the bill, of obstructions to the commerce 
 and navigation across the Saint Clair flats. What, then, was 
 the object of the appropriation proposed by the bill ? 
 
 It appears that the surface of ^the water in Lake Saint Clair 
 has been gradually rising, until, in 1858, it had attained an 
 elevation of four feet above what had been its level in 1841. 
 It is inferred, whether correctly or not it is not for me to say, 
 that the surface of the water may gradually sink to the level 
 of 1841 ; and, in that event, the water which was, when the 
 bill passed, thirteen and a half feet deep in the channel, might 
 sink to nine and a half feet, and thus obstruct the passage. 
 
 To provide for this contingency, Captain Whipple sug- 
 gested " the propriety of placing the subject before Congress, 
 with an estimate for excavating a cut, through the centre of 
 the new channel, one hundred and fifty feet in width and four 
 and a half feet deep, so as to obtain from the river to the lake 
 
MESSAGES OF PRESIDENT BUCHANAN. 223 
 
 a depth of eighteen feet during seasons of extreme high 
 water, and twelve feet at periods of extreme low water. It 
 was not alleged that any present necessity existed for this 
 narrower cut in the bottom of the present channel, but it is 
 inferred that for the reason stated it may hereafter becoine 
 necessary. Captain Whipple's estimate amounted to $50,000, 
 but Congress, by the bill, have granted $55,000. Now, if no 
 other objection existed against this measure, it would not 
 seem necessary that the appropriation should have been made 
 for the purpose indicated. The channel was sufficiently deep 
 for all practical purposes ; but from natural causes constantly 
 .operating in the lake, which I need not explain, this channel 
 is peculiarly liable to fill up. What is really required is, that 
 it should at intervals be dredged out so as to preserve its pres- 
 ent depth ; and surely the comparatively trifling expense 
 necessary for this purpose ought not to be borne by the 
 United States. After an improvement has been once con- 
 structed by appropriations from the Treasury it is not too 
 much to expect that it should be kept in repair by that por- 
 tion of the commercial and navigating interests which enjoys 
 its peculiar benefits. 
 
 The last report made by Captain Whipple, dated on the 
 13th September last, has been submitted to Congress by the 
 Secretary of War, and to this I would refer for information, 
 which is, upon the whole, favorable in relation to the present 
 condition of the channel through the Saint Clair flats. 
 
 2. But the far more important question is, does Congress 
 possess the power under the Constitution to deepen the chan- 
 nels of rivers and to create and improve harbors for purposes 
 of commerce ? 
 
 The question of the constitutional power of Congress to 
 construct internal improvements within the States has been so 
 frequently and so elaborately discussed that it would seem 
 useless on this occasion to repeat or to refute at length argu- 
 ments which have been so often advanced. For my own 
 opinions on this subject 1 might refer to President Polk's 
 carefully considered message of the 15th December, 18i1, 
 addressed to the House of Eepresentatives whilst I was a 
 member of his Cabinet. 
 
224 MESSA&ES OP PRESIDENT BTJOHANAlir. 
 
 The power to pass the bill in question, if it exist at all, 
 must be derived from the power " to regulate commerce with 
 foreign nations and among the several States and with the 
 Indian tribes." 
 
 The power " to regulate." Does this ever embrace the 
 power to create or to construct ? To say that it does is to 
 confound the meaning of words of well-known signification. 
 The word ' ' regulate" has several shades of meaning, accord- 
 ing to its application to different subjects, but never does it 
 approach the signification of creative power. The regulating 
 power necessarily presupposes the existence of something to 
 be regulated. As applied to commerce, it signifies, according 
 to the lexicographers, " to subject to rules or restrictions, as 
 to regulate trade," &c. The Constitution itself is its own 
 best expounder of the meaning of words employed by its 
 framers. Thus, Congress have the power " to coin money." 
 This is the creative power. Then immediately follows the 
 power " to regulate the value thereof " — that is, of the coined 
 money thus brought into existence. The words " regulate," 
 "regulation," and "regulations" occur several times in the 
 Constitution, but always with this subordinate meaning. 
 Thus, after the creative power " to raise and support armies" 
 and " to provide and maintain the navy" had been conferred 
 upon Congress, then follows the power ' ' to make rules for 
 the government and regulation of the land and naval forces" 
 thus called into being. So the Constitution, acting upon the 
 self-evident fact that " commerce with foreign nations and 
 among the several States and with the Indian tribes" already 
 existed, conferred upon Congress the power " to regulate" 
 this commerce. Thus, according to Chief Justice Marshall, 
 the power to regulate commerce " is the power tO' prescribe 
 the rule by which commerce is to be governed." And Mr. 
 Madison, in his veto message of the 3d March, 1817, declares 
 that " the power to regulate commerce among the several 
 States cannot include a power to construct roads and canals, 
 and to improve the navigation of water-courses, in order to 
 facilitate, promote, and secure such commerce without a lati- 
 tude of construction departing from the ordinary import of 
 the terms, strengthened by the known inconvenience which 
 
MESSAGES OP PEESIDENT BUCHANAN. 225 
 
 doubtless led to the grant of this remedial power of Congress." 
 We know from the history of the Constitution what these in- 
 conveniences were. Different States admitted foreign imports 
 at different rates of duty. Those which had prescribed a 
 higher rate of duty for the purpose of increasing their revenue 
 were defeated in this object ^by the legislation of neighboring 
 States admitting the same foreign articles at lower rates. 
 Hence, jealousies and dangerous rivalries had sprung up be- 
 tween the different States. It was chiefly in the desire to 
 provide a remedy for these evils that the Federal Convention 
 originated. The Constitution, for this purpose, conferred 
 upon Congress the power to regulate commerce in such a 
 manner that duties should be uniform in all the States com- 
 posing the Confederacy ; and, moreover, expressly provided 
 that " no preference shall be given by any regulation of com- 
 merce or revenue to the ports of one State over those of an- 
 other." If the construction of a harbor or deepening the 
 channel of a river be a regulation of commerce, as the advo- 
 cates of this power contend, this would give the ports of the 
 State within which these improvements were made a prefer- 
 ence over the ports of other States, and thus be a violation of 
 the Constitution. 
 
 It is not too much to assert that no human being in exist- 
 ence, when the Constitution was framed, entertained the idea 
 or the apprehension that, by conferring upon Congress the 
 power to regulate commerce, its fraraers intended to embrace 
 the power of constructing roads and canals, and of creating 
 and improving harbors, and deepening the channels of rivers 
 throughout our extensive Confederacy. Indeed, one impor- 
 tant branch of this very power had been denied to Congress in 
 express terms by the Convention. A proposition was made 
 in the Convention to confer on Congress the power " to pro- 
 vide for the cutting of canals when deemed necessary. " This 
 was rejected by the strong majority of eight States to three. 
 Among the reasons given for this rejection was, that " the 
 expense in such cases will fall on the United States, and the 
 benefits accrue to the places where the canals may be cut." 
 
 To say that the simple power of regulating commerce em- 
 braces within itself that of constructing harbors, of deepening 
 15 
 
226 MESSAGES OE PEESIDENT BTJCHAKAIir. 
 
 the channels of rivers, in short, of creating a system of in- 
 ternal improvements for the purpose of facilitating the oper- 
 ations of commerce, would be to adopt a latitude of construc- 
 tion under which all political power might be usurped by the 
 Federal Government. Such a construction would be in con- 
 flict with the well-known jealousy against Federal power 
 which actuated the framers of the Constitution. It is certain 
 that the power in question is not enumerated among the ex- 
 press grants to Congress contained in the instrument. In con- 
 struing the Constitution, we must then next inquire, is its ex- 
 ercise " necessary and proper ?" — not whether it may be con- 
 venient or useful " for carrying into execution" the power to 
 regulate commerce among the States. But the jealous patriots 
 of that day were not content even with this strict rule of con- 
 struction. Apprehending that a dangerous latitude of inter- 
 pretation might be applied in future times to the enumerated 
 grants of power, they procured an amendment to be made to 
 the original instrument, which declares that " the powers not 
 delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor pro- 
 hibited by ib to the States, are reserved to the States respec- 
 tively, or to the people." 
 
 Tlie distinctive spirit and character which pervades the 
 Constitution is, that the powers of the General Government 
 are confined chiefly to our intercourse with foreign nations, to 
 questions of peace and war, and to subjects of common inter- 
 est to all the States, carefully leaving the internal and domestic 
 concerns of each individual State to be controlled by its own 
 people and legislature. Without specifically enumerating 
 these powers, it must be admitted that this well-marked dis- 
 tinction runs through the whole instrument. In nothing does 
 the wisdom of its framers appear more conspicuously than in 
 the care with which they sought to avoid the danger to our 
 institutions which must necessarily result from the interfer- 
 ence of the Federal Government with the local concerns of 
 the States. The jarring and collision which would occur 
 from the exercise by two separate governments of jurisdiction 
 over the same subjects could not fail to produce disastrous 
 consequences. Besides, the corrupting and seducing money 
 influence exerted by the General Government in carrying into 
 
MESSAGES OF PRESIDENT BUCHAIirAH". 227 
 
 effect a system of internal improvements might be perverted 
 to increase and consolidate its own power to the detriment of 
 the rights of the States. 
 
 If the power existed in Congress to pass the present bill, 
 then taxes must be imposed, and money borrowed to an un- 
 limited extent to carry such a system into execution. Equal- 
 ity among the States is equity. This equality is the very 
 essence of the Constitution. !N^o preference can ji^stly be 
 given to one of the sovereign States over another. Accord- 
 ing to the best estimate, our immense coast on the Atlantic, 
 the Gulf of Mexico, the Paciiio, and the lakes, embraces more 
 than 9,500 miles, and, measuring by its indentations and to 
 the head of tide-water on the rivers, the distance is believed 
 to be more than 33,000 miles. This, everywhere throughout 
 its vast extent, contains numerous rivers and harbors ; all of 
 which may become the objects of congressional appropriation. 
 You cannot deny to one State what you have granted to an- 
 other. Such injustice would produce strife, jealousy, and 
 alarming dissensions among them. Even within the same 
 State improvements may be made in one river or harbor whicli 
 would essentially injure the commerce and industry of another 
 river or harbor. The truth is that most of these improve- 
 ments are in a great degree local in their character, and for 
 the especial benefit of corporations or individuals in their 
 vicinity, though they may have an odor of nationality, on the 
 principle that whatever benefits any part indirectly benefits 
 the whole. 
 
 From our past history, we may have a small foretaste of the 
 cost of reviving the system of internal improvements. 
 
 For more than thirty years after the adoption of the Fed- 
 eral Constitution the power to appropriate money for the 
 construction of internal improvements was neither claimed 
 nor exercised by Congress. After its commencements, in 
 1820 and 1821, by very small and modest appropriations for 
 surveys, it advanced with such rapid strides that, within the 
 brief period of ten years, according to President Polk, " the 
 sum asked for from the Treasury, for various projects, 
 amounted to more than $200,000,000." The vetoes of Gen- 
 eral Jackson and several of his successors have impeded the 
 
228 MESSAGES OP PRESIDENT BUCHANAN. 
 
 progress of the system and limited its extent, but have not 
 altogether destroyed it. The time has now arrived for a final 
 decision of the question. If the power exists, a general sys- 
 tem should be adopted which would make some approach to 
 justice among all the States, if this be possible. 
 
 What a vast field would the exercise of this power open for 
 jobbing and corruption ! Members of Congress, from an 
 honest desire to promote the interests of their constituents, 
 would struggle for improvements within their own districts, 
 and the body itself must necessarily be converted into an arena 
 where each would endeavor to obtain from the Treasury as 
 much money as possible for his own locality. The temptation 
 would prove irresistible. A system of " log-rolling" (1 know 
 no word so expressive) would be inaugurated, under which 
 the Treasury would be exhausted, and the Federal Govern- 
 ment be deprived of the means necessary to execute those 
 great powers clearly confided to it by the Constitution for the 
 purpose of promoting the interests and vindicating the honor 
 of the country. 
 
 Whilst the power over internal improvements, it is believed, 
 was " reserved to the States, respectively," the framers of the 
 Constitution were not unmindful that it might be proper for 
 the State legislatures to possess the power to impose tonnage 
 duties for the improvement of rivers and harbors within their 
 limits. The self-interest of the different localities would pre- 
 vent this from being done to such an extent as to injure their 
 trade. The Constitution, therefore, which had, in a previous 
 clause, provided that all duties should be uniform throughout 
 the United States, subsequently modified the general rule so 
 far as to declare that " no State shall, without the consent of 
 Congress, levy any duty of tonnage." The inference is, 
 therefore, irresistible that, with the consent of Congress, such 
 a duty may be imposed by the States. Thus, those directly 
 interested in the improvement may lay a tonnage duty for its 
 construction, without imposing a tax for this purpose upon all 
 the people of the United States. 
 
 To this provision several of the States resorted until the 
 period when they began to look to the Federal Treasury instead 
 of depending upon their own exertions. Massachusetts, 
 
MESSAGES OE PEESIDENT BTJCHANAN. 229 
 
 Ehode Island, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, North 
 Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia, with the consent of 
 Congress, imposed small tonnage duties on vessels, at diflferent 
 periods, for clearing and deepening the channels of rivers and, 
 improving harbors where such vessels entered. The last of 
 these legislative acts believed to exist is that, of Yirginia, 
 passed on the 22d February, 1826, levying a tonnage duty on 
 vessels for " improving the navigation of James River from 
 Warwick to Eockett's Landing." The latest act of Congress 
 on this subject was passed on the 24th of February, 1843, 
 giving its consent to the law of the legislature of Maryland 
 laying a tonnage duty on vessels for the improvement of the 
 harbor of Baltimore, and continuing it in force until 1st June, 
 1850. 
 
 Thus a clear constitiitional mode exists by which the legis- 
 lature of Michigan may, in its discretion, raise money to pre- 
 serve the channel of the Saint Clair Eiver at its present depth, 
 or to render it deeper. A very insignificant tonnage duty on 
 American vessels using this channel would be sufficient for 
 the purpose. And as the Saint Clair River is the boundary 
 line between the United States and the province of Upper 
 Canada, the provincial British authorities would doubtless be 
 willing to impose a similar tonnage duty on British vessels to 
 aid in the accomplishment of this object. Indeed, the legis- 
 lature of that province have already evinced their interest on 
 this subject by having but recently expended $20,000 on the 
 improvement of the Saint Clair flats. Even if the Constitu- 
 tion of the United States had conferred upon Congress the 
 power of deepening the channel of the Saint Clair River, it 
 would be unjust to impose upon the people of the United 
 States the entire burden, which ought to be borne jointly by 
 the two parties having an equal interest in the work. "When- 
 ever the State of Michigan shall cease to depend on the 
 Treasury of the United States, 1 doubt not that she, in con- 
 junction with Upper Canada, will provide the necessary means 
 for keeping this work in repair in the least expensive and 
 most effective manner, and without being burdensome to any 
 interest. 
 
 It has been contended, in favor of the existence of the 
 
230 MESSAGES OF PEESIDEBTT BUCHANAN. 
 
 power to construct internal improvements, that Congress have, 
 from the beginning, made appropriations for light-houses, and 
 that, upon the same principle of construction, they possess 
 the power of improving harbors and deepening the channels 
 of rivers. As an original question, the authority to erect 
 light-houses under the commercial power might be considered 
 doubtful ; but even were it more doubtful than it is, I should 
 regard it as settled after an uninterrupted exercise of the 
 power for seventy years. Such a long and uniform practical 
 construction of the Constitution is entitled to the highest re- 
 spect, and has finally determined the question. 
 
 Among the first acts which passed Congress after the Fed- 
 eral Government went into effect, was that of August 7, 1789, 
 providing " for the establishment and support of light-houses, 
 beacons, buoys, and public piers." Under this act, the ex- 
 penses for the maintenance of all such erections then in exist- 
 ence were to be paid by the Federal Government ; and pro- 
 vision was made for the cession of jurisdiction over them by 
 the respective States to the United States. In every case 
 since, before a light-house could be built, a previous cession 
 of jurisdiction has been required. This practice doubtless 
 originated from that clause of the Constitution authorizing 
 Congress " to exercise exclusive legislation" * * * "over 
 all places purchased by the consent of the legislature of the 
 State in which the same shall be, for the erection of forts, 
 magazines, arsenals, dock-yards, and otherneedful huildmgs." 
 Among these " needful buildings," light-houses must in fact 
 have been included. 
 
 The bare statement of these facts is sufficient to prove that 
 no analogy exists between the power to erect a light-house as 
 a " needful building" and that to deepen the channel of a 
 river. 
 
 In what 1 have said I do not mean to intimate a doubt of 
 the power of Congress to construct such internal improve- 
 ments as may be essentially necessary for defence and protec- 
 tion against the invasion of a foreign enemy. The power to 
 declare war and the obligation to protect each State against 
 invasion clearly cover such cases. It will scarcely be claimed, 
 however, that the improvement of the Saint Clair River is 
 
MESSAGES OF PRESIDENT BTJCHAWAN. 231 
 
 within this category. This river is the boundary line between 
 the United States and the British province of Upper Canada. 
 Any improvement of its navigation, therefore, which we could 
 make for purposes of war would equally inure to the benefit 
 of Great Britain, the only enemy which could possibly con- 
 front us in that quarter. War would be a sad calamity for 
 both nations ; but should it ever unhappily exist, the battles 
 will not be fought on the Saint Clair Kiver or on the lakes 
 with which it communicates. 
 
 JAMES BUCHlNAN. 
 Februa/ry\, 1860. 
 
SPECIAL MESSAGE ON THE IMPROVEMENT OF 
 THE MISSISSIPPI EIVEE. 
 
 To the Senate of the United States : 
 
 On the last day of the last session of Congress, a resolution, 
 which had passed both houses, " in relation to removal of ob- 
 structions to navigation in the mouth of the Mississippi River, " 
 was presented to me for approval. I have retained this reso- 
 lution, because it was presented to me at a period when it was 
 impossible to give the subject that examination to which it 
 appeared to be entitled. I need not repeat the views on this 
 point presented in the introductory portion of my message to 
 the Senate of the 2d instant. 
 
 In addition, I would merely observe that, although at diflEer- 
 ent periods, sums, amounting in the aggregate to six hundred 
 and ninety thousand dollars, have been appropriated by Con- 
 gress for the purpose of removing the bar and obstructions at 
 the mouth of the Mississippi, yet it is now acknowledged that 
 this money has been expended with but little, if any, practi- 
 cal benefit to its navigation, 
 
 JAMES BUCHANAN. 
 
 Februa/ry 6, 1860. 
 
SPECIAL MESSAGE. 
 
 The Peesident's Solemn Peotest Against the Attack 
 UPON THE Independence of the Executive as a co-oe- 
 dinate beanch of the Fedeeal Goveenment by the 
 House of Eepeesentatites, in the so-oaxled "Ootode" 
 Investigation Eesolutions. 
 
 The House of Representatives possess no power under the Constitution 
 over the accusatory portion of the resolution, except as an impeaching 
 body. — Over the remedial clauses their authority as a legislative body is 
 admitted. — Except as an impeaching body, the House of Eepresentatives 
 has no power, or jurisdiction, or supremacy whatever over the President. 
 — As a co-ordinate branch of the Government he is their equal, and inde- 
 pendent of them. — He will defend his rights and prerogatives against any 
 unconstitutional attack. — Trial of an impeachment, and the precautions 
 thrown around it by the Constitution. — The precedent established in 
 Judge Peck's case will stand the test of time. — Methods and procedure 
 in that case. — John Covode, the accuser, made one of the judges under 
 this resolution of the House, in violation of precedent and the principles 
 of universal justice. — A revolting spectacle. — The charge to be so investi- 
 gated, as vague and general as the English language permits. — Since the 
 Star Chamber and general warrants, no such proceeding permitted in 
 England.- — The humblest citizen, under the Constitution, has a right to 
 be informed in the beginning, of the nature of the accusation, to enable 
 him to prepare his defence. — Is the President alone to be deprived of this 
 right ? — Danger of the aggrandizement of the legislative branch at the 
 expense of the executive and judicial. — This protest made by the Presi. 
 dent for no reasons personal to himself. — Nothing but the basest perjury 
 can sully his good name. — Formal protest. 
 
 To the House of Rejpresentatwes of the United States : 
 
 After a day which has afforded me ample time for reflec- 
 tion, and after much and careful deliberation, I find myself 
 constrained by an imperious sense of duty, as a co-ordinate 
 branch of the Federal Government, to protest against the first 
 two clauses of the first resolution adopted by the House of 
 Representq,tives on the 5th instant, and published in the Con- 
 
234 MESSAGES OP PRESIDENT BUCHANAN. 
 
 gressional Globe on the succeeding day. These clauses are in 
 the following words : "EesoVved, That a committee of five 
 members be appointed by the Speaker, for the purpose, 1st, 
 of investigating whether the President of the United States, 
 or any other officer of the Government, has, by money, 
 patronage, or other improper means, sought to influence the 
 action of Congress, or any committee thereof, for or against 
 the passage of any law appertaining to the rights of any State 
 or Territory ; and 2d, ' also to inquire into and investigate 
 whether any officer or officers of the Government have, by 
 combination or otherwise, prevented or defeated, or attempted 
 to prevent or defeat, the execution of any law or laws now 
 upon the statute-book ; and whether the President has failed 
 or refused to compel the execution of any law thereof.' " 
 
 I confine myself exclusively to these two branches of the 
 resolution, because the portions of it which follow relate to 
 alleged abuses in post-offices, navy-yards, public buildings, and 
 other public works of the United States. In such cases in- 
 quiries are highly proper in themselves, and belong equally to 
 the Senate and the House as incident to their legislative 
 duties, and being necessary to enable them to discover and to 
 provide the appropriate legislative remedies for any abuses 
 which may be ascertained. Although the terms of the latter 
 portion of the resolution are extremely vague and general, yet 
 my sole purpose in adverting to them at present is to mark 
 the broad line of distinction between the accusatory and the 
 remedial clauses of this resolution. The House of Represent- 
 atives possess no power under the Constitution over the first 
 or accusatory portion of the resolution, except as an impeach- 
 ing body ; whilst over the last, in common with the Senate, 
 their authority as a legislative body is fully and cheerfully 
 admitted. 
 
 It is solely in reference to the first or impeaching power 
 that I propose to make a few observations. Except in this 
 single case, the Constitution has invested the House of Repre- 
 sentatives with no power, no jurisdiction, no supremacy what- 
 ever over the President. In all other respects he is quite as 
 independent of them as they are of him. As a co-ordinate 
 branch of the Government he is their equal. Indeed, he is 
 
MESSAGES OF PRESIDEKT BUCHAlirAN-. 235 
 
 the only direct representative on earth of the people of all and 
 each of the sovereign States. To them, and to them alone, 
 is he responsible whilst acting within the sphere of his consti- 
 tutional duty, and not in any manner to the House of Repre- 
 sentatives. The people have thought proper to invest him 
 with the most honorable, responsible, and dignified office in 
 the world ; and the individual, however unworthy, now hold- 
 ing this exalted position, will take care, so far as in him lies, 
 that their rights and prerogatives shall never be violated in his 
 person, but shall pass to his successors unimpaired by the 
 adoption of a dangerous precedent. He will defend them to 
 the last extremity against any unconstitutional attempt, come 
 from what quarter it may, to abridge the constitutional rights 
 of the Executive, and render him subservient to any human 
 power except themselves. 
 
 The people have not confined the President to the exercise 
 of executive duties. They have also conferred upon him a 
 large measure of legislative discretion. JSfo bill can become a 
 law without his approval, as representing the people of the 
 United States, unless it shall pass after his veto by a majority 
 of two-thirds of both Houses. In his legislative capacity, he 
 might, in common with the Senate and the House, institute 
 an inquiry to ascertain any facts which ought to influence his 
 judgment in approving or vetoing any bill. 
 
 This participation in the performance of legislative duties 
 between the co-ordinate branches of the Government ought 
 to inspire the conduct of all of them, in their relations towards 
 each other, with mutual forbearance and respect. At least 
 each has a right to demand justice from the other. The cause 
 of complaint is, that the constitutional rights and immunities 
 of the Executive have been violated in the person of the 
 President. 
 
 The trial of an impeachment of the President before the 
 Senate on charges preferred and prosecuted against him by 
 the House of Eepresentatives would be an imposing spectacle 
 for the world. In the result, not only his removal from the 
 presidential office would be involved, but, what is of infinitely 
 greater importance to himself, his character, both in the eyes 
 of the present and of future generations, might possibly be 
 
236 MESSAGES OF PEE8IDENT BUCHATSTAN. 
 
 tarnished. The disgrace cast upon him would in some degree 
 be reflected upon the character of the American people who 
 elected him. Hence the precautions adopted by the Constitu- 
 tion to secure a fair trial. On such a trial it declares that 
 "the Chief Justice shall preside." This was doubtless 
 because the framers of the Constitution believed it to be pos- 
 sible that the Yice-President might be biased by the fact that, 
 " in case of the removal of the President from office," " the 
 same shall devolve on the Vice-President." 
 
 The preliminary proceedings in the House in the case of 
 charges which may involve impeachment have been well and 
 wisely settled by long practice upon principles of equal justice 
 both to the accused and to the people. The precedent estab- 
 lished in the case of Judge Peck, of Missouri, in 1831, after 
 a careful review of all former precedents, will, I venture to 
 predict, stand the test of time. 
 
 In that case, Luke Edward Lawless, the accuser, presented 
 a petition to the House, in which he set forth minutely and- 
 specifically his causes of complaint. He prayed " that the 
 conduct and proceeding in this behalf of said Judge Peck may 
 be inquired into by your honorable body, and such decision 
 made thereon as to your wisdom and justice shall seem prop- 
 er." This petition was referred to the Judiciary Commit- 
 tee ; such has ever been deemed the appropriate committee to 
 make similar investigations. It is a standing committee sup- 
 posed to be appointed without reference to any special case, 
 and at all times is presumed to be composed of the most emi- 
 nent lawyers in the House from different portions of the Union, 
 whose acquaintance with judicial proceedings and whose habits 
 of investigation qualify them peculiarly for the task. No 
 tribunal, from their position and character, could in the 
 nature of things be more impartial. In the case of Judge 
 Peck the witnesses were selected by the committee itself, with 
 a view to ascertain the truth of the charge. They were cross- 
 examined by him, and everything was conducted in such man- 
 ner as to afford him no reasonable cause of complaint. In 
 view of this precedent, and, what is of far greater impor- 
 tance, in view of the Constitution and the principles of eternal 
 justice, in what manner has the President of the United States 
 
MESSAGES OF PEESIDENT BTJCHANAN. 237 
 
 been treated by the House of Eepresentatives ? Mr. John 
 Covode, a Representative from Pennsylvania, is the accuser 
 of the President. Instead of following the wise precedents 
 of former times, and especially that in the case of Judge Peck, 
 and referring the accusation to the Committee on the Judiciary, 
 the House have made my accuser one of my judges. 
 
 To make the accuser the judge is a violation of the prin- 
 ciples of universal justice, and is condemned by the practice 
 of all civilized nations. Every freeman must revolt at such a 
 spectacle. I am to appear before Mr. Oovode, either person- 
 ally or by a substitute, to cross-examine the witnesses which 
 he may produce before himself to sustain his own accusations 
 against me ; and perhaps even this poor boon may be denied 
 to the President. 
 
 And what is the nature of the investigation which his reso- 
 lution proposes to institute ? It is as vague and general as the 
 English language affords words in which to make it. The 
 committee is to inquire, not into any specific charge or 
 charges, but whether the President has, by " money, patron- 
 age, or other improper means, sought to influence^" not the 
 action of any individual member or members of Congress, but 
 " the action" of the entire body " of Congress" itself, " or 
 any committee thereof." The President might have had 
 some glimmering of the nature of the offence to be investi- 
 gated, had his accuser pointed to the act or acts of Congress 
 which he sought to pass or to defeat by the employment of 
 "money, patronage, or other improper means." But the 
 accusation is bounded by no such limits. It extends to the 
 whole circle of legislation ; to interference " for or against 
 the passage of any law appertaining to the rights of any State 
 or Territory." And what law does not appertain to the 
 rights of some State or Territory ? And what law or laws has 
 the President failed to execute ? These might easily have 
 been pointed out had any such existed. 
 
 Had Mr. Lawless asked an inquiry to be made by the 
 House, whether Judge Peck, in general terms, had not vio- 
 lated his judicial duties, without the specification of any par- 
 ticular act, I do not believe there would have been a single 
 vote in that body in favor of the inquiry. 
 
238 MESSAGES OF PRESIDENT BUCHANAH". 
 
 Since the time of the Star Chamber and of general warrants 
 there has been no such proceeding in England. 
 
 The House of Eepresentatives, the high impeaching power 
 of the country, without consenting to hear a word of explana- 
 tion, have indorsed this accusation against the President, and 
 made it their own act. They even refused to permit a mem- 
 ber to inquire of the President's accuser what were the specific 
 charges against him. Thus, in this preliminary accusation of 
 " high crimes and misdemeanors' ' against a co-ordinate branch 
 of the Government, under the impeaching power, the House 
 refused to hear a single suggestion even in regard to the cor- 
 rect mode of proceeding, but, without a moment's delay, 
 passed the accusatory resolutions under the pressure of the 
 previous question. 
 
 In the institution of a prosecution for any offence against 
 the most humble citizen — and I claim for myself no greater 
 rights than he enjoys — the Constitution of the United States, 
 and of the several States, require that he shall be informed in 
 the very beginning of the nature and cause of the accusation 
 against him, in order to enable him to prepare for his defence. 
 There are other principles which I might enumerate, not less 
 sacred, presenting an impenetrable shield to protect every 
 citizen falsely charged with a criminal offence. These have 
 been violated in the prosecution instituted by the House of 
 Representatives against the executive branch of the Govern- 
 ment. Shall the President alone be deprived of the protec- 
 tion of these great principles which prevail in every land 
 where a ray of liberty penetrates the gloom of despotism ? 
 Shall the Executive alone be deprived of rights which all his 
 fellow-citizens enjoy ? The whole proceeding against him 
 justifies the fears of those wise and great men who, before the 
 Constitution was adopted by the States, apprehended that the 
 tendency of the Government was to the aggrandizement of 
 the legislative at the expense of the executive and judicial 
 departments. 
 
 I again declare emphatically that I make this protest for no 
 reason personal to myself, and I do it with perfect respect for 
 the House of Eepresentatives, in which I had the honor of 
 serving as a member for five successive terms. I have lived 
 
MESSAGES OF PRESIDENT BTJOHANAK. 239 
 
 long in this goodly land, and liave enjoyed all the offices and 
 honors which my country could bestow. Amid all the politi- 
 cal storms through which I have passed, the present is the 
 first attempt which has ever been made, to my knowledge, to 
 assail my personal or official integrity ; and this as the time is 
 approaching when I shall • voluntarily retire from the service 
 of my country. I feel proudly conscious that there is no 
 public act of my life which will not bear the strictest scrutiny. 
 I defy all investigation. Nothing but the basest perjury can 
 sully my good name. I do not fear even this, because I 
 cherish an humble confidence that the Gracious Being who 
 has hitherto defended and protected me against the shafts of 
 falsehood and malice will not desert me now, when I have 
 become "old and, gray-headed." I can declare before God 
 and my country 'that no human being (with an exception 
 scarcely worthy of notice) has, at any period of my life, dared 
 to approach me with a corrupt or dishonorable proposition ; 
 and, until recent developments, it had never entered into my 
 imagination that any person, even in the storm of exasperated 
 political excitement, would charge me, in the most remote 
 degree, with having made such a proposition to any human 
 being. I may now, however, exclaim in the language of com- 
 plaint employed by my first and greatest predecessor, that 1 
 have been abused ' ' in such exaggerated and indecent terms as 
 could scarcely be applied to a Nero, to a notorious defaulter, 
 or even to a common pickpocket." 
 
 I do, therefore, for the reasons stated, and in the name of 
 the people of the several States, solemnly protest against these 
 proceedings of the House of Eepresentatives, because they 
 are in violation of the rights of the co-ordinate executive 
 branch of the Government, and subversive of its constitu- 
 tional independence ; because they are calculated to foster a 
 band of interested parasites and informers, ever ready, for 
 their own advantage, to swear before ex parte committees to 
 pretended private conversations between the President and 
 themselves, incapable from their nature of being disproved, 
 thus furnishing material for harassing him, degrading him in 
 the eyes of the country, and eventually, should he be a weak 
 or a timid man, rendering him subservient to improper iuflu- 
 
240 MESSAGES OP PRESIDENT BUCHAITAlf. 
 
 ences, in order to avoid such persecutions and annoyances, 
 because they tend to destroy that harmonious action for the 
 common good which ought to be maintained, and which I 
 sincerely desire to cherish between co-ordinate branches of the 
 Grovernment ; and, finally, because, if unresisted, they would 
 establish a -precedent dangerous and embarrassing to all my 
 successors, to whatever political party they might be attached. 
 
 JAMES BUOHAl^AN. 
 March 28, 1860. 
 
SPECIAL MESSAGE. 
 
 Veto of bill for the relief of Arthur Edwards and his associates. —This bill 
 grants them more by $55,000 than the parties themselves demanded from 
 the Postmaster-General, and more than $30,000 in excess of their demand 
 before the Court of Claims. 
 
 To the Senate of the United States : 
 
 I return, witli my objections, to the Senate, for their recon- 
 sideration, the bill entitled " An act for the relief of Arthur 
 Edwards and his associates," presented to me on the 10th 
 instant. 
 
 Tills bill directs the Postmaster-General " to andit and 
 settle the accounts of Arthur Edwards and his associates, for 
 transporting the United States through mail on their steamers 
 during the years 1849 and 1853 and intervening years," 
 between Cleveland and Detroit, between Sandusky and De- 
 troit, and between Toledo and Detroit, and "to allow and 
 pay them not less than $28. 60 for each and every passage of 
 skid steamers between said places during the aforementioned 
 time, when the mails were on board." 
 
 I have caused a statement to be made at the Post- Office 
 Department of the least sum which can be paid to Mr. 
 Edwards and his associates under the bill should it become a 
 law, and from this it appears the amount will be $80,450.23. 
 
 Mr. Edwards and his associates, in 1854, a short time after 
 the alleged services had been rendered, presented a claim to 
 the Postmaster-General for $25,180 as compensation for these 
 services. This claim consists of nine items, setting forth 
 specifically all the services embraced by the present bill. It 
 is fair to presume that the parties best knew the value of th,eir 
 own service, and that they would not, by an under-estimate, 
 do themselves injustice. The whole claim of $25,180 was 
 rejected by the Postmaster-General, for reasons which it is no 
 part of my present purpose to discuss. 
 16 
 
242 MESSAGES OP PRESIDENT BUCHANAIT. 
 
 The claimants next presented a petition to the Court of 
 Claims in June, 1855, " f or a reasonable compensation" for 
 these services, and " pray the judgment of your honorable 
 court for the actual value of the service rendered by them, 
 and received by the United States, which amounts to the sum 
 of $50,000." Thus, the estimate which they placed upon 
 their services had nearly doubled between 1854 and 1855 ; 
 
 had risen from $25,180 to $50,000. On the , after a 
 
 full hearing, the court decided against the claim, and deliv- 
 ered an opinion in support of this decision which cannot, I 
 think, be contested on legal principles. But they state, in 
 conclusion of the opinion, that " for any compensation for 
 their services beyond what they have received, they must 
 depend upon the discretion of Congress." 
 
 This decision of the Court of Claims was reported to Con- 
 gress on the 1st of April, 1858, and from it the present bill 
 has originated. The amount granted by it is more by up- 
 wards of $55,000 than the parties themselves demanded from 
 the Postmaster- General in 1854, and is more, by upwards of 
 $30,000, than they demanded when before the Court of 
 Claims. The enormous difference in their favor between 
 their own original deinand and the amount granted by the 
 present bill constitutes my chief objection to it. In present- 
 ing this objection, I do not propose to enter into the question 
 whether the claimants are entitled in equity to any compensa- 
 tion for their services beyond that which it is alleged they 
 have already received ; or, if so, what would be " a reason- 
 able and fair compensation. " My sole purpose is to afford 
 Congress an opportunity of reconsidering this case on account 
 of its peculiar circumstances. I transmit to the Senate the 
 reports of Horatio King, Acting Postmaster-General, and of 
 A. N. Zevely, Third Assistant Postmaster-General, both dated 
 on the 14th of April, 1860, on the subject of this claim. 
 
 JAMES BUCHANAN. 
 April 17, I860. 
 
SPECIAL MESSAGE— AFKIOANS CAPTUEED ON 
 BOAKD OF SLAVEKS. 
 
 Five hundred and seven Africans captured by the United States Steamer 
 Mohawk on the Slaver Wildfire, and taken to Eey West. — What disposi- 
 tion shall be made of them ? — The President refers to his Annnal Message 
 of 6th December, 1858, on this subject. — He can appoint an agent upon 
 the coast of Africa to receive such captives, but no express provision has 
 Been made for their protection and support.— Believing, with President 
 Monroe, that Congress intended in its legislation that these unfortunates 
 should be cared for in Africa until they should be able to provide foi 
 themselves, the President contracted with the Colonization Society to 
 receive the Africans, to care for those captured on the Slaver Echo for 
 one year for $150 each, to shelter, clothe, feed, and instruct them. — The 
 like expense for the captives on the Wildfire will be large, but is inevi- 
 table without a violation of the laws of humanity. — Congress should pro- 
 vide specific legislation to guide the Executive on this whole subject. — 
 The President suggests authority to make a general agreement with the 
 Colonization Society to receive and maintain captives for a limited time, 
 and to receive them directly from the capturing war vessel. — Key West 
 an unsuitable place for detaining them. — Statement of cost of keeping 
 them there. — The Spanish islands of Cuba and Porto Rico, by tolerating 
 and encouraging the slave trade, the cause of all this waste of blood and 
 treasure to the United States and Great Britain. 
 
 To the Senate cmd House of Eepresentatwes : 
 
 On the 26th day of April last, Lieutenant Craven, of the , 
 U. S. steamer Mohawk, captured the slaver "Wildfire on the 
 coast of Cuba, with five hundred and seven African negroes 
 on board. The prize was brought into Key "West on the 30th 
 April, and the negroes were delivered into the custody of 
 Fernando J. Moreno, Marshal of the southern district of 
 Florida. The question which now demands immediate decision 
 is, What disposition shall be made of these Africans ? In the 
 annual message to Congress of December 6, 1858, I expressed 
 my opinion in regard to the construction of the act of 3d 
 March, 1819, " in addition to the acts prohibiting the slave 
 
244 MESSAGES OE PEESIDENT BUCHAWAN. 
 
 trade," so far ^s the same is applicable to the present case. 
 From this I make the following extract : 
 
 "Under the second section of this act, the President is 
 authorized to make such regulations and arrangements as he 
 may deem expedient for the safe-keeping, support, and re- 
 moval beyond the limits of the United States, of all such 
 negroes, mulattoes, or persons of color captured by vessels of 
 the United States, as may be delivered to the marshal of the 
 district into which they are brought ; and to appoint a person 
 or persons residing upon the coast of Africa, as agent or agents 
 for receiving the negroes, mulattoes, or persons of color, de- 
 livered from on board vessels seized in the prosecution of the 
 slave trade by commanders of the United States armed 
 Vessels. 
 
 " A doubt immediately arose as to the true construction of 
 this act. It is quite clear from its terms that the President 
 was authorized to provide ' for the safe-keeping, support, and 
 removal ' of these negroes up till the time of their delivery 
 to the agent on the coast of Africa ; but no express provision 
 was made for their protection and support after they had 
 reached the place of their destination. Still, an agent was to 
 be appointed to receive them in Africa, and it could not 
 have been supposed that Congress intended he should desert 
 them at the moment they were received, and turn them loose 
 on that inhospitable coast to perish for want of food, or to 
 become again the victims of the slave trade. Had this been 
 the intention of Congress, the employment of an agent to re- 
 ceive them, who is required to reside on the coast, was un- 
 necessary, and they might have been landed by our vessels 
 ainy where in Africa, and left exposed to the sufferings and the 
 fate which would certainly await them. 
 
 " Mr. Monroe in lus special message of the 17th December, 
 1819, at the first session after the act was passed, announced 
 to Congress what, in his opinion, was its true construction. 
 He believed it to be his duty under it, to follow these unfor- 
 tunates into Africa, and make provision for them there until 
 they should be able to provide for themselves. In communi- 
 cating this interpretation of the act to Congress, he stated that 
 some doubt had been entertained as to its true intent and 
 
MESSAGES OF PEESIDEITT BTJCHAITAN. 245 
 
 naeaning, and he submitted the question to them, so that they 
 might, ' should it be deemed advisable, amend the same before 
 further proceedings are had under it. ' Nothing was done by 
 Congress to explain the act, and Mr. Monroe proceeded to 
 carry it into execution according to his own interpretation. 
 This, then, became the practical construction. " 
 
 Adopting this construction of President Monroe, I entered 
 into an agreement with the Colonization Society, dated 7th 
 September, 1853, to receive the Africans who had been 
 captured on the slaver Echo from the agent of the United 
 States in Liberia, to furnish them, during the period of one 
 year thereafter, with comfortable shelter, clothing, and pro- 
 visions, and to cause them to be instructed in the arts of civi}- 
 ized life suitable to their condition, at the rate of $150 for 
 each individual. It was believed that within that period 
 they would be prepared to become citizens of Liberia, and to 
 take care of themselves. 
 
 As Congress was not then in session, and as there was no 
 outstanding appropriation applicable to this purpose, the 
 society were obliged to depend for payment on the future 
 action of that body. I recommended this appropriation, and 
 $75,000 were granted by the act of 3d March, 1859, (the con- 
 sular and diplomatic bill,) " to enable the President of the 
 United States to carry into effect the act of Congress of 3d 
 March, 1819, and any subsequent acts now in force for the 
 suppression of the slave trade." Of this appropriation, there 
 remains unexpended the sum of .$24,350.90, after deducting 
 from it an advance made by the Secretary of the Interior, out 
 of the judiciary fund, of $11,348.10. 
 
 I regret to say, that under the mode adopted in regard to 
 the Africans captured on board the Echo, the expense will be 
 large ; but this seems, to a great extent, to be inevitable with- 
 out a violation of the laws of humanity. The expenditure 
 upon this scale for those captured on board the Wildfire will 
 not be less than one hundred thousand dollars, and may con- 
 siderably exceed that sum. Still, it ought to be observed that, 
 during the period when the Government itself, through its 
 own agents, undertook the task of providing for the captured, 
 in Africa, the cost p^r head was much greater than that 
 which 1 agreed to pay the Colonization Society. 
 
246 MESSAGES OP PBESIDENT BUCHANAJN. 
 
 • 
 
 But it will not be sufficient for Congress to limit the amount 
 appropriated to the case of the Wildfire. It is probable, 
 judging from the increased activity of the slave trade, and the 
 vigilance of our cruisers, that several similar captures may be 
 made before the end of the year. An appropriation ought, 
 therefore, to be granted large enough to cover such con- 
 tingencies. 
 
 The period has arrived when it is indispensable to provide 
 some specific legislation for the guidance of the Executive on 
 this subject. With this view, I would suggest that Congress 
 might authorize the President to enter into a general agree- 
 ment with the Colonization Society, binding them to receive 
 on the coast of Africa from an agent there, all the captured 
 Africans which may be delivered to him, and to maintain 
 them for a limited period, upon such terms and conditions as 
 may combine humanity towards these unfortunates with a just 
 economy. This would obviate the necessity of making a new 
 bargain with every new capture, and would prevent delay, 
 and avoid expense in the disposition of the captured. The 
 law might then provide that in all cases where this may be 
 practicable the captor should carry the negroes directly to 
 Africa, and deliver them to the American agent there, after- 
 wards bringing the captured vessel to the United States for 
 adjudication. 
 
 The capturing officer, in case he should bring his prize 
 directly to the United States, ought to be required to land the 
 negroes in some one or more ports, to be designated by Con- 
 gress, where the prevailing health throughout the year is 
 good. At these ports, cheap but permanent accommodations 
 might be provided for the negroes until they could be sent 
 away, without incurring the expense of erecting such accom- 
 modations at every port where the capturing officer may think 
 proper to enter. On the present occasion these negroes have 
 been brought to Key West ; and, according to the estimate 
 presented by the Marshal of* the southern district of Florida 
 to the Secretary of the Interior, the cost of providing tem- 
 porary quarters for them will be $2500, and the aggregate ex- 
 penses for the single month of May will amount to $12,000. 
 But this is far from being the worst evil. Within a few 
 
MESSAGES or PRESIDENT BUCHANAN, 247 
 
 weeks the yellow fever will most probably prevail at Key 
 West ; and hence the marshal urges their removal from their 
 present quarters at an ^arly day, which must be done, in any 
 event, as soon as practicable, for these reasons. I eamegtly 
 commend this subject to the immediate attention of Congress. 
 1 transmit herewith a copy of the letter and estimate of Fer- 
 nando J. Moreno, Marshal of the southern district of Florida, 
 to the Secretary of the Interior, dated 10th May, 1860, together 
 with a copy of the letter of the Secretary of the Interior to 
 myself, dated 16th May. 
 
 It is truly lamentable that Great Britain and the United 
 States should be obliged to expend such a vast amount of 
 blood and treasure for the suppression of the African slave 
 trade, and this when the only portions of the civilized world 
 where it is tolerated and encouraged are the Spanish Islands 
 of Cuba and Porto Eico. 
 
 JAMES BUCHANAN. 
 
 Washington, May 19, 1860. 
 
SPECIAL MESSAGE— PEOTEST AGAINST THE PRO- 
 CEEDINGS OF THE "COVODE" COMMITTEE. 
 
 The President refers to his Message of 28th March, last, protesting against 
 the creation of this Committee. — Tliis Committee has transcended the 
 authority conferred upon it by the House, and has pursued a course at 
 war with the Constitutional rights of the Executive, and tending to de- 
 grade the Presidential office to such a degree as to render it unworthy of 
 the acceptance of any man of honor or principle. — The President shows 
 in what matters the Committee wholly transcended its authority in the 
 investigation. — Its examinations ex parte without notice to the President 
 only made known to him by the publication in New York journals of 
 such portions as could injuriously affect him, and all rebutting testimony 
 being withheld from publication. — The most sacred and honorable confi- 
 dences and correspondences violated, and persons in official and confi- 
 dential relations to him examined by this Committee. — Distribution of 
 patronage of the Government the most disagreeable duty. — Disappointed 
 applicants, removed officers, and persons hostile to the Administration for 
 any cause, real or imaginary — always a dangerous class of witnesses— were 
 sought by this Committee. — The President's lips sealed. — He could not, 
 as a co-ordinate branch of the Government, appear before a Committee 
 to contradict the oaths of such witnesses. — Every coward knew he could 
 employ insulting language against the President with impunity before 
 such a Committee.— The lion's month at Venice, and the Star Chamber, 
 and the Bevolutionary tribunal of Prance in the days of Bobespierre, com- 
 pared. — Mr. Madison's and Mr. Jefferson's warning as to tendency of 
 Legislature to usurp the rights of the weaker branches of the Govern- 
 ment. — If these proceedings become a precedent, the Executive must 
 from a co-ordinate, become practically a subordinate branch, and'subser- 
 vient to the wishes of the former, and the President be dragooned into 
 submission to the will of those invested with such terrific power, and 
 made their creature. — ShaU he alone be denied a fair trial, and not be "in- 
 formed of the nature and cause of accusation," and not be " confronted 
 with the witnesses?" — The resolution of Mr. John Sherman adopted by 
 the House, reproving the President for an act never committed, an example. 
 . — The President, however, has passed triumphantly through this ordeal, 
 and his vindication has been complete ; but he desires to save his succes- 
 sors from similar unconstitutional proceedings, and therefore again enters 
 his solemn protest against them. 
 
 To the House of Representatives : 
 
 In my message to the House of Eepresentatives of the 28th 
 March last, I solemnly protested against the creation of a 
 
MESSAGES OF PKESIDENT BTJOHANAIJ". 249 
 
 committee, at the head of which was placed my accuser, for 
 the purpose of investigating whether the President had, " by 
 money, patronage or other improper means, sought to influ- 
 ence the action of Congress, or any committee thereof, for or 
 against the passage of any law appertaining to the rights of 
 any State or Territory." I protested against this because it 
 was destitute of any specification ; because it referred to no 
 particular act to enable the President to prepare for his de- 
 fence ; because it deprived him of the constitutional guards, 
 which, in common with every citizen of the United States, 
 he possesses for his protection ; and because it assailed his 
 confititutional independence as a coordinate branch of the 
 Government. There is an enlightened justice, as well as a 
 beautiful symmetry, in every part of the Constitution. This 
 is conspicuously manifested in regard to impeachments. The 
 House of Eepresentatives possesses " the sole power of im- 
 peachment ;" the Senate '*' the sole power to try all impeach- 
 ments ;" and the impeachable offences are " treason, bribery, 
 or other high crimes or misdemeanors." The practice of the 
 House, from the earliest times, had been in accordance with 
 its own dignity, the rights of ,the accused, and the demands of 
 justice. At the commencement of each judicial investigation 
 which might lead to an impeachment, specific charges were 
 always preferred ; the accused had an opportunity of cross- 
 examining the witnesses, and he was placed in full possession 
 of the precise nature of the ofEence which he had to meet. 
 An impartial and elevated standing committee was charged 
 with this investigation, upon which no member inspired with 
 the ancient sense of honor and justice would have served, had 
 he ever expressed an opinion against the accused. Until the 
 present occasion, it was never deemed proper to transform the 
 accuser into the judge, and to confer upon him the selection 
 of his own committee. 
 
 The charges made against me, in vague and general terms, 
 were of such a false and atrocious character, that I did not 
 entertain a moment's apprehension for the result. They were 
 abhorrent to every principle instilled into me from my youth, 
 and every practice of my life, and I did not believe it possible 
 that the man existed who would so basely perjure himself ag 
 
250 MESSAGES OE PEESIDENT BUCHANAN. 
 
 to swear to the truth of any such accusations. In this con- 
 viction I am informed I have not been mistaken. In my 
 former protest, therefore, I truly and emphatically declared 
 that it was made for no reason personal to myself, but because 
 the proceedings of the House were in violation of the rights 
 of the coordinate executive branch of the Government, sub- 
 versive of its constitutional independence, and, if unresisted, 
 would establish a precedent dangerous and embarrassing to all 
 my successors. Notwithstanding all this, if the committee 
 had not transcended the authority conferred upon it by the 
 resolution of the House of Representatives, broad and general 
 as this was, I should have remained silent upon the subject. 
 What I now charge is, that they have acted as though they 
 possessed unlimited power, and, without any warrant what- 
 ever in the resolution under which they were appointed, have 
 pursued a course not merely at war with the constitutional 
 rights of the Executive, but tending to degrade the presi- 
 dential office Itself to such a degree as to render it unworthy 
 of the acceptance of any man of honor or principle. 
 
 The resolution of the House, so far as it is accusatory of 
 the President, is confined to an inquiry whether he had used 
 corrupt or improper means to influence the action of Congress 
 or any of its committees on legislative measures pending 
 before them. Nothing more, nothing less. I have not 
 learned through the newspapers, or in any other mode, that 
 the committee have touched the other accusatory branch of 
 the resolution, charging the President with a violation of duty 
 in failing to execute some law or laws. This branch of the 
 resolution is therefore out of the question. By what authority, 
 then, have the committee undertaken to investigate the course 
 of the President in regard to the convention which framed 
 the Leeompton constitution ? By what authority have they 
 undertaken to pry into our foreign relations, for the purpose 
 of assailing him on account of the instructions given by the 
 Secretary of State to our minister in Mexico, relative to the 
 Tehuantepec route ? By what authority have they inquired 
 into the causes of removal from office, and this from the 
 parties themselves removed, with a view to prejudice his char- 
 acter, notwithstanding this power of removal belongs exclu- 
 
MESSAGES OE PRESIDENT BUCHANAN. 251 
 
 sively to the President under the Constitution, was so decided 
 by the first Congress in the year 1Y89, and has accordingly 
 ever since been exercised ? There is in the resolution no pre- 
 text of authority for the committee to investigate the ques- 
 tion of the printing of the post-office blanks, nor is it to be 
 supposed that the House, if asked, would have granted such 
 an authority, because this question had been previously com- 
 mitted to two other committees — one in the Senate and the 
 other in the House. Notwithstanding this absolute want of 
 power, the committee rushed into this investigation in advance 
 of all other subjects. 
 
 The committee proceeded for months, from March 22d, 
 1860, to examine ex parte, and without any notice to myself, 
 into every subject which could possibly affect my character. 
 Interested and vindictive witnesses were summoned and exam- 
 ined before them ; and the first and only information of their 
 testimony which, in almost every instance, I received, was 
 obtained from the publication of such portions of it as could 
 injuriously affect myself, in the New York journals. It mat- 
 tered not that these statements were, so far as I have learned, 
 disproved by the most respectable witnesses who happened to 
 be on the spot. The telegraph was silent respecting these 
 contradictions. It was a secret committee in regard to all the 
 testimony which could by possibility reflect on my character. 
 The poison was left to produce its effect upon the public mind, 
 whilst the antidote was carefully withheld. 
 
 In their examinations the committee violated the most 
 sacred and honorable confidences existing among men. Pri- 
 vate correspondence, which a truly honorable man would 
 never even entertain a distant thought of divulging, was 
 dragged to light. Different persons in official and confiden- 
 tial relations with myself, and with whom it was supposed I 
 might have held conversations, the revelation of which would 
 do me injury, were examined. Even members of the Senate 
 and members of my own cabinet, both my constitutional ad- 
 visers, were called upon to testify, for the purpose of discov- 
 ering something, if possible, to my discredit. 
 
 The distribution of the patronage of the Government is by 
 far the most disagreeable duty of the President. Applicants 
 
252 MESSAGES OF PRESIDENT BUCHAKAlSr. 
 
 are so numerous, and their applications are pressed with such 
 eagerness by their friends both in and out of Congress, that 
 the selection of one for any desira;ble ofiSce gives offence to 
 many. Disappointed applicants, refnoved oflScers, and those 
 who for any cause, real or imaginary, had become hostile to 
 the administration, presented themselves, or were invited by 
 a summons to appear before the committee. These are the 
 most dangerous witnesses. Even with the best intentions, 
 they are so influenced by prejudice and disappointment, that 
 they almost inevitably discolor truth. They swear to their 
 own version of private conversations with the President with- 
 out the possibility of contradiction. His lips are sealed and he 
 is left at their mercy. He cannot, as a coordinate branch of 
 the Government, appear before a committee of investigation 
 to contradict the oaths of such witnesses. Every coward 
 knows that he can employ insulting language against the 
 President with impunity, and every false or prejudiced wit- 
 ness can attempt to swear away his character before such a 
 committee without the fear of contradiction. 
 
 Thus for months, whilst doing my best at one end of the 
 avenue to perform my high and responsible duties to the 
 country, has there been a committee of the House of Eepre- 
 sentatives in session at the other end of the avenue, spreading 
 a drag-net, without the shadow of authority from the House, 
 over the whole Union, to catch any disappointed man willing 
 to malign my character, and all this in secret conclave. The 
 lion's mouth at Venice, into which secret denunciations were 
 dropped, is an apt illustration of the Covode committee. The 
 Star Chamber, tyrannical and odious as it was, never pro- 
 ceeded in such a manner. For centuries there has been noth- 
 ing like it in any civilized country, except the revolutionary 
 tribunal of France, in the days of Robespierre. Now, I un- 
 dertake to state and to prove that should the proceedings of 
 the committee be sanctioned bv the House, and become a 
 precedent for future times, the balance of the Constitution 
 will be entirely upset, and there will no longer remain the 
 three coordinate and independent branches of the Government 
 — legislative, executive, and judicial. The worst fears of the 
 patriots and statesmen who framed the Constitution in regard 
 
MESSAGES OE PEESIDENT BTJOHANAIT. 253 
 
 to the usurpations of the legislative on the executive and 
 judicial branches will then be realized. In the language of 
 Mr. Madison, speaking on this very subject, in the forty- 
 eighth number of ih.e Federalist : " In a representative re- 
 public, where the executive magistracy is carefully limited 
 both in the extent and duration of its power, and where the 
 legislative power is exercised by an assembly which is inspired 
 by a supposed influence over the people, with an intrepid con- 
 fidence in its own strength, which is sufficiently numerous to 
 feel all the passions which actuate a multitude, yet not so 
 numerous as to be incapable of pursuing the objects of its 
 passions by means which reason prescribes, it is against the 
 enterprising ambition of this department that the people ought 
 to indulge all their jealousy and exhaust all their precautions. " 
 And in the expressive and pointed language of Mr. Jefferson, 
 when speaking of the tendency of the legislative branch of 
 Government to usurp the rights of the weaker branches : 
 "The concentrating these in the same hands is precisely the 
 definition of despotic government. It will be no alleviation 
 that these powers will be exercised by a plurality of hands, 
 and not by a single one. One hundred and seventy-three 
 despots would surely be as oppressive as one. Let those who 
 doubt it turn their eyes on the Eepublic of Venice. As little 
 will it avail us that they are chosen by ourselves. An elective 
 despotism was not the government we fought for, but one 
 which should not only be founded on free principles, but in 
 which the powers of government should be so divided and 
 balanced among several bodies of magistracy, as that no one 
 could transcend their legal limits without being effectually 
 checked and controlled by the others. " 
 
 Should the proceedings of the Covode committee become a 
 precedent, both the letter and spirit of the Constitution will 
 be violated. One of the three massive columns on which the 
 whole superstructure rests will be broken down. Instead of 
 the Executive being a coordinate it will become a subordinate 
 branch of the Government. The presidential office will be 
 dragged into the dust. The House of Representatives will 
 then have rendered the Executive almost necessarily subser- 
 vient to its wishes, instead of being independent. How is it 
 
254 MESSAGES OP PRESIDENT BFCHANAW. 
 
 possible that two powers in the State can be coordinate and 
 independent of each other, if the one claims and exercises the 
 power to reprove and to censure all the official acts and all the 
 private conversations of the other, and this upon ex parte 
 testimony before a secret inquisitorial committee — in short, to 
 assume a general censorship oyer the others ? The idea is as 
 absurd in public as it would be in private life. Should the 
 President attempt to assert and maintain his own indepen- 
 dence, future Covode committees may dragoon him into sub- 
 mission by collecting the hosts of disappointed office-hunters, 
 removed officers, and those who desire to live upon the public 
 treasury, which must follow in the wake of every administra- 
 tion, and they, in secret conclave, will swear away his reputa- 
 tion. Under such circumstances, he must be a very bold man 
 should he not surrender at discretion and consent to exercise 
 his authority according to the will of those invested with this 
 terrific power. The sovereign people of the several States 
 have elected him to the highest and most honorable office in 
 the world. He is their only direct representalrive in the Gov- 
 ernment. By their Constitution they have made him com- 
 mander-in-chief of their army and navy. He represents them 
 in their intercourse with foreign nations. Clothed with their 
 dignity and authority, he occupies a proud position before all 
 nations, civilized and savage. With the consent of the 
 Senate, he appoints all the important officers of the Govern- 
 ment. He exercises the veto power, and to that extent con- 
 trols the legislation of Congress. For the performance of 
 these high duties he is responsible to the people of the several 
 States, and not in any degree to the House of Representa- 
 tives. 
 
 Shall he surrender these high powers, conferred upon him 
 as the representative of the American people, for their bene- 
 fit, to the House, to be exercised under their overshadowing 
 influence and control ? Shall he alone of all the citizens of 
 the United States be denied a fair trial ? Shall he alone not 
 be "informed of the nature and cause of the accusation" 
 against him ? Shall he alone not " be confronted with the 
 witnesses" against him ? Shall the House of Representatives, 
 usurping the powers of the Senate, proceed to try the Presi- 
 
MESSAGES OE PEESIDENT BUCHANAN. 255 
 
 dent through the agency of a secret committee of the body 
 where it is impossible he can make any defence, and then, 
 without affording him an opportunity of being heard, pro- 
 nounce a judgment of censure against him ? The very same 
 rule might be applied, for the very same reason, to evety 
 judge of every court in the United States. From what part 
 of the Constitution is this terrible inquisitorial power derived ? 
 No such express power exists. From which of the enumer- 
 ated powers can it be inferred ? It is true the House cannot 
 pronounce the formal judgment against him of " removal 
 from office," but they can, by their judgment of ceflsure, 
 asperse his reputation, and thus, to the extent of their influ- 
 ence, render the office contemptible. An example is at hand 
 of the reckless manner in which this power of censure can be 
 employed in high party times. The House, on a recent occa- 
 sion, have attempted to degrade the President by adopting the 
 resolution of Mr. John Sherman, declaring that he, in con- 
 junction with the Secretary of the Navy, " by receiving and 
 considering the party relations of bidders for contracts, and 
 the effect of awarding contracts upon pending elections, have 
 set an example dangerous to the public safety, and deserving 
 the reproof of this House." 
 
 It will scarcely be credited that the sole pretext for this 
 vote of censure was the simple fact that in disposing of the 
 numerous letters of every imaginable character which 1 daily 
 receive, I had, in the usual course of business, referred a 
 letter from Colonel Patterson, of Philadelphia, in relation to 
 a contract, to the attention of the Secretary of the Navy, the 
 head of the appropriate department, without expressing or 
 intimating any opinion whatever on the subject ; and to make 
 the matter, if possible, stiU plainer, the Secretary had in- 
 formed the committee that " the President did not in a/ny 
 mcmner -interfere in this case, nor has he hi a/ny other case of 
 contract since I have heen in the department.^ ^ The absence 
 of all proof to sustain this attempt to degrade the President, 
 whilst it manifests the venom of the shaft aimed at him, has 
 destroyed the vigor of the bow. 
 
 To return, after this digression. Should the House, by the 
 institution of Covode committees, votes of censure, and other 
 
256 MESSAGES OF PRESIDENT BUCHAKAN. 
 
 devices to harass the President, reduce him to subservience to 
 their veill, and render him their creature, then the well- 
 balanced Government which our fathers framed will be anni- 
 hilated. This conflict has already been commenced in earnest 
 by the House against the Executive. A bad precedent rarely 
 if ever dies. It will, I fear, be pursued in the time of my 
 successors, no matter what may be their political character. 
 Should secret committees be appointed with uilimited author- 
 ity to range over all the words and actions, and, if possible, 
 the very thoughts of the President, with a view to discover 
 something in his past life prejudicial to his character, from 
 parasites and informers, this would be an ordeal which scarcely 
 any mere man since the fall could endure. It would be to 
 subject him to a reign of terror from which the stoutest and 
 purest hearts might shrink. I have passed triumphantly 
 through this ordeal. My vindication is complete. The com- 
 mittee have reported no resolution looking to an impeachment 
 against me, no resolution of censure, not even a resolution 
 pointing out any abuses in any of the executive departments 
 of the Government to be corrected by legislation. This is 
 the highest commendation which could be bestowed on the 
 heads of these departments. The sovereign people of the 
 States will, however, I trust, save my successors, whoever 
 they may be, from any such ordeal. They are frank, bold, 
 and honest. They detest delators and informers. I there- 
 fore, in the name and as the representative of this great peo- 
 ple, and standing upon the ramparts of the Constitution which 
 they "have ordained and established," do solemnly protest 
 against these xmprecedented and unconstitutional proceedings. 
 
 There was still another committee raised by the House on 
 the 6th of March last, on motion of Mr. Heard, to which I 
 had not the slightest objection. The resolution creating it 
 was confined to specific charges, which I have ever since been 
 ready and willing to meet. I have at all times invited and 
 defied fair investigation upon constitutional principles. I 
 have received no notice that this committee have ever pro- 
 ceeded to the investigation. 
 
 Why should the House of Kepresentatives desire to en- 
 croach on the other departments of the Government ? Their 
 
MESSAGES OF PRESIDENT BUCHANAIf. 257 
 
 riglitf ul powers are ample for every legitimate purpose. They 
 are the impeaching body. In their legislative capacity it is 
 their most wise and wholesome prerogative to institute rigid 
 examinations into the manner in which all departments of the 
 Government are conducted, with a view to reform abuses, to 
 promote economy, and to improve every branch of the admin- 
 istration. Should they find reason to believe, in the course 
 of their examinations, that any grave offence had been com- 
 mitted by the President or any officer of the Government, 
 rendering it proper, in their judgment, to resort to impeach- 
 ment, their course would be plain, They would then transfer 
 the question from their legislative to their accusatory jurisdic- 
 tion, and take care that in all the preliminary judicial proceed- 
 ings, preparatory to the vote of articles of impeachment, the 
 accused should enjoy the benefit of cross-examining the wit- 
 nesses, and all the other safeguards with which the Constitu- 
 tion surrounds every American citizen. 
 
 If, in a legislative investigation, it should appear that the 
 public interest required the removal of any officer of the Gov- 
 ernment, no President has ever existed who, after giving him 
 a fair hearing, would hesitate to apply the remedy. This I 
 take to be the ancient and well-established practice. An 
 adherence to it wiU best promote the harmony and the dignity 
 of the intercourse between the coordinate branches of the 
 Government, and render us all more respectable both in the 
 eyes of our own countrymen and of foreign nations. 
 
 JAMES BUCHANAN". 
 . Washington, J%me 22, 1860. 
 
 17 
 
SPECIAL MESSAGE OF THE PEESIDENT— HOME- 
 STEAD BILL. 
 
 This bill gives to every citizen of the United States, -who is the head of a 
 family, and every person of foreign birth residing in the country, who 
 has declared his intention to become a citizen, though not the head of a 
 family, one hundred and sixty acres of Government land for twenty-five 
 cents an acre, also donates to the States twelve million two hundred and 
 twenty-nine thousand seven hundred and thirty-one acres. — The Presi- • 
 dent refers to his opinion upon the Constitutionality of such grants as ex- 
 pressed in his Message of],24th February, 1859, returning the agricultural 
 college bill. — It will be admitted that Congress cannot make donations of 
 money already in the Treasury, raised by taxes on the people. — Its power 
 to donate the public land' is equally limited under the Constitution. — It 
 would furthermore be unjust to the old settlers, who have paid $1.25 per 
 acre, that new settlers should receive their farms at the price of twenty- 
 five or eighteen cents per acre. — This bill would do great injustice to the 
 old soldiers who have received land warrants for patriotic services, by 
 reducing the market value of these warrants. — It is a gift to one particu- 
 lar class of our people — cultivators of the soil. Mechanics and artisans 
 are practically excluded from its benefits. — The bill is unjust to the old 
 States. — Heretofore, the proceeds of the sale of public lands went into 
 the common Treasury, and so benefited all the States. — Ubder this bill 
 the old States would be deprived of their just proportion of this revenue. 
 — This bill opens a vast field for demoralizing speculation. — Foreign-bom 
 settlers not even required to be heads of families, as in the case of Amer- 
 ican citizens. — It will seriously reduce the public revenue from sales of 
 land, and destroy our present admirable land system, which will here- 
 after yield $10,000,000 per annum 'of revenue. — This bill will tend to. 
 produce agrarian sentiment and other pernicious social theories, which 
 have proved so disastrous in other countries. 
 
 To the Senate of the United States : 
 
 I return, with my objections, to the Senate, in which it 
 originated, the bill entitled " An act to secure homesteads to 
 actual settlers on the^public domain, and for. other purposes," 
 presented to me on the 20th instant. 
 
 This bill gives to every citizen of the United States, " who 
 is the head of a family," and to every person of foreign birth 
 residing in the country, who hae declared his intention to 
 
MESSAGES OF PEESIDENT BUCHAKAN. 259 
 
 become a citizen, though he may not be the head of a family, 
 the privilege of appropriating to himself one hundred and 
 sixty acres of Government land, of settling and residing upon 
 it for five years ; and should his residence continue until* the 
 end of this period, he shall then receive a patent on the pay- 
 ment of twenty-five cents per acre, or one-fifth of the present 
 Government price. During this period, the land is protected 
 from all the debts of the settler. 
 
 This bill also contains a cession to the States of all the pub- 
 lic lands within their respective limits " which have been sub- 
 ject to sale at private entry, and which remain unsold after 
 the lapse of thirty years. " This, pro vision embraces a present 
 donation to the States of twelve million two hundred and 
 twenty-nine thousand seven hundred and thirty-one acres, 
 and will, from time to time, transfer to them large bodies of 
 such lands which, from peculiar circumstances, may not be 
 absorbed by private purchase and settlement. 
 
 To the actual settler, this bill does not make an absolute 
 donation ; but the price is so small that it can scarcely be 
 called a sale. It is nominally twenty-live cents per acre ; but, 
 considering this is not to be paid until the end of five years, 
 it is, in fact, reduced to about eighteen cents per acre, or one- 
 seventh of the present minimum price of the public lands. 
 In regard to the States, it is an absolute and unqualified gift. 
 
 1. This state of the facts raises the question whether Con- 
 gress, under the Constitution, has the power to give away the 
 public lands either to States or individuals. On this question, 
 I expressed a decided opinion in my message to the House of 
 Eepresentatives, of the 24th February, 1859, returning the 
 agricultural college bill. This opinion remains unchanged. 
 The argument then used applies, as a constitutional objection, 
 with greater force to the present bill. There it had the plea 
 of consideration, growing out of a specific beneficial purpose ; 
 here, it is an absolute gratuity to the States without the pre- 
 text of consideration. I am compelled, for want of time, in 
 these the last hours of the session to quote largely from this 
 
 I presume the general proposition will be admitted that 
 Congress does not possess the power to make donations of 
 
260 MESSAGES OP PEE8IDEWT BUCHAWAT)'. 
 
 money already in the Treasury, raised by taxes on the people, 
 either to States or individuals. 
 
 But it is contended that the public lands are placed upon a 
 different footing from money raised by taxation, and that the 
 proceeds arising from their sale are not subject to the limita- 
 tions of the Constitution, but may be appropriated or given 
 away by Congress, at its own . discretion, to States, corpora- 
 tions, or individuals, for any purpose they may deem ex- 
 pedient. 
 
 The advocates of this bill attempt to sustain their position 
 upon the language of the second clause of the third section of 
 the fourth article of the Constitution, which declares that 
 " the Congress shall have power to dispose of, and make all 
 needful rules and regulations respecting the territory or other 
 property belonging to the United States." They contend 
 that, by a fair interpretation of the words " dispose of " in 
 this clause. Congress possesses the power to make this gift of 
 public lands to the States for purposes of education. 
 
 It would require clear and strong evidence to induce the 
 belief that the framers of the Constitution, after having lim- 
 ited the powers of Congress to certain, precise, and specific , 
 objects, intended by employing the words "dispose of," to 
 
 five that body unlimited power over the vast public domain. 
 t would be a strange anomaly, indeed, to have created two 
 funds, the one by taxation, confined to the execution of the 
 enumerated powers delegated to Congress, and the other from 
 the public lands, applicable to all subjects, foreign and domes- 
 tic, which Congress might designate. That this fund should 
 be " disposed of," not to pay the debts of the United States, 
 nor " to raise and support armies," nor '• to provide and 
 maintain a navy," nor to accomplish any one of the other 
 great objects enumerated in the Constitution ; but be diverted 
 from them to pay the debts of the States, to educate their 
 people, and to carry into effect any other measure of their 
 domestic policy. This would be to confer upon Congress a 
 vast and irresponsible authority, utterly at war with the well- 
 known jealousy of Federal power which prevailed at the 
 formation of the Constitution. The natural intendment would 
 be that, as the Constitution confined Congress to well-defined 
 specific powers, the funds placed at their command, whether 
 in land or mon&y, should be appropriated to the performance 
 of the duties corresponding with these powers. If not, a 
 government has been created with all its other powers care- 
 fully limited, but without any limitation in respect to the 
 public lands. 
 
MESSAGES OF PEESIDENT BUCHANAK. 261 
 
 But I cannot so read the words " dispose of" as to make 
 them embrace the idea of " giving away." The true mean- 
 ing of words is always to be ascertained by the subject to 
 which they are applied, and the known general intent of the 
 law-giver. Congress is a trustee under the Constitution for 
 the people of the United States to " dispose of " their pubhe 
 lands ; and 1 think I may venture to assert with confidence, 
 that no case can be found in which a trustee in the position 
 of Congress has been authorized to ^^ dispose of'' property 
 by its owner, where it has ever been held that these words 
 authorized such trustee to give away the fund intrusted to his 
 care. No trustee, when called upon to account for the dispo- 
 sition of the property placed under his management before 
 any judicial tribunal, would venture to present such a plea in 
 his defence. The true meaning of these words is clearly 
 stated by Chief Justice Taney in delivering the opinion of the 
 court (19 Howard, p. 436). He says, in reference to this 
 clause of the Constitution : " It begins its enumeration of 
 powers by that of disposing, in other words, making sale of, 
 the lands, or raising money from them, which, as we have 
 already said, was the main object of the cession (from the 
 States), and which is the first thing provided for in the arti- 
 cle." It is unnecessary to refer to the history of the times 
 to establish the known fact that this statement of the Chief 
 Justice is perfectly well-founded. That it never was intended 
 by the framers of the Constitution that these lands should be 
 given away by Congress is manifest from the concluding por- 
 tion of the same clause. By it. Congress has power not only 
 " to dispose of " the territory, but of the " other property of 
 the United States." In the language of the Chief Justice 
 (p. 437) : " And the same power of making needfulVules re- 
 specting the territory is in precisely the same language applied 
 to the other property of the United States, associating the 
 power over the territory, in this respect, with the power over 
 movable or personal property — that is, the ships, arms, or 
 munitions of war which then belonged in common to the State 
 sovereignties."* 
 
 The question is still clearer in regard to the public lands in 
 the States and territories within the Louisiana and Florida 
 purchases. These lands were paid for out of the public 
 Treasury from money raised by taxation. Now, if Congress 
 had no power to appropriate the money with which these 
 lands were purchased, is it not clear that the power over the 
 lands is equally limited ? The mere conversion of this money 
 into land could not confer upon Congress new power over the 
 disposition of land which they had not possessed over money. 
 
262 MESSAGES OF PEESIDEKT BtrCHANAlT. 
 
 If it could, then a trustee, by changing the character of the 
 fund intrusted to his care for special objects from money paid 
 into land, might give the land away, or devote it to any pur- 
 pose he thought proper, however foreign from the trust. 
 The inference is irresistible that this land partakes of the very 
 same character with the money paid for it, and can be devoted 
 to no objects different from those to which the money could 
 have been devoted. If this were not the case, then, by the 
 purchase of a new territory from a foreign Government out 
 of the public Treasury, Congress could enlarge their own 
 powers, and appropriate the proceeds of the sales of the land 
 thus purchased, at their own discretion, to other and far differ- 
 ent objects from what they could have applied the purchase 
 money which had been raised by taxation. 
 
 2. It will prove unequal and unjust in its operation among 
 the actual settlers themselves. 
 
 The first settlers of a new country are a most meritorious 
 class. They brave the dangers of savage warfare, suffer the 
 privations of a frontier life, and with the hand of toil bring 
 the wilderness into cultivation. The " old settlers," as they 
 are everywhere called, are public benefactors. This class 
 have all paid for their lands the Government price, or $1.25 per 
 acre. They have constructed roads, established schools, and 
 laid the foundation of prosperous commonwealths. Is it just, 
 is it equal, that, after they have accomplished all this by their 
 labor, new settlers should come in among them and receive 
 their farms at the price of twenty-five or eighteen cents per 
 acre ? Surely the old settlers, as a class, are entitled to at 
 least equal benefits with the new. If you give the new 
 settlers their land for a comparatively nominal price, upon 
 every principle of equality and justice you wlU be obliged to 
 refund out of the common treasury the difference which the 
 old have paid above the new settlers for their land. 
 
 3. This bill will do great injustice to the old soldiers who 
 have received land warrants for their services in fighting the 
 battles of their country. It will greatly reduce the market 
 value of these warrants. Already their value has sunk, for 
 one hundred and sixty acre warrants, to sixty-seven cents per 
 acre, under an apprehension that such a measure as this might 
 become a law. What price would they command, when any 
 
MESSAGES OF PRESIDENT BITCHANAK. 263 
 
 head of a family may take possession of a quarter section of 
 land and not pay for it until the end of five years, and then 
 at the rate of only twenty-five cents per acre ? The magni- 
 tude of the interest to be effected will appear in the fact that 
 there are outstanding unsatisfied land warrants reaching back 
 to the last war with Great Britain, and even Revolutionary 
 times, amounting, in round numbers, to seven and a half mill- 
 ions of acres. 
 
 4. This bill will prove unequal and unjust iu its operation, 
 because, from its nature, it is confined to one class of our 
 people. It is a boon exclusively conferred upon the culti- 
 vators of the soil. Whilst it is cheerfully admitted that these 
 are the most numerous and useful class of our fellow-citizens, 
 and eminently deserve all the advantages which our laws have 
 already extended to them, yet there should be no new legis- 
 lation which would operate to the injury or embarrassment of 
 the large body of respectable artisans and laborers. The 
 mechanic who emigrates to the West and pursues his calUng 
 must labor long before he can purchase a quarter section of 
 land, whilst the tiller of the soil who accompanies him obtains 
 a farm at once by the bounty of the Government. The 
 numerous body of mechanics in our large cities cannot, even 
 by emigrating to the West, take advantage of the provisions 
 of this bill without entering upon a new occupation, for which 
 their habits of life have rendered them unfit. 
 
 5. This bill is unjust to the old States of the Union in many 
 respects ; and amongst these States, so far as the public lands 
 are concerned, we may enumerate every State east of the Mis- 
 sissippi, with the exception of Wisconsin and a portion of 
 Minnesota. 
 
 It is a common belief, within our limits, that the older 
 States of the Confederacy do not derive their proportionate 
 benefit from the public lands. This is not a just opinion. It 
 is doubtful whether they could be rendered more beneficial to 
 these States under any other system than that which at present 
 exists. Their proceeds go into the common treasury to aecom- 
 phsh the objects of the Government, and in this manner all 
 the States are benefited in just proportion. But to give this 
 common inheritance away would deprive the old States of 
 
264 MESSAGES OF PRESIDENT BUCHANAKT. 
 
 their just proportion of this revenue without holding out any, 
 the least, corresponding advantage. Whilst it is our common 
 glory that the new States have become so prosperous and 
 populous, therfe is no good reason why the old States should 
 oflEer premiiuns to their own citizens to emigrate from them 
 to the West. That land of promise presents in itself suffi- 
 cient allurements to our young and enterprising citizens, with- 
 out any adventitious aid. The offer of free farms would 
 probably have a powerful efiEect in encouraging emigration, 
 especially from States like Illinois, Tennessee, and Kentucky, 
 to the west of the Mississippi, and could not fail to reduce the 
 price of property within their limits. An individual in States 
 thus situated would not pay its fair value for land when, by 
 crossing the Mississippi, he could go upon the public lands 
 and obtain a farm almost without money and without price. 
 
 6. This bill will open one vast field for speculation. Men 
 will not pay $1.25 for lands when they can purchase them for 
 one-fifth of that price. Large numbers of actual settlers will 
 be carried out by capitalists upon agreements to give them 
 half of the land for the improvement of the other half. This 
 cannot be avoided. Secret agreements of this kind will be 
 numerous. In the entry of graduated lands the experience of 
 the Land Office justifies this objection. 
 
 7. We ouglit ever to maintain the most perfect equality 
 between native and naturalized citizens. They are equal, and 
 ought always to remain equal before the laws. Our laws wel- 
 come foreigners to our shores, and their rights will ever be 
 lespected. Whilst these are the sentiments on which I have 
 acted through life, it is not, in my opinion, expedient to pro- 
 claim to all the nations of the earth that whoever shall arrive 
 in this country from a foreign shore and declare his intention 
 to become a citizen shall receive a farm of one hundred and 
 sixty acres at a cost of twenty-five or twenty cents per acre, 
 if he will only reside on it and cultivate it. The invita- 
 tion extends to all ; and if this bill becomes a law we may 
 have numerous actual settlers from China and other Eastern 
 nations enjoying its benefits on the great Pacific slope. The 
 bill makes a distinction in favor of such persons over native 
 and naturalized citizens. When applied to such citizens, it is 
 
MESSAGES OF PRESIDENT BtTCHANAN. 265 
 
 confined to such as are the heads of families, but when appli- 
 cable to persons of foreign birth recently arrived on our shores, 
 there is no such restriction. Such persons need not be the 
 heads of families, provided they have filed a declaration of 
 intention to become citizens. Perhaps this distinction was an 
 inadvertence, but it is, nevertheless, a part of the bill. 
 
 8. The bill creates an unjust distinction between persons 
 claiming the benefit of the pre-emption laws. Whilst it re- 
 duces the price of the land to existing pre-emptors to sixty- 
 two and a half cents per acre, and gives them a credit on this 
 sum for two years from the present date, no matter how long 
 they may have hitherto enjoyed the land, future pre-emptors 
 will be compelled to pay double this price per acre. There is 
 no reason or justice in this discrimination. 
 
 9. The effect of this bill on the public revenue must be 
 apparent to all. Should it become a law, the reduction of the 
 price of land to actual settlers to twenty-five cents per acre, 
 with a credit of five years, and the reduction of its price to 
 existing pre-emptors to sixty-two and a half cents per acre, 
 with a credit of two years, will so diminish the sale of other 
 public lands as to render the expectation of future revenue 
 from that source, beyond the expenses of survey and manage- 
 ment, illusory. The Secretary of the Interior estimated the 
 revenue from the public lands for the next fiscal year at 
 $4,000,000, on the presumption that the present land system 
 would remain unchanged. Should this bill become a law, he 
 does not believe that $1,000,000 will be derived from this 
 source. 
 
 10. This bill lays the axe at the root of our present admir- 
 able land system. The public land . is an inheritance of vast 
 value to us and to our descendants. It is a resource to which 
 we can resort in the hour of diflSculty and danger. It has 
 been managed heretofore with the greatest wisdom under ex- 
 isting laws. In this management the rights of actual settlers 
 have been conciliated with the interests of the Government. 
 The price to all has been reduced from $2 per acre to $1.25 
 for fresh lands, and the claims of actual settlers have been 
 secured by our pre-emption laws. Any man can now acquire 
 a title in fee-simple to a homestead of eighty acres, at the 
 
266 MESSAGES OF PRESIDENT BUCHANAN. 
 
 minimum price of $1.25 per acre, for $100. Should the 
 present system remain, we shall derive a revenue from the 
 public lands of $10,000,000 per annum, when the bounty- 
 land warrants are satisfied, without oppression to any human 
 being. In time of war, when all other sources of revenue are 
 seriously impaired, this will remain intact. It may become 
 the best security for public loans hereafter, in times of diffi- 
 culty and danger, as it has been heretofore. Why should we 
 impair or destroy the system at the present moment ? What 
 necessity exists for it ? 
 
 The people of the United States have advanced with steady 
 but rapid strides to their present condition of power and pros- 
 perity. They have been guided in their progress by the fixed 
 principle of protecting the equal rights of all, whether they 
 be rich or poor. No agrarian sentiment has ever prevailed 
 among them. The honest poor man, by frugality and indus- 
 try, can, in any part of our country, acquire a competence for 
 himself and his family, and" in doing this he feels that he eats 
 the bread of independence. He desires no charity, either 
 from the Government or from his neighbors. This bill, 
 which proposes to give him land at an almost nominal price, 
 out of the property of the Government, will go far to demor- 
 alize the people, and repress this noble spirit of independence. 
 It may introduce among us those pernicious social theories 
 which have proved so disastrous in other countries. 
 
 JAMES BUCHANAN. 
 J%me 22, 1860. 
 
SPECIAL MESSAGE— OALIFOENI A MAIL SERVICE. 
 
 To the Senate and Mouse of Bejpreaentatmes : 
 
 Gentlemen : I feel it my duty to communicate to you that 
 it has been found impracticable to conclude a contract for the 
 transportation of the mails between our Atlantic and Pacific 
 ports on the terms authorized, by the fourth section of an act 
 entitled " An act making appropriations for the service of 
 -the Post Office Department during the fiscal year ending 
 June 30, 1861," approved June 15, 1860. The Postmaster 
 General has offered the California mails to several companies 
 and ship-owners engaged in the trade with the Pacific, via 
 the Isthmus, but they have all declined carrying them for 
 the postages. They demand a higher rate of compensation, 
 and unless power is given to the Postmaster General to accede 
 to this demand, I am well satisfied that these mails, with the 
 exception of the letters, cannot be forwarded. It should not 
 be forgotten that, in consequence of the diversion of a large 
 part of the letter mail to the overland route, the postage de- 
 rived from the California service has been greatly reduced, 
 and affords a wholly inadequate remuneration for the ocean 
 transportation. The weight of these mails, averaging from 
 twelve to fifteen tons, semi-monthly, renders it, in view of the 
 climate and character of the road, manifestly impossible to 
 forward them overland without involving an expenditure 
 which no wise administration of the Government would im- 
 pose upon the Treasury. I therefore earnestly recommend 
 that the act referred to be so modified as to empower the 
 Postmaster General to provide for carrying the California 
 mails at a rate of compensation which may be deemed reason- 
 able and just. 
 
 JAMES BUCHANAN. 
 
 Jmie 23, 1860. 
 
SPECIAL MESSAGE— CAPTUEED AFRICANS. 
 
 To the Senate cmd House of Representatimes : 
 
 I transmit herewith the copy of a letter dated yesterday, 
 from the Secretary of the Interior, communicating the copy 
 of a letter addressed to him on the 13th instant, by Fernando 
 I. Moreno, Marshal of the southern district of Florida. From 
 this it appears that Lieutenant Stanley, of the United States 
 Steamer Wyandotte, captured the bark WiUiam, with about- 
 five hundred and fifty African negroes on board, on the south 
 side of Cuba, near the Isle of Pines, and brought her into 
 Key West, on the 12th instant. Those negroes have doubt- 
 less been delivered to the marshal, and, with those captured 
 on board the Wildfire, will make the number in his custody 
 about one thousand. More may be daily expected at Key 
 West, which, both on account of a deficiency of water and 
 provisions, and its exposure to the yellow fever, is one of the 
 worst spots for an African negro depot which could be found 
 on the coast of the United States. 
 
 JAMES BUCHANAK 
 
SPECIAL MESSAGE OF THE PRESIDEJ^TT. 
 
 Appropriation for the Washington Aqueduct. — The President questions 
 the right of Congress to direct that it shall be expended under the 
 superintendence of Captain Meigs of the Army. — The President, as 
 Commander-in-Chief, has the sole right under the Constitution to order 
 an officer of the Army to duty.— Demoralizing effect upon the Army of 
 any such precedent. — The President construes the direction to be merely 
 an expression by Congress of a preference. 
 
 To tlie House of ItepresentaUves : 
 
 1 have approved and signed the bill entitled " An act mak- 
 ing appropriation for sundry civil expenses of the Govern- 
 ment for the year ending the 30th June, 1861." 
 
 In notifying the House of my approval of this bill, I deem 
 it proper, under the peculiar circumstances of the case, to 
 make a few explanatory observations, so that my course may 
 not hereafter be misunderstood. 
 
 Amid a great variety of important appropriations, this bill 
 contains an appropriation " for the completion of the Wash- 
 ington Aqueduct, $500,000, to be expended according to the 
 plans and estimates of Captain Meigs, and under his super- 
 intendence ; provided that the office of engineer of the Poto- 
 mac water -works is hereby abolished, and its duties shall here- 
 after be discharged by the chief engineer of the Washington 
 Aqueduct." To this appropriation, for a wise and beneficial 
 object, I have not the least objection. It is true I had reason 
 to believe, when the last appropriation was made, of $800,000, 
 on the 12th June, 1858, " for the completion of the Washing- 
 ton Aqueduct," that this would have been sufficient for the 
 purpose. It is now discovered, however, that it will require 
 $500,000 more " for the completion of the Washington Aque- 
 duct," and this ought to be granted. 
 
 The Captain Meigs to whom the bill refers is Montgomery 
 C. Meigs, a captain in the corps of engineers of the Army of 
 
270 MESSAGES OP PEESIDENT BTJCHANAlir. 
 
 the United States, who has superintended this work from its 
 commencement, under the authority of the late and present 
 Secretary of War. 
 
 Had this appropriation been made in the usual form, no 
 difSculty could have arisen upon it. This bill, however, an- 
 nexes a declaration to the appropriation that the money is to 
 be expended under the superintendence of Captain Meigs. 
 
 The first aspect in which this clause presented itself to my 
 mind was that it interfered with the right of the President to 
 be " Commander-in-Chief of the Army and Navy of the 
 United States." If this had really been the case there would 
 have been an end to the question. Upon further examina- 
 tion, I deemed it impossible that Congress could have intended 
 to interfere with the clear right of the President to command 
 the army and to order its officers to any duty he might deem 
 most expedient for the public interest. If they could with- 
 draw an officer from the command of the President, and select 
 him for the performance of an Executive duty, they might, 
 upon the same principle, an-nex to an appropriation to carry 
 on a war a condition requiring it not to be used for the de- 
 fence of the country unless a particular person of its own 
 selection should command the army. It was impossible that 
 Congress could have had such an intention, and, therefore, 
 according to my construction of the clause in question, it 
 merely designated Captain Meigs as its preference for the 
 work, without intending to deprive the President of the 
 power to order him to any other army duty for the perform- 
 ance of which he might consider him better adapted. Still, 
 whilst this clause may not be, and I beheve is not, a violation 
 of the Constitution, yet, how destmctive it would be to all 
 proper subordination, and how demoralizing in its effect upon 
 the morale of the army, if it should become a precedent for 
 future legislation. Officers might then be found, instead of 
 performing their appropriate duties, besieging the halls of 
 Congress for the purpose of obtaining special favors and 
 choice places by legislative enactment. Under these circum- 
 stances, I have deemed it but fair to inform Congress that, 
 whilst I do not consider the bill imconstitutional, this is only 
 because, in my opinion. Congress did not intend, by the Ian- 
 
MESSAGES OP PRESIDENT BUOHAKAM". 271 
 
 guage which they have employed, to interfere with my abso- 
 lute authority to order Captain Meigs to any other service I 
 might deem expedient. My perfect right still remains, not- 
 withstanding the clause, to send him away from Washington 
 to any part of the Union to superintend the erection of a for- 
 tification or any other appropriate duty. 
 
 It has been alleged, I think without sufiBcient cause, that 
 this clause is unconstitutional, because it has created a new 
 office, and has appointed Captain Meigs to perform its duties. 
 If it had done this it would have been a clear question, 
 because Congress have no right to appoint to any office, this 
 being specially conferred upon the President and Senate. It 
 is evident Congress intended nothing more by this clause than 
 to express a decided opinion that Captain Meigs should be 
 continued in the employment to which he had been previously 
 assigned by competent authority. 
 
 It is not improbable that another question of grave impor- 
 tance may arise out of this clause. Is the appropriation con- 
 ditional, and will it fall provided I do not deem it proper that 
 it shall be expended under the superintendence of Captain 
 Meigs ? 
 
 This is a question which shall receive serious consideration, 
 because upon its decision may depend whether the completion 
 of the water- works shall be arrested for another season. It is 
 not probable that Congress could have intended that this great 
 and important work should depend upon the various casualties 
 and vicissitudes incident to the natural or official life of a 
 single officer of the army. This would be to make the work 
 subordinate to the man, and not the man to the work, and to 
 reverse our great axiomatic rule of " Principles, not men." 
 I desire to express no opinion upon the subject. Should the 
 question ever arise, it shall have my serious consideration. 
 
 JAMES BUCHANAN". 
 
 Washington, 26 June, 1860. 
 
SPECIAL MESSAGE— YIRGINIA PEACE KESOLU- 
 
 TIONS. 
 
 The President submits to Congress the peace resolutions of the Legisla- 
 ture of Virginia. — The invitation contained in them. — The President 
 hails this movement with great satisfaction. — A Commissioner, ex-Presi- 
 dent Tyler, appointed to the President, also a Commissioner to the State 
 of South Carolina and others, with instructions to request these to ab- 
 stain, pending the proposed peace efforts, from acts calculated to produce 
 collision of arms. — The President unable to make such an agreement, as 
 Congress alone possess this power ; this policy cordially commended to 
 them. — If the seceding States abstain the danger wUl not exist, as defence 
 and not aggression has been the policy of the Administration. — The 
 President " will never despair of the Eepublio." — The American people 
 will perpetuate the Union on some terms just and honorable to all sec- 
 tions of the country. 
 
 To the Senate cmd House of Bepresentataves of the United 
 States : 
 
 I deem it my duty to submit to Congress a series of resolu- 
 tions adopted by the Legislature of Yirginia, of the 19th in- 
 stant, having in view a peaceful settlement of the exciting 
 questions which now threaten the Union. They were deliv- 
 ered to me on Thursday, the 24:th instant, by ex-President 
 Tyler, who has left his dignified and honored retirement in 
 the hope that he may render service to his country in this its 
 hour of peril. These resolutions, it will be perceived, extend 
 an invitation "to all such States, whether slaveholding • or 
 non-slaveholding, as are willing to unite with Virginia in an 
 earnest effort to adjust the present unhappy controversies in 
 tlie spirit in which the Constitution was originally formed, 
 and consistently with its principles, so as to afford to the peo- 
 ple of the slaveholding States adequate guarantees for the 
 security of their rights, to appoint commissioners to meet on 
 the ith day of February next, in the city of Washington, 
 
MESSAGES OF PRESIDENT BUCHAWAN. 273 
 
 similar commissioners appointed by Virginia, to consider, 
 and, if practicable, agree upon some suitable adjustment." 
 
 I confess I bail tbis movement on the part of Virginia with 
 great satisfaction. From tbe past history of this ancient and 
 renowned Commonwealth, we have the fullest assurance that 
 what she has undertaken she will accomplish, if it can be 
 done by able, enlightened, and persevering efforts. It is 
 highly gratifying to know that other patriotic States have 
 appointed, and are appointing, commissioners to meet those 
 of Virginia in council. "When assembled, they will constitute 
 a body entitled, in an eminent degree, to the confidence of 
 the country. 
 
 The General Assembly of Virginia have also resolved " that 
 ex-President John Tyler is hereby appointed, by the concur- 
 i^nt vote of each branch of the General Assembly, a commis- 
 sioner to the President of the United States ; and Judge John 
 Robertson is hereby appointed, by a like vote, a commissioner 
 to the State of South Carolina and the other States that have 
 seceded or shall secede, with instructions respectfully to re- 
 quest the President of the United States, and the authorities 
 of such States, to agree to abstain, pending the proceedings 
 contemplated by the action of this General Assembly, from 
 any and all acts calculated to produce a collision of arms be- 
 tween the States and the Government of the United States." 
 
 However strong may be my desire to enter into such an 
 agreement, I am convinced that I do not possess the power. 
 Congress, and Congress alone, under the war-making power, 
 can exercise the discretion of agreeing to abstain " from any 
 and all acts calculated to produce a collision of arms" between 
 this and any other Government. It would therefore be a 
 usurpation for the Executive to attempt to restrain their 
 hands by an agreement in regard to matters over which he 
 has no constitutional control. If he were thus to act they 
 might pass laws which he should be bound to obey, though in 
 conflict with his agreement. 
 
 Under existing circumstances, my present actual power is 
 
 confined within narrow limits. It is my duty at all times to 
 
 defend and protect the public property within the seceding 
 
 States so far as this may be practicable, and especially to em- 
 
 18 
 
274 MESSAGES OF PBESIDENT BTJCHAKAH". 
 
 ploy all constitutional means to protect the property of the 
 United States, and to preserve the public peace at this the 
 seat of the Federal Government. If the seceding States 
 abstain " from any and all acts calculated to produce a colli- 
 sion, of arms," then the danger so much to be deprecated will 
 no longer exist. Defence and not aggression has been the 
 policy of the administration from the beginning. 
 
 But whilst I can enter into no engagement such as that pro- 
 posed, I cordially commend to Congress, with much confi- 
 dence that it will meet their approbation, to abstain from 
 passing any law calculated to produce a collision of arms 
 pending the proceedings contemplated by the action of the 
 General Assembly of Yirginia. I am one of those who will 
 never despair of the Eepublic. I yet cherish the belief that 
 the American people will perpetuate the Union of the States, 
 on some terms just and honorable for all sections of the 
 country. I trust that the mediation of Yirginia may be the 
 destined means, under Providence, of accomplishing this in- 
 estimable benefit. Glorious as are the memories of her past 
 history, such an achievement, both in relation to her own 
 fame and the welfare of the whole country, would surpass 
 them all. 
 
 JAMES BUCHANAN". 
 
 Washington City, Jcmnary 28, 1861. 
 
CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES- 
 PROPOSITION TO AMEND. 
 
 Special Message from the President, transmitting Kesolutions of the 
 Legislature of Kentucky. — Applying for the call of a Convention for 
 proposing amendments to the Constitution of the United States. 
 
 To the Senate and House of Hepresentatives : 
 
 I have received from the governor of Kentucky certain 
 resolutions adopted by the general assembly of that Common- 
 wealth, containing an application to Congress for the call of a 
 convention for proposing amendments to the Constitution of 
 the United States, with a request that I should immediately 
 place the same before that body. It affords me great satisfac- 
 tion to perform this duty ; and I feel quite confident that 
 Congress will bestow upon these resolutions the careful con- 
 sideration to which they are eminently entitled, on account of 
 the distinguished and patriotic source from which they pro- 
 ceed, as well as the great importance of the subject which 
 they involve. 
 
 JAMES BUCHANAN. 
 
 Washington, February 5, 1861. 
 
SOUTH CAEOLINA AFFAIKS. 
 
 Special Message from the President, transmitting correspondence in 
 relation to Fort Sumter, etc. 
 
 To the Senate cmd House of JRepresentatimes : 
 
 I deemed it a duty to transmit to Congress, with my mes- 
 sage of the Sth of January, the correspondence which occurred 
 in December last between the " commissioners" of South 
 Caroh'na and myself. 
 
 Since that period, on the 14th January Colonel Isaac W". 
 Hayne, the attorney general of South Carolina, called and in- 
 formed me that he was the bearer of a letter from Governor 
 Pickens to myself, which he would deliver the next day. He 
 was, however, induced, by the interposition of Hon. Jefferson 
 Davis and nine other senators from the seceded and seceding 
 States, not to deliver it on the day appointed, nor was it com- 
 municated to me until the 31st of January, with his letter of 
 that date. Their letter to him urging this delay bears date 
 January 15, and was the commencement of a correspondence, 
 the whole of which in my possession 1 now submit to Congress. 
 A reference to each letter of the series, in proper order, 
 accompanies this message. 
 
 JAMES BUCHANAN. ' 
 \ Washington, Februa/ry 8, 1861. 
 
SEIZURE OF NEW ORLEANS MINT. 
 
 Special Message from the President in relation to the seizure of the Mint 
 
 at New Orleans. 
 
 To the House of Hepre^eniMimes of the United States : 
 
 In answer to a resolution of the House of Representatives, 
 adopted on the 11th instant, respecting the seizure of the mint 
 at New Orleans, with a large sum of money therein, by the 
 authorities of the State of Louisiana, the refusal of the treas- 
 urer of the branch mint to pay drafts of the United States, 
 &c., I have to state that all the information within my posses- 
 sion or power on these subjects was communicated to the 
 House by the Secretary of the Treasury on the 21st instant, 
 and was prepared under the resolution above referred to, and 
 a resolution of the same date addressed to himself. 
 
 JAMES BUCHANAN. 
 Washington, February 23, 1861. 
 
ASSEMBLING OF TROOPS IN WASHINGTON CITY. 
 
 Special Message from the President in answer to a Kesolntion of the House 
 calling for information in regard to the assembling of troops in the 
 City of Washington. 
 
 To the House of Bepresentatives : 
 
 In answer to their resolution of the 11th instant " that the 
 President of the United States furnish to this House, if not 
 incompatible with the public service, the reasons that have 
 induced him to assemble so large a number of troops in this 
 city, and why they are kept here ; and whether he has any 
 information of a conspiracy upon the part of any portion of 
 the citizens of this country to seize upon the capital and pre- 
 vent the inauguration of the President elect." 
 
 The President submits that the number of troops assembled 
 in this city is not large, as the resolution presupposes, its total 
 amount being six hundred and fifty-three men, exclusive of 
 the marines, who are, of course, at the navy yard as their 
 appropriate station. These troops were ordered here to act as 
 & posse comitaPus, in strict subordination to the civil authority, 
 for the purpose of preserving peace and order in the city of 
 Washington, should this become necessary, before or at the 
 period of the inauguration of the President elect. 
 
 Since the date of the resolution, the Hon. Mr. Howard, 
 from the select committee, has made a report to the House on 
 this subject. It was thoroughly investigated by that com- 
 mittee ; and although they have expressed the opinion " that 
 the evidence produced before them does not prove the exist- 
 ence of a secret organization here or elsewhere, hostile to the 
 government, that has for its object, upon its own responsi- 
 bility, an attack upon the Capitol or any of the public prop- 
 erty here, or an interruption of any of the functions of the 
 government ;" yet the House laid upon the table, by a very 
 
MESSAGES or PRESIDENT BUCHANAN'. 279 
 
 large majority, a resolution expressing tlie opinion " that the 
 regular troops now in this city ought to be forthwith removed 
 therefrom." This of itself was a sufficient reason for not 
 withdrawing the troops. 
 
 But -what was the duty of the President at the time the 
 troops were ordered to this city ? Ought he to have waited, 
 before this precautionary measure was adopted, until he could 
 obtain proof that a secret conspiracy existed to seize the capi- 
 tal ? In the language of the select committee, this was " in a 
 time of high excitement consequent upon revolutionary events 
 transpiring all around us, the very air filled with rumors, and 
 individuals indulging in the most extravagant expressions of 
 fears and threats." Under these and other circumstances, 
 which I need not detail, but which appear in the testimony 
 before the select committee, I was convinced that I ought to 
 act. The safety of the immense amount of public property in 
 this city and that of the archives of the government, in which 
 all the States, and especially the new States, in which the 
 public lands are situated, have a deep interest ; the peace and 
 order of the city itself, and the security of the inauguration 
 of the President elect, were objects of such vast importance to 
 the whole country that I could not hesitate to adopt precau- 
 tionary defensive measures. At the present moment, when 
 all is quiet, it is difficult to realize the state of alarm which 
 prevailed when the troops were first ordered to this city. 
 This almost instantly subsided after the arrival of the first 
 company, and a feeling of comparative peace and security has 
 since existed both in Washington and throughout the country. 
 Had I refused to adopt this precautionary measure, and evil 
 consequences, which many good men at the time apprehended, 
 had followed, I should never have forgiven myself. 
 
 JAMES BUCHANAN. 
 "WASHmeTON, Ma/roh 1, 1861. 
 
SPECIAL MESSAGE FROM THE PRESIDENT OF 
 THE UNITED STATES, COMMUNICATING COP- 
 IES OF CORRESPONDENCE WITH THE 
 " COMMISSIONERS " OF SOUTH CAROLINA. 
 
 The President refers to his Annual Message of December last, and states 
 that his convictions as to the measures needed to save the country from 
 its peril remain unchanged. There has been no change for the better 
 since, but the reverse.— The prospect of a bloodless settlement is fading, 
 away from the continued inaction of Congress. — The Treasury notes 
 authorized by act of 17th December last find no bidders at par for a less 
 rate of interest than twelve per cent. — Domestic strife, and fear of civil 
 hostilities, more destructive to our interests than the most formidable 
 foreign war. — The President reaffirms his conviction that no State can 
 secede from the Union, and the Executive has no authority to recognize 
 secession. It is still his purpose to collect the public revenues, and pro- 
 tect the public property, so far as existing laws enable him. It is for 
 Congress to repeal, modify, or enlarge these laws to meet the exigency. — 
 The President decides that he has no right to make aggressive war upon 
 any State as such, and is satisfied that the Constitution has withheld 
 that power even from Congress. It is, however, clear and undeniable, 
 that military force can be used defensively against all who resist the Fed- 
 eral officers in the execution of their legal functions, and those who assail 
 the Federal property, but the ordinary Executive powers, as already pro- 
 vided by law, are insufficient. Congress alone authorized to meet the 
 existing emergency. They alone can authorize the employment of ade- 
 quate military force, and provide the same or remove dangerous griev- 
 ances.— The Union a sacred trust. — Its incalculable advantages to all sec- 
 tions. — The secession movement chiefly based on misapprehension at the 
 South of the sentiments of the majority in several of the Northern States. 
 — A common ground for conciliation and harmony not unattainable. — A 
 compromise by letting the North have exclusive control of the territory 
 above a certain line, and to give Southern institutions protection below 
 that line, ought to meet universal approbation. — Forts, arsenals, and mag- 
 azines of the United States have been seized ; this seizure purely aggres- 
 sive. — The President' s determined purpose not to commence or furnish the 
 excuse for civil war, and for this reason he has refrained from reinforcing 
 General Anderson unless absolutely necessary. — Reasons for General 
 Anderson's removal from Fort Moultrie to Fort Sumter, and his author- 
 ity to do so under orders of the War Department of December 11th. — 
 Apprehensions of disturbance of peace of District of Oolximbia on ap- 
 
MESSAGES OP PRESIDENT BUCHAWAST. 281 
 
 proaching 4tli March. In any event, the President's duty to preserve 
 it shall be performed by him. 
 
 To tJie Senate cmd House of Representatives : 
 
 At the opening of your present session I called your atten- 
 tion to the dangers which threatened the existence of the 
 Union. I expressed my opinion freely concerning the orig- 
 inal causes of these dangers, and recommended such measures 
 as I believed would have the effect of tranquillizing the coun- 
 try and saving it from the peril in which it had been need- 
 lessly and most unfortunately involved. Those opinions and 
 recommendations I do not propose now to repeat. My own 
 convictions upon the whole subject remain unchanged. 
 
 The fact that a great calamity was impending over the 
 nation was even at that time acknowledged by every intelli- 
 gent citizen. It had already made itself felt throughout the 
 length and breadth of the land. The necessary consequences 
 of the alarm thus produced were most deplorable. The im- 
 ports fell off with a rapidity never known before, except in 
 time of war, in the history of our foreign commerce ; the 
 treasury was unexpectedly left without the means which it 
 had reasonably counted upon to meet the public engagements ; 
 trade was paralyzed ; manufactures were stopped ; the best 
 public securities suddenly sunk in the market ; every species 
 of property depreciated more or less ; and thousands of poor 
 men, who depended upon their daily labor for their daily 
 bread, were turned out of employment. 
 
 I deeply regret that I am not able to give you any informa- 
 tion upon the State of the Union which is more satisfactory 
 than what I was then obliged to communicate. On the con- 
 trary, matters are still worse at present than they then were. 
 When Congress met, a strong hope pervaded the whole public 
 mind that some amicable adjustment of the subject would 
 speedily be made by the representatives of the States and of 
 the people, which might restore peace between the conflicting 
 sections of the country. That hope has been diminished by 
 every hour of delay ; and as the prospect of a bloodless settle- 
 ment fades away, the public distress becomes more and more 
 aggravated. As evidence of this it is only necessary to say 
 
282 MESSAGES OP PEESIDENT BTJCHABTAIir. 
 
 that tlie treasury notes authorized by the act of 17th Decem- 
 ber last were advertised, according to the law, and that no re- 
 sponsible bidder oflEered to take any considerable sum at par 
 at a lower rate of interest than twelve per cent. From these 
 facts it appears that, in a government organized like ours, 
 domestic strife, or even a well-grounded fear of civil hostil- 
 ities, is more destructive to our public and private interests 
 than the most formidable foreign war. 
 
 In my annual message I expressed the conviction, which I 
 have long deliberately held, and which recent reflection has 
 only tended to deepen and confirm, that no State has a right 
 by its own act to secede from the Union, or throw off its 
 federal obligations at pleasure. I also declared my opinion 
 to be that, even if that right existed and should be exercised 
 by any State of the confederacy, the executive department of 
 this government had no authority under the Constitution to 
 recognize its validity by acknowledging the independence of 
 such State. This left me no alternative, as the chief execu- 
 tive officer under the Constitution of the United States, but 
 to collect the public revenues and to protect the public prop- 
 erty so far as this might be practicable under existing laws. 
 This is still my purpose. My province is to execute, and not to 
 make, the laws. It belongs to Congress, exclusively, to re- 
 peal, to modify, or to enlarge their provisions, to meet ex- 
 igencies as they may occur. I possess no dispensing power. 
 
 I certainly had no right to make aggressive war upon any 
 State, and I am perfectly satisfied that the Constitution has 
 wisely withheld that power e.ven from Congress. But the 
 right and the duty to use military force defensively against 
 those who resist the federal officers in the execution of their 
 legal functions, and against those who assail the property of 
 the federal government, is clear and undeniable. 
 
 But the dangerous and hostile attitude of the States towards 
 each other has already far transcended and cast in the shade 
 the ordinary executive duties already provided for by law, 
 and has assumed such vast and alarming proportions as to 
 place the subject entirely above and beyond executive control. 
 The fact cannot be disguised that we are in the midst of a 
 great revolution. In all its various bearings, therefore, I 
 
MESSAGES OP PEESIDENT BUCHANAN. 283 
 
 commend the question to Congress, as the only human tribunal, 
 under Providence, possessing the power to meet the existing 
 emergency. To them, exclusi vely, belongs the power to declare 
 war, or to authorize the employmeat of military force in alj. 
 cases contemplated by the Constitution ; and they alone pos- 
 sess the power to remove grievances which might lead to war, 
 and to secure peace and union to this distracted country. On 
 them, and on them alone, rests the responsibility. 
 
 The Union is a sacred trust left by our revolutionary fathers 
 to their descendants ; and never did any other people inherit 
 so rich a legacy. It has rendered us prosperous in peace and 
 triumphant in war. The national flag has floated in glory 
 over every sea. Under its shadow American citizens have 
 foand protection and respect in all lands beneath the sun. If 
 we descend to considerations of purely material interest, when, 
 in the history of all time, has a confederacy been bound 
 together by such strong ties of mutual interest ? Each por- 
 tion of it is dependent on all, and all upon each portion, for 
 prosperity and domestic security. Free trade throughout the 
 whole supplies the wants of one portion from the productions 
 of another, and scatters wealth everywhere. ' The great plant- 
 ing and farming States require the aid of the commercial and 
 navigating States to send their productions to domestic and 
 foreign markets, and to furnish the naval power to render 
 their transportation secure against all hostile attacks. 
 
 Should the Union perish in the midst of the present excite- 
 ment we have already had a sad foretaste of the universal 
 suffering which would result from its destruction. The ca- 
 lamity would be severe in every portion of the Union, and 
 would be quite as great, to say the least, in the southern as in 
 the northern States. The greatest aggravation of the evil, 
 and that which would place us in the most unfavorable light 
 both before the world and posterity is, as I am firmly con- 
 vinced, that the secession movement has been chiefly based 
 upon a misapprehension at the south of the sentiments of the 
 majority in several of the northern States. Let the question 
 be transferred from political assemblies to the ballot-box, and 
 the people themselves would speedily redress the serious griev- 
 ances which the south have suffered. But, in Heaven's name, 
 
284 MESSAGES OF PBESIDEKT BTJCHANAX. 
 
 let the trial be made before we plunge into armed conflict 
 upon the mere assumption that there is no other alternative. 
 Time is a great eonser native power. Let us pause at this 
 momentous point and afford the people, both north and south, 
 an opportunity for reflection. Would that South Carolina 
 had been convinced of this truth before her precipitate action ! 
 I, therefore, appeal through you to the people of the country 
 to declare in their might that the Union must and shall be 
 preserved by all constitutional means. I most earnestly 
 recommend that you devote yourselves, exclusively, to the 
 question how this can be accomplished in peace. All other 
 questions, when compared with this, sink into insignificance. 
 The present is no time for palliations ; action, prompt action, 
 is required. A delay in Congress to prescribe or to recom- 
 mend a distinct and practical proposition for conciliation may 
 drive us to a point from which it will be almost impossible to 
 recede. 
 
 A common ground on which conciliation and harmony can 
 be produced is surely not unattainable. The proposition to 
 compromise by letting the north have exclusive control of the 
 territory above a 'certain line, and to give southern institutions 
 protection below that line, ought to receive universal appro- 
 bation. In itself, indeed, it may not be entirely satisfactory ; 
 but when the alternative is between a reasonable concession on 
 both sides and a destruction of the Union, it is an imputation 
 upon the patriotism of Congress to assert that its members 
 will hesitate for a moment. 
 
 Even now the danger is upon us. In several of the States 
 which have not yet seceded the forts, arsenals and magazines 
 of the United States have been seized. This is by far the 
 most serious step which has been taken since the commence- 
 ment of the troubles. This public property has long been left 
 without garrisons and troops for its protection, because no 
 person doubted its security under the flag of the country in 
 any State of the Union. Besides, our small army has scarcely 
 been sufficient to guard our remote frontiers against Indian 
 incursions. The seizure of this property, from all appear- 
 ances, has been purely aggressive, and not in resistance to any 
 attempt to coerce a State or States to remain in the Union. 
 
MESSAGES OP PEESIDEKT BUCHAITAlir. 285 
 
 At the beginning of these unhappy troubles I determined 
 that no act of mine should increase the excitement in either 
 section of the country. If the political conflict were to end 
 in a civil war, it was my determined purpose not to commence 
 it, nor even to furnish an excuse for it by any act of this gov- 
 ernment. My opinion remains unchanged, that justice as 
 well as sound policy requires us still to seek a peaceful solu- 
 tion of the questions at issue between the north and the south. 
 Entertaining this conviction, I refrained even from sending 
 reinforcements to Major Anderson, who commanded the forts 
 in Charleston harbor, until an absolute necessity for doing so 
 should make itself apparent, lest it might unjustly be regarded 
 as a menace of military coercion, and thus furnish, if not a 
 provocation, at least a pretext for an outbreak on the part of 
 South Carolina. No necessity for these reinforcements seemed 
 to exist. 1 was assured by distinguished and upright gentle- 
 men of South Carolina that no attack upon Major Anderson 
 was intended, but that, on the contrary, it was the desire of 
 the State authorities, as much as it was my own, to avoid the 
 fatal consequences which must eventually follow a military 
 collision. 
 
 And here I deem it proper to submit, for your information, 
 copies of a communication dated December 28, 1860, ad- 
 dressed to me by R. W. Barnwell, J. H. Adams, and James 
 L. Orr, " Commissioners" from South Carolina, with the 
 accompanying documents, and copies of my answer thereto, 
 dated December 31. 
 
 In further explanation of Major Anderson's removal from 
 Fort Moultrie to Fort Sumter, it is proper to state that, after 
 my answer to the South Carolina " Commissioners," the War 
 Department received a letter from that gallant officer, dated 
 December 27, 1860, the day after this niovement, from which 
 the following is an extract : 
 
 " I will add, as my opinion, that many things convinced 
 me that the authorities of the State designed to proceed to a 
 hostile act," 
 
 Evidently referring to the orders, dated December 11, of 
 the late Secretary of "War. 
 
 " Under this impression, I could not hesitate that it was my 
 
286 MESSAGES 01' PEESIDENT BTTCHANAN. 
 
 solemn duty to move my command from a fort which we could 
 not probably have held longer than forty-eight or sixty hours 
 to this one, where my power of resistance is increased to a 
 very great degree. " 
 
 It will be recollected that the concluding part of these 
 orders was in the following terms : 
 
 " The smallness of your force will not permit you, perhaps, 
 to occupy more than one of the three forts ; but an attack on, 
 or attempt to take possession of either one of them, will be 
 regarded as an act of hostility, and you may then put your 
 command into either of them which you may deem most 
 proper to increase its power of resistance. Tou are also 
 authorized to take similar defensive steps whenever you have 
 tangible evidence of a design to proceed to a hostile act." 
 
 It is said that serious apprehensions are, to some extent, 
 entertained, in which I do not share, that the peace of this 
 District may be disturbed before the 4th of March next. In 
 any event, it will be my duty to preserve it, and this duty 
 shall be performed. 
 
 In conclusion, it may be permitted to me. to remark that I 
 have often warned my countrymen of the dangers which now 
 surround us. This may be the last time I shall refer to the 
 subject officially. I feel that my duty has been faithfully, 
 though it may be imperfectly, performed ; and whatever the 
 result may be, I shall carry to my grave the consciousness 
 that I at least meant well for my country. 
 
 JAMES BUCHANAN. 
 Washington Citt, Januwry 8, 1861. 
 
APPEInTDIX. 
 
 LETTER OF THE HON. JOSEPH HOLT, 
 
 Secretary of War in the latter months of President Buchanan's administra- 
 tion, and Judge- Advocate-General under President Lincoln' s administra- 
 tion, in regard to the so-called " Cabinet Crisis." 
 
 Garden Citt, Long Island, N. Y., ) 
 17th March, 1884. • j 
 
 Mt deae Sir : I enclose you herewith a few lines cut from 
 what purports to be advance sheets from Mr. Blaine's forth- 
 coming book. 
 
 The statement reflecting upon President Buchanan I believe 
 to be both cruel cmd untruthfvZ. It is an ill-defined and in- 
 tangible charge, which may be fi.lled up according to the wishes 
 or prejudices of the reader. It means, if anything, that Mr. 
 . Buchanan was about to prove false to his sworn duty, and all his 
 past record, by acknowledging in some way the right of seces- 
 sion at the demand of the South Carolina "Commissioners," 
 or that he entertained some idea of handing over the Federal 
 property to that State, or that he proposed to order General 
 Anderson back to the untenable fort he had just evacuated, 
 and that he had expressed some such intentions in his draft 
 of reply to the South Carolina Commissioners. Nothing less 
 serious would warrant the severe language employed by Mr. 
 Blaine, which I quote, " compromising to the honor of the 
 Executive," " perilous to the integrity of the Union," " fatal 
 concession." 
 
 If early twenty-five years had elapsed, after the period re- 
 ferred to, before any such charge was ever suggested against the 
 wisdom and patriotism of President Buchanan. It first ap- 
 peared about two years ago in the report of an " interviewer" 
 published in a malignant Philadelphia newspaper — one that 
 had ever persecuted Mr. Buchanan, living and dead. It is 
 
288 APPENDIX. 
 
 now given more credibility and prominence by tbe writings 
 of a distinguished public man, and if untrue, it shonld be 
 promptly met and refuted by Mr. Buchanan's friends and all 
 to whom his memory is dear. I have always understood 
 from Mr. Buchanan and others that the only real difference 
 on that occasion, now so highly colored by Mr. Blaine, be- 
 tween the President, Judge Black, Mr. Stanton, and yourself, 
 was not at all a difference of vital or Constitutional principles, 
 but simply a difference as to the phraseology most appropriate 
 and least liable to misconstruction by the ' 'Commissioners " and 
 Secessionists, which should be used in the President's reply 
 to their demand. And I have always understood that Mr. 
 Buchanan frankly and promptly yielded his opinion as to the 
 most appropriate language, and requested Judge Black to take 
 the draft and modify it so as to best express the principles and 
 policy that had been unanimously and deliberately adopted 
 by the Administration. 
 
 You are now the only living man who knows the exact 
 truth of this matter, having been an actor in it. It is very 
 dear to us of Mr. Buchanan's family to have his name pro- 
 tected in this, which has the appearance of being a vulnerable 
 point. 1 believe you to be too magnanimous to withhold 
 from ns, if we are right, your assurances that Mr. Blaine is 
 mistaken in this statement. 
 
 This vague, but nevertheless grave charge, may go down 
 into history as a blot on President Buchanan's memory, and 
 crystallize into various dangerous shapes, if not now dis- 
 proved. You alone can furnish us with the means of contra- 
 dicting it in the most effectual and final manner. 
 "With kind remembrances. 
 
 Yours faithfully, 
 
 J. Buchanan Henbt. 
 
 Washington, D. C, May 26, 188i. 
 J. Buchanan Henry, Esq. 
 
 Deae Sir : I am in receipt of your letter calling my atten- 
 tion to the following extract from a forthcoming volume of 
 political history by the Hon. James G. Blaine : 
 
APPEKDIX. 289 
 
 " Judge Black's change, however important to his own 
 fame, would prove comparatively fruitless, unless he could 
 influence Mr. Buchanan to break with the men who had been 
 artfully using the power of his administration to destroy the 
 Union. The opportunity and the test came promptly. The 
 new " sovereign, free, and independent government of South 
 Carolina" sent commissioners to Washington to negotiate for 
 the surrender of the national forts and the transfer of the 
 national property within her limits. Mr. Buchcman pre- 
 pared cm answer to their request which v>as compromising to 
 the honor of the Execulme and perilous to tlie integrity of the 
 Union. Judge Black took a decided and irrevocable stand 
 against the President's position. He advised Mr. Buchanan 
 that upon the basis of that fatal concession to the disunion 
 leaders, he could not remain in his Cabinet. It was a sharp 
 issue, but was soon adjusted. Mr. Buchanan gave way, and 
 permitted Judge Black and his associates. Holt and Stanton, 
 to frame a reply for the Administration. ' ' 
 
 Ton desire my opinion particularly on the statement that 
 "Mr. Buchanan prepared an answer to their request which 
 was compromising to the honor of the Executive and perilous 
 to the integrity of the Union." These words mast certainly 
 seem strange and harsh to those who knew Mr. Buchanan 
 well, and had Mr. Blaine been in possession of all the infor- 
 mation beai'ing on the action thus arraigned he could not have 
 expressed his estimate of it in terms so severe as those he has 
 employed. Mr. Buchanan hadHSO^guarded his personal honor 
 through a long life, that at its close there was found upon it 
 neither stain nor trace of stain ; with equal solicitude, and, 
 in my belief, with equal success, did he watch over the honor 
 of the great office he held. Of all the illustrious men who 
 had occupied that seat of power before him, none had been 
 less capable than he of lowering its dignity or impairing its 
 integrity. Equally incapable was he of saying or doing aught 
 which, in his judgment, could prove in the remotest degree 
 " perilous to the Union." The letter alluded to, and which 
 was prepared by the President's own hand, no longer exists, 
 and can therefore be spoken of only by way of general recol- 
 lection. When it was read on the evening of the 29 th of 
 19 
 
290 APPENDIX. 
 
 December, dissatisfaction was evidenced by the loyal members 
 of the Cabinet through suggestions conversationally made. 
 Nothing occurred on the occasion which could be called a dis- 
 cussion, nor can I recall that the President manifested any 
 dissent from the views thus made known to him. He lis- 
 tened, and then quietly and kindly — as was his habit — took 
 what had been said under consideration. The objections thus 
 arising did not go to any doctrinal conclusions reached by the 
 President, but were rather structural and verbal in their 
 character, contemplating the omission of certain passages, and 
 seeking by amendment of the framework and phraseology 
 of the paper — while announcing the President's views with 
 frankness and commanding force — to enforce them by a dis- 
 tinctness of utterance which would render any mischievous 
 misinterpretation of them by the. Commissioners or others im- 
 possible. The acknowledged importance of the communica- 
 tion necessarily imposed the obligation of this caution and this 
 anxiety to protect the President from all harmful implications 
 as to the opinions actually held by him. 
 
 After this Cabinet meeting Judge Black formulated his ob- 
 jections to the President's letter in a " Memorandum," which 
 has been preserved, and was given by him to the public, 
 through a correspondent of the Philadelphia Press, in which 
 journal it appeared on the Yth of August, 1881. It is scarcely 
 possible to read this " Memorandum" without being im- 
 pressed by the highly excited apprehensions under which it 
 was obviously written, and by the apparent severity of its 
 criticism. The judge did nothing by halves, and in the 
 fervor of his loyalty to the Union, he commented not only on 
 what had been evolved in the Cabinet, but much more, elab- 
 orating and intensifying his strictures by the vigor of speech 
 for which he was so distinguished. On reading the following 
 day the objections, as thus arrayed, to his draught of an answer 
 to the Commissioners, the President unhesitatingly directed 
 that an answer should be prepared in accordance with the 
 changes desired, and this was accordingly done. From this 
 recital it would seem that too much gravity has been assigned 
 to this consultation of the President with his Cabinet, and to 
 the modification of an official paper resulting from it. The 
 
APPENDIX. 291 
 
 whole proceeding followed the usages of the Presidential 
 office, and in avaih'ng himself of the counsels of his Cabinet 
 the President sacriticed neither the independence of his Judg-, 
 inent nor his dignity. 
 
 It has been stated that Judge Black said to the President, 
 and to Secretary Toucey as well, that he could not remain in 
 the Cabinet if the proposed answer to the Commissioners re- 
 mained unchanged. His highly impulsive temperament, and 
 the supreme solicitude under which we were acting, may have 
 led him to say so much, but if so, it was unknown to me at 
 the time. Certainly no such avowal was made to myself, nor 
 did 1 make any such to him or others, and of this he has left 
 record evidence. In a letter from him to Mr. ScheU, under 
 date of 6th of August, 1863, he said : " Neither Mr. Stanton 
 nor Mr. Holt ever spoke to the President about resigning, 
 upon any contingency whatever, before the incoming of the 
 new Administration. " Remembering now the absence of any 
 manifestation of dissent on the part of the President, and the 
 readiness with which he yielded to the changes proposed, 
 there would seem to have been little ground or opportunity 
 for so extreme a declaration as has been imputed to Judge 
 Black. While unable at this late day to recall all the details 
 of the answer to the Commissioners drafted by the President, 
 my recollection is distinct that it contained nothing properly 
 understood — that is, as the President himself understood it, 
 and. wished it to be understood by others — ^which could be 
 held to be " compromising to the honor of the Executive and 
 perilous to the integrity of the Union." The desire for its 
 partial reconstruction did not spring from the slightest doubt 
 or fear felt as to the profound earnestness of the President's 
 loyalty ; for those by whom he was immediately surrounded, 
 and upon whose ears the pulsations of his heart fell, knew 
 him to be as devoted to the Union as were the brave men who 
 afterwards shouldered their muskets in its defence. The ob- 
 ject of the changes sought was simply to render the answer 
 more effective in accomplishing an object which the Presi- 
 dent and the loyal members of his Cabinet had equally at 
 heart, and for which they were laboring with equal zeal. 
 
 But a single sentence of the proposed answer has been pre- 
 
292 APPEKDIX. 
 
 served, and it is found in Judge Black's " Memorandum" in 
 these words : " Coercing a State by force of arms to remain, 
 in the Confederacy, a power which^'I do not believe the Con- 
 stitution has conferred on Congress. " 'Now, there was noth- 
 ing new in this opinion. It had been declared by the Presi- 
 dent in his annual message, and as we learn from Mr. Seward, 
 it was afterwards " willingly accepted as true" by Mr. Lincoln 
 himself. It meant that the general government could not 
 rightfully, with its army and navy, make war upon a State, 
 as it would against a foreign nation, for the purpose of oblig- 
 ing such State to continue in the Union. While strict con- 
 structionists of the Constitution readily deduced this dogma 
 from that instrument and its history, it was practically little 
 more than a barren abstraction, when considered in connection 
 with the further belief held firmly by the President, to the 
 effect that the general government could properly employ its 
 whole civil and military power in coercing obedience to the 
 Constitution and the laws made under it on the part of the 
 'people of the States. Such obedience by the people, being 
 compelled or yielded, there would seem to be no more danger 
 of a State leaving the Union than there is of a shadow for- 
 saking the substance from which it is projected. Standing, 
 however, as these words did, without the accompaniment of 
 the supplementary and explanatory belief mentioned, they 
 were liable from their generality to misconstruction, arid to 
 be seized upon — as indeed they had already been — and made 
 the basis of a claim that, logically, the Administration must 
 entertain, if not active sympathy with, at least a measure of 
 toleration for secession, which, in point of fact, the Presi- 
 dent and his loyal counsellors abhorred ; for, though euphe- 
 mistically spoken of as only a political heresy, it was clearly but 
 treason in disguise, and could bear only the fniits of death for 
 the nation. It was thought advisable, therefore, that the words 
 quoted should be omitted altogether from the answer to the 
 Commissioners, which was done. 
 
 The assertion will scarcely be controverted that the Presi- 
 dent and his Cabinet should be held responsible, not for dis- 
 cussions among themselves in their council chamber, not for 
 suggestions, verbal or written, made to each other in the course 
 
APPENDIX. 293 
 
 of a confidential consultation upon their official duties, but that 
 .such responsibility must, in all fairness, rest solely on the con- 
 elusions finally reached and acted on by them. The conclu- 
 sions arrived at in this case were fully set forth in the Presi- 
 dent's answer to the Commissioners, under date of the 31st of 
 December, 1860. It has been published, and needs no justi- 
 fication at my hands. It speaks for itself, and will abide any 
 scrutiny to which it may be subjected. 
 
 I may say, further, though not directly in response to your 
 letter, that the reproaches heaped upon Mr. Buchanan during 
 the closing months of his administration and afterwards, were 
 due mainly to the conciliatory policy, or as he himself termed 
 it, "a policy of defence, not aggression," which he felt it his 
 duty to assume towards the South. This policy was honorable 
 to him in every way, and its wisdom was fully illustrated by 
 the events that followed. But there arose in those days 
 patriots, fiery and blatant, who misunderstood and misrepre- 
 sented him, stigmatizing his moderation as timidity, and claim- 
 ing that the flash of gunpowder was the only light that should 
 be shed on the vexed political questions of the hour. Perilous 
 conjunctures in public affairs have not unfrequently been 
 prolific in charlatan zealots of this class. Fabius was hooted 
 at Rome, but Cannae was his vindication. This policy was 
 very far from being inspired by fear. It sprang from a noble 
 hope — the result of some remaining trust in human nature — 
 that the'growing revolt, alarming as it was, would be sup- 
 pressed before war had reddened its hands in the blood of our 
 people. In one of his messages to Congress at that period, 
 Mr. Buchanan said : " I am one of those who will never de- 
 spair of the republic." And again he said : " If the political 
 conflict were to end in civil war, it was my determined pur- 
 pose not to commence it, nor even to furnish an excuse for it 
 by an act of this Government." He did not reaUze then — 
 few did — as all now do, that even at that moment the con- 
 spiracy had attained proportions beyond the control of moral 
 suasion, and that the treason confronting the nation, with the 
 cancer of slavery, of which it was the accursed progeny, could 
 be extirpated only by the surgery of the sword. He might 
 have acted far otherwise than he did. He might have blua- 
 
294 , APPENDIX. 
 
 tered and threatened, but this would have been incompatible 
 with his personal character and the dignity of his exalted 
 office, and would have excited only derision with the seces- 
 sionists. He might have refused to correspond with the Com- 
 missioners from South Carolina, even as private citizens — and 
 it was only as such that he did communicate with them — but 
 he chose to hear before he struck. He might have ordered 
 the guns of Sumter to open upon the fort" or forts being con- 
 structed around it for its ultimate destruction, or upon Moul- 
 trie, but in doing this he would^have iaaugurated war, which 
 Congress alone is competent to do. He would have inaugu- 
 rated war, too, at the very moment when the purse and sword 
 of the nation's power were held by the hands of a Congress 
 practically 'disloyal, and when our little army, utterly insig- 
 nificant for such a conflict, was scattered from the centre to 
 the circumference of the republic. Would this have been 
 wise or statesman-like or patriotic ? Such a step could have 
 drawn after it only disaster and humiliation, and an imperish- 
 able condemnation of the rashness and foUy which had 
 prompted it. Such a step, too, would have given to the 
 secessionists the very vantage-ground which the shot upon, 
 instead of from Sumter afterwards gave to the nation — a van- 
 tage-ground that proved the fulcrum on which rested the 
 lever of the moral and physical forces that filled the ranks of 
 our armies and carried the country in triumph through the 
 carnage of so many battle-fields. 
 
 This conciliatory policy, so patriotic and beneficent in its 
 spirit, accomplished but little in the interests of peace in the 
 South, for, unhappily, madness ruled the hour, and the voice 
 of moderation could no more exorcise the traitorous passions 
 which had been aroused than strains of music could quiet the 
 waves of a raging sea. Still, in the presence of all the dis- 
 couragements encountered, Mr. Buchanan was impelled to 
 persist in his policy by a painful sense of his own helplessness. 
 Though the Chief Executive of a great and brave people, he 
 was absolutely fettered, so far as any effective endeavor for 
 the preservation of the Union was concerned, by lamentably 
 defective laws, conceived in a morbid jealousy of executive 
 power and in a dread of the invasion of the " rights of the 
 
APPENDIX. 29fi 
 
 States" — to use a hackneyed and much-abused term — and none 
 knew this better than the secessionists themselves. Our polit- 
 ical forefathers, though wise in their generation, do not ap- 
 pear to have been sufficiently acquainted with the capabilities 
 of crime to foresee that possibly at some future day even the 
 authorities of a State might be found in guilty complicity with 
 a conspiracy against the national life, and hence no provision 
 whatever was made to meet so humiliating an emergency in 
 our history. The land was filled with heroic and true men, 
 ready and eager to " march to the music of the Union," but 
 the President had no power to call them to the field without 
 an act of Congress authorizing him, and would have exposed 
 himself to impeachment had he attempted to do so. There 
 was money enough in the Treasury, but its keys were held in 
 the clutch of a Congress virtually disloyal. In vain did he 
 represent to Congress the imperilled condition of the country 
 and the steady advance of the rebellion, calling upon it "as 
 the only human tribunal, under Providence, possessing the 
 power to declare war, or to authorize the employment of 
 military force iu a'Q cases contemplated by the Constitution." 
 But under all the appeals made to the honor, the sense of 
 duty and patriotism of Congress, that body remained stolidly 
 dumb and contemptuously indifferent, thus affording daily 
 and hourly encouragement to the rebellion. Though charged 
 under the Constitution with the duty of protecting the Union, 
 that body, although the air at Washington was filled with the 
 mntterings of a treason whose forces were being openly organ- 
 ized in the South, refused to give the President authority to 
 call out the militia either to quell the rebellion or recapture 
 the forts, arsenals, and other public property which had been 
 seized by the insurgents. And when, in the performance of an 
 imperative duty and exercise of a clear right, he had succeeded 
 in collecting a small body of soldiers at "Washington, for the 
 purpose of resisting its capture by a rebel c<mp de main, then 
 believed to be impending, and thus securing the peaceful in- 
 auguration of the incoming President, the House of Represen- 
 tatives, though perfectly aware of the object of the action taken, 
 passed a resolution demanding to know by what authority 
 and to what end this had been done — a resolution which, 
 
296 APPENDIX. 
 
 though parliamentary in its language, was insolent and mock- 
 ing in its spirit, and intended to be so, and seemed to treat as 
 an offence against the House of Eepresentatives the endeavor 
 of the President to protect the National Capital from a rebel 
 raid. When the collector at the port of Charleston resigned 
 liis office in the interests of the rebellion, and the President, 
 wishing to continue the collection of the revenue there, nom- 
 inated his successor, a Republican Senate refused to act upon 
 the nomination, thus declining to co-operate with and sup- 
 port the Executive in his conscientious effort to execute the 
 laws. Fearful must be the indictment to which that Congress 
 will have to respond at the bar of history. Why this torpor 
 and faithlessness ? "Was there unwillingness felt in any quarter 
 for a Democratic Administration to have the glory of subduing 
 the rebellion before it had filled the land with its crimes ? 
 Could there be an injustice more unworthy of a great and 
 enlightened people than that which would condemn the 
 President for seeking by forbearance and conciliation to stay 
 the rebellion, when all physical power to resist its progress 
 had been deliberately denied tiim ? 
 
 Situated as he was, the President might have called on the 
 governors and people of the loyal States for a volunteer force 
 with which to recover the forts, arsenals, etc. , of which the 
 rebels had possessed themselves, and to suppress the insurrec- 
 tion, and this appeal might have been responded to. Such a 
 proceeding, however, on his pai't, would have been utterly 
 lawless, and the more so, as Congress — the depository under 
 the Constitution, of all needful powers for the repression of 
 treasonable assaults upon the republic — was in session at the 
 time, sitting with folded arms in one end of the capital, and 
 with ill-disguised sympathy with the rebellion in the other. 
 Even, however, could so extreme and revolutionary a measure 
 have succeeded, thoughtful men must now rejoice that it was 
 not resorted to, since, had the rebellion been crushed in its 
 earlier 'stages, it is clear enough that slavery — the source of 
 all our woes — would have remained intact, and thus a wound, 
 so long threatening our national existence, would have been 
 healed over, leaving the poisoned shaft still rankling in its 
 depths. But Mr. Buchanan was eminently a conscientious 
 
APPENDIX. 297 
 
 man. He had an oath registered on high to execute the 
 laws, not to violate them. He was in his nature infinitely 
 above that vulgar herd of perjured usurpers and cut-throats 
 who have crimsoned the annals of the ages by their crimes, 
 but to whom, alas, the world has bowed its neck and knee, 
 and obsequiously erected its monuments. 
 
 The true animus of Mr. Buchanan towards the rebellion 
 cannot be judged aright without bearing in mind that, while 
 his policy of forbearance and conciliation was, under the cir- 
 cumstances mentioned, maintained to the close of his admin- 
 istration, yet, when the clash of arms was heard, he yielded to 
 none in the ardor of his wishes for the success of our flag, and 
 in the inflexible determination with which he insisted the war 
 for the Union should be prosecuted. In a published letter to 
 the Hon. Horatio King, who had been a member of his Cabinet, 
 he wrote under the date of September 18th, 1861, as follows : 
 
 " I think 1 can perceive in the public mind a more fixed, 
 resolute, and determined purpose than ever to prosecute the 
 war to a successful termination, with all the men and means 
 in our power. Enlistments are "now proceeding much more 
 rapidly than a few weeks ago, and I am truly glad of it. The 
 time has passed for offering compromises and terms of peace 
 to the seceded States. "We well know that under existing cir- 
 cumstances they would accept of nothing less than a recogni- 
 tion of their independence, which it is impossible we should 
 grant. There is a time for all things under the sun ; but 
 surely this is not the moment for paralyzing the arm of the 
 National Administration by a suicidal conflict among ourselves, 
 but for bold, energetic, and decided action. " 
 
 Mr. Buchanan, unhappily, was not spared long enough to 
 witness his own complete vindication, which must surely 
 come, and, indeed, in part, has come already. The time is at 
 hand when others will have to bear the sins and shortcomings 
 of which it has been so cruelly sought to make him the scape- 
 goat. " Carrying" — to use his own touching words — as he 
 did, " to the grave the consciousness of having meant well 
 for his country," I rejoice to believe that he was cheered by 
 a confident anticipation of the final triumph of his reputation 
 over all the aspersions that had assailedit. Still, he must have 
 
298 APPENDIX. 
 
 laid dowu his harassed and faithful life with a stinging sense 
 of the wrong he had suffered at the hands of those whom he 
 had served so well, and it is sad, indeed, to realize that for 
 this no atonement to him can now be made. Tet no history 
 written, however sincerely or unconsciously, under the influ- 
 ence of an estimate of his administration, bom of and Altered 
 to us through the fierce passions of the war, can long harm 
 his memory. As the fevered pulse of that period has calmed, 
 that estimate has steadily declined in vitality, and is rapidly 
 losing its hold upon the public mind. Injustice cannot live 
 always, and it is in the providence of God that the truth, 
 however deeply buried, must sooner or later have a resurrec- 
 tion. The historian of the future, seated above the wrangle 
 of partisan strife and the shadows of still lingering calumnies, 
 will, amid the sunlight of a passionless impartiality, pronounce 
 a judgment that must assure to this illustrious statesman and 
 patriot an unsullied fame, and this judgment, I doubt not, 
 coming generations will unhesitatingly accept. 
 
 Very sincerely yours, 
 
 J. Holt. 
 
LETTEE FROM HOK JEREMIAH S. BLACK, 
 
 Attorney-General and Secretary of State under President Buchanan's 
 administration, in regard to a biography of the latter. 
 
 Somerset, June, 1861. 
 My deae Sie : I have thought carefully over the matter of 
 which we spoke at Wheatland when I was there — namely, the 
 proposition of a true and fair historical account of your public 
 life, and especially that part of it which you spent in the great 
 office of President. I think you owe it to your friends and 
 to your country to give them a full and clear vindication of 
 your conduct and character. If this be not done, you will 
 continue to be slandered for half a century to come. In the. 
 mean time nothing is easier than a perfect defence of every 
 important measure which you ever adopted or carried out — 
 nothing plainer than the task of putting the responsibility 
 where it properly belongs for every misfortune which the 
 country has fallen into. ... It should be a compact narra- 
 tive of what occurred in Congress, in the Executive Depart- 
 ments, in the coimtry at large ; readable, attractive, and inter- 
 esting to all ; comprehensive in its scope, accurate in its de- 
 tails, 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, 
 Strong without rage, without o'erflowing full." 
 
 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." 
 
 ******* 
 
 What could be more useful than a faithful analysis of the 
 
 factions by which the country has been torn asunder — a true 
 
300 APPENDIX. 
 
 description of those base combinations of demagogues who 
 fought for the spoils of the Government while the Govern- 
 ment 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 ? 
 
 ******* 
 
 Ever your friend, 
 
 J. S. Black. 
 
LETTER FEOM THE HON. HOEATIO KINQ,' 
 
 Postmastee-Geneeal undee Peesident Buchanan's Ad- 
 mini8teati0n. 
 
 {From the Washington " Post.") 
 
 It was expected, or, if not expected, at least to be hoped, 
 that Messrs. Hay and Nicolay would have so written or com- 
 piled their history of Abraham Lincoln as to have made it an 
 authority for aU classes of people. This expectation was chilled 
 by their very unfair criticisms of Mr. Douglass ; by their al- 
 most coarse and thoroughly unjust allusions to General James 
 Shields, and has been completely destroyed by their treatment 
 of Mr. Buchanan in later instalments of their work. 
 
 We had already written a correction of some of their alleged 
 facts and imagined admissions concerning Mr. Buchanan's 
 course at the breaking out of the rebellion, when the following 
 communication from ex-Postmaster-General Horatio King 
 reached us. "We accordingly turn these unfair historians over 
 to Mr. King, who has more time to deal with them than our- 
 selves and a much more intimate acquaintance with all of the 
 facts : 
 
 To the Editor of the'' Post" : 
 
 I have not infrequently had occasion, since the death of 
 President Buchanan, to call public attention to many unjust 
 and cruel partisan attacks, which from time to time have 
 been made upon him in regard to his ofiBcial conduct touching 
 secession and the rebellion ; but 1 have never seen anything 
 more certain to excite the deep indignation, not only of his 
 friends, but of every fair-minded man, than what has ap- 
 peared from month to month in a work entitled " Abraham 
 Lincoln : A History," in the Century Magazine. 
 
 "When it was announced tliat the private secretaries to Presi- 
 dent Lincoln were to write his life, the hope, not to say ex- 
 
302 APPENDIX. 
 
 pectation, was entertained that they would give ns an interest- 
 ing personal biography of that great and good man, free from 
 all unreasonable prejudice or partisan bias. Such a book 
 would receive a hearty welcome to every household in the 
 land. 
 
 It was not, nor is it now sensible or necessary, to go into a 
 rehash of all the old controversies — stale from endless repeti- 
 tion— about " Abolition," " Kansas and Nebraska," " Coer- 
 cion," "Fort Sumter," and numberless other things which, 
 for the past quarter of a century, have had their full share of 
 attention, with ample illustration and explanation from all 
 sides, sufficient to be set to rest forever — or, at least, until in 
 some far-off period an impartial history of the war, its antece- 
 dents and results, shall be written. 
 
 But these " historians" seem to think differently, and to 
 
 take, special pleasure in undertaking to traduce and belittle 
 
 President Buchanan in every way in their power. 
 
 ******* 
 
 It would be folly to offer any renewed refutations of the 
 many charges reiterated against President Buchanan and his 
 administration by these gentlemen. There is not one of 
 them which has not been made hundreds of times before, and 
 as often fully met and disproved, or, at any rate, satisfactorily 
 answered. 
 
 Nor is it a recently discovered fact that leading secession- 
 ists, while professing friendship for Mr. Buchanan and the 
 Administration — some of them holding high positions under, 
 and confidential relations with, him — were secretly plotting 
 the destruction of the Government, and seeking, by duplicity, 
 chicanery, misrepresentation, and falsehood, to embarrass and 
 compromise him. This, to a greater or less extent, was 
 known at the time. However, some of them held the secret 
 of their own treachery until exposure came at a later day. 
 But 1 am not aware that even when party spirit has run the 
 highest any enemy of President Buchanan has ever gone so 
 far as the present compilers have done in parading, for the 
 purpose of traducing him, the treasonable doings of men who 
 turned their backs on the Government and Constitution they 
 had sworn to support and went into the rebellion. 
 
APPENDIX. 303 
 
 After what we have seen we need not be surprised at any 
 abuse of President Buchanan, no matter how outrageous, in 
 forthcoming instalments of this extraordinary " History" — 
 but in the name of common decency we may be allowe^ to 
 hope that the height of effrontery has been reached by intro- 
 ducing, as these veracious compilers have done, the story of 
 General Thomas L. Olingman, that Secretary Jacob Thomp- 
 son told him, about the middle of December, 1860, that he 
 had been appointed a commissioner by the State of Mississippi 
 to go down to North Carolina, and, with President Buchanan's 
 approval, to get that State to secede. In a letter to Judge 
 Black, written in September, 1877, when this story first came 
 out, which letter was immediately published, Mr. Thompson 
 gave the story a point-blank denial, and branded it as an 
 "invention," a "fiction," and as "mere sounding brass." 
 [See the Lancaster, Pa., Intelligencer of October 1st, 1877, a 
 letter of Hon. George Ticknor Curtis, of May 12th, 1883, in 
 the New York 8im, etc.] 
 
 ," Begging to commend this communication to the attention of 
 the editor of the Century Magazine, I leave the reader to make 
 his own comments. Hoeatio King. 
 
 Washington, November 7, 1887. 
 
 {From the Philadelphia " Times y) 
 
 "Wheatland, September 21, 1861. 
 My dear Sir : . . . I have had a hard time of it during 
 my administration ; but, upon a careful review of all my 
 conduct, I should not change it in a single important measure 
 if this were now in my power. When the ofiRcial documents 
 and the facts come to be presented to the pubhc, 1 entertain 
 no apprehension as to what will be their verdict. On the one 
 side I had been violently opposed by the Eepublicans from 
 the beginning, and on the other side the leading secessionists 
 were estranged from me from the date of my message on the 
 3d of December, and soon after, when I returned the insolent 
 letter of the South Carolina Commissioners to them unan- 
 swered, all intercourse, political and social, between them and 
 
304 , APPENDIX. 
 
 myseK ceased. 1 was, on the next day, or a day or two after, 
 violently attacked in the Senate by Jefferson Davis and his 
 followers, and the letter which I had returned was submitted 
 by him to that body and published in the Congressional Globe.. 
 I pursued my own steady course from the beginning. The 
 Charleston authorities were distinctly notified over and over 
 again, that if they attacked Fort Sumter I should consider 
 this attack as the commencement of a civil war. I need 
 scarcely say that I agree with you in approving the active 
 prosecution of the war by the Government, and I have never 
 held any other language since the Confederates commenced it 
 by the attack on Fort Sumter. It would probably have com- 
 menced early in January had the Senate confirmed my nom- 
 ination of a collector for the port of Charleston. . . . 
 1 remain, very respectfully, your friend, 
 
 James Buchanan. 
 
 {From the San Francisco "Altd,^^ September 23<Z.) 
 
 The Alta has been recently put in possession of private 
 letters of the late President James Buchanan to personal 
 friends upon some subjects that have a present interest for 
 the whole country, bearing upon our foreign policy and our 
 commercial development, and to them we will refer at another 
 time. They vitally interest the Pacific Coast and this city, 
 and will be read here and elsewhere as if they were written 
 to-day. His public course in the last days of his administra- 
 tion was unquestionably, dictated by a desire to avert the dis- 
 aster of war, if that were possible, under the Crittenden Com- 
 promise or any kindred measure. A keen analysis of the 
 affairs of that distant time proves that herein he did not 
 greatly differ from Mr. Lincoln, who for some time un- 
 doubtedly disbelieved that actual war was imminent. 
 
 "What Mr. Buchanan privately thought, the real sentiment 
 of his heart, and his keen foresight are shown, however, by 
 his personal communication with valued friends on the other 
 side, and the testimony is of such value that they now, when 
 it serves only the good purpose of correcting the misconcep- 
 tions of his countrymen, assent to its first publication. That 
 
Appendix. 305 
 
 publication we make as a current corrective of the mad 
 charges of furious partisans, who seek for political advantage 
 to conceal, by clamor, the efforts made by another President, 
 for the cleansing of politics and the bringing of duty ^.nd 
 decency to the front. This letter shows how mistaken often 
 is the popular estimate of the motives of our public men, and 
 that it may do the most good we give it, circulation : 
 
 Wheatland, near Lancaster, May i, 1861. 
 
 My deae Madam : 1 have received your favor of the 26th 
 ult., after having been many days on the way, and most sin- 
 cerely and deeply sympathize with you. Still, I believe your 
 imagination has magnified the dilRculties of your situation, 
 and you will not be exposed to the dangers you apprehend. 
 You have had a checkered life, and I still trust your last days 
 may be peaceful and happy. 
 
 The assault upon Fort Sumter has made us unanimous 
 throughout the North. I often predicted that such would be 
 the effect of so mad and reckless an enterprise. The spirit of 
 the North has been thoroughly aroused, and they will go 
 ahead until secession shall be suppressed and the Union 
 restored. 
 
 I am truly sorry 'that your son has joined the Confederate 
 Army. California was his State, and even upon the princi- 
 ples of false honor, which have actuated so many, he might 
 therefore have remained at West Point. 
 
 We live here very much in retirement. All social visiting 
 is at an end. Men, women, and children are all engaged in 
 warlike pursuits. Miss Lane seems to be quite contented, 
 and has changed her mode of life with remarkable facility. 
 She desires me to convey her love to you and say she has 
 received your letter and will answer it soon. 
 
 Why have you changed your purpose of returning to Cali- 
 fornia ? It appears to me that this was and would be your 
 natural course. You do not like to pass through Virginia, 
 and I do not wonder at this. 
 
 1 shall ever feel the deepest interest in your prosperity and 
 happiness. We may never meet again, but I shall ever 
 remember with heartfelt pleasure the many happy hours we 
 
B06 APPENDIX. 
 
 have passed together in other and better days. With senti- 
 ments of sincere regard I remain, always your friend, 
 
 James BtrcHANAN. 
 Mes. M. E. Gwot. 
 
 The other correspondence, to which we have referred, is of 
 older date, between Mr. Buchanan and Senator Gwin, before 
 the former was President or had been considered for that 
 office, and relates to an isthmian canal to connect the Atlantic 
 and Pacific oceans. We will shortly refer to it at length, 
 because of its value as proving the broad views taken by men 
 like Buchanan, Gwin, and Robert J. Walker. 
 
 [Frmn the Philadelphia " Times.''''') 
 
 The Ex-President's biographer reviews the question oE coercing the re- 
 bellious States. — The course Jackson or " a man like Jackson" would have 
 taken— The fault that of Congress, not of President Buchanan. 
 
 Richfield Springs, August 20, 1883. 
 
 To the Editor of the " Times" : 
 
 The publication of the life of President 'Buchanan was fol- 
 lowed within a week by an amount of criticism such as 1 do 
 not remember to have seen bestowed on any similar book in 
 the same space of time. I was much gratified by the extent 
 of the interest that appears to be taken in the work and its 
 subject. For what was complimentary to the author I feel 
 grateful ; to what imputed literary fault or shortcoming, I 
 trust I have been suitably attentive ; for what assailed me in 
 a bad spirit no one will expect me to care. But it is not on 
 account of myself that I now wish to advert to this mass of 
 criticism. As respects the final estimate to be put upon the 
 public character and conduct of Mr. Baehanan, there has been 
 a good deal of candid, just, and fair writing, and some of the 
 reviews have been marked by great ability, thoughtfulness 
 and penetration. Others have been simply and obviously the 
 tactics of party organs, in which vituperation and reiterated 
 slander have been the staple. There is, however, one topic 
 
APPENDIX. 307 
 
 to be extracted out of the friendly and unfriendly discussion 
 of Mr. Buchanan's course in 1860-61, to which 1 wish to ask 
 the attention of your readers. 
 
 THE QUESTION OF COEEOION. 
 
 This relates to the distinction between coercing a State and 
 coercing the individual inhabitants of a State— a distinction 
 on which President Buchanan based one great branch of the 
 policy of his administration, in preparing to encounter the se- 
 cession movement. This is not a merely theoretical question, 
 for, although — so far as we can now see — there is very little 
 probability that another attempt to dfsmember this Federal 
 Republic upon the principle of secession as it was asserted in 
 1860-61 will ever be made, yet it is and must remain an im- 
 portant practical question in what way an unconstitutional 
 step on the part of a State is to be encountered. Hence it is 
 that the distinction between coercing a State by an application 
 of force to keep within its constitutional orbit in all its public 
 and corporate acts as a State, and the enforcement of the 
 supremacy of the Federal Constitution and the laws enacted 
 in the exercise of its granted powers by acting on the persons 
 of individual inhabitants of the State, is just as important 
 now, and must remain just as important hereafter, as it was 
 when the great revolt of 1860-61 had to be met. The ques- 
 tion whether this was a distinction without a difference is 
 therefore not only of consequence in reference to what was 
 done or maintained by Mr. Buchanan or any other statesman 
 in the beginning of the secession movement or in the progress 
 of the Civil War, but it is also of consequence in the future. 
 Let us see, then, whether the distinction is a solid one. 
 
 This may be determined by applying the test of a hypothet- 
 ical case. Let it be supposed, then, that at the time when 
 the Legislature of Massachusetts had it in contemplation to 
 pass the laws which became known as "liberty bills," and 
 which put actual obstructions in the way of the extradition of 
 fugitives from service, the President of the United States had 
 stationed an army on Boston Common and had directed the 
 commanding general to inform the Legislature that if they 
 did not desist from that act of nullification he would shell the 
 
308 APPENDIX. 
 
 State House or would disperse them at the point of the bay- 
 onet. There can be no question that Massachusetts did pass 
 and did keep on her statute-book for a long time laws that 
 ■were directly in conflict with an important provision of the 
 Federal Constitution and subversive of its supremacy. If the 
 President of the United States can properly apply coercion to 
 one State to prevent her from adopting an ordinance of seces- 
 sion so-called, he can, with equal propriety, apply coercion to 
 another State to prevent her from nullifying or attempting to 
 nullify a particular provision of the Federal Constitution or 
 the laws of the United States passed in pursuance of it. The 
 only difference betweeU the two cases is that in the one there 
 is an attempt to arrest the operation of the whole Constitution 
 within the limits of the State, and in the other there is an 
 attempt to arrest the operation of one only of its provisions. 
 In both cases the right of the Federal Government to preserve 
 its own existence and to maintain the supremacy of its own 
 constitution is, as a principle, alike involved. The sole ques- 
 tion is, by what means is this to be done ? Is it to be done 
 by applying force to the State to prevent her from perpetrat- 
 ing the unconstitutional act on paper, or is it to be done by 
 compelling her citizens to obey the Constitution and laws of 
 the United States, notwithstanding the void act which has 
 been put on the records of the State ? The fact that an ordi- 
 nance of so-called secession undertakes to withdraw the State 
 from the Union m toto, while the single unconstitutional law 
 withdraws it from the Union only in part, makes a difference 
 not in kind, but in degree. The right and the duty of the 
 Federal Government to preserve its own existence and to 
 maintain the supremacy of the Federal Constitution is the 
 same in both cases. 
 
 COEECION APPLIED TO LIBEKTT BILLS. 
 
 What would have been said, then, if President Pierce or 
 President Fillmore had threatened to apply coercion to any 
 of the States that passed the laws that were called " liberty 
 bills" for the purpose of preventing their enactment ? Would 
 not the whole country have cried out, " You, Mr. President, 
 have no authority to control the legislative action of a State. 
 
APPENDIX. 309 
 
 You have only to wait the enactment of the laws which you 
 say are unconstitutional, subject them to the proper judicial 
 test, and then execute upon individuals the process of the 
 Federal tribunals by whatever force may be requisite to gut 
 down the obstructions." This would have been the answer 
 of all sound constitutional jurists. What is the answer in the 
 case of a threatened secession of a State from the Union m 
 toto f It is this : The ordinance of secession will be utterly 
 void. Let it be adopted if persuasion and reason will not pre- 
 vent the people of the State from doing a void and rash act. 
 Then proceed to execute the laws of the United States within 
 that State, just as you would have executed them if no such 
 ordinance had been adopted. If the Federal Executive and 
 Judicial officers resign their places, appoint others. If the 
 existing laws of the United States do not put within your 
 control the force necessary to execute process upon individuals, 
 call upon Congress to provide you with that force, and when 
 you have obtained it put down all obstructions that you Hnd 
 in your way. This is not to make war upon the State. It is 
 the exercise of a power that is conferred on the Federal Gov- 
 ernment by the Constitution ; a power that has been exercised 
 over and over again, and may have to be exercised hereafter. 
 "When the scale and theatre of the resistance become so exten- 
 sive that in the exercise of the power to remove obstractions 
 the laws of war have to be brought into operation, they come 
 into operation not as they do in prosecuting a war against a 
 foreign nation, but as rules which are necessary to restrain the 
 ferocity of a contest between a government and its citizens 
 while it lasts. They do not dissolve the allegiance of the citi- 
 zen. They do not convert him into a foreign enemy. When 
 the contest is over and he is subdued he is liable to all the 
 penalties of treason, and it is a mere question of policy 
 whether those penalties shall be enforced. The autonomy, 
 the constitutional existence, the Federal relations of his State 
 remain as they were before the contest began. 
 
 THE POWEB OF THE CONSTITDTION TO ENFORCE UNION. 
 
 But it has been said again and again that the secession of 
 the Southern States made a case against which the Constitu- 
 
310 APPENDIX. 
 
 tion itself had made no provision ; a case for whicli the or- 
 dinary means of enforcing the laws were inadequate ; that the 
 Government was bound, in the absence of any available con- 
 stitutional means, to fall back upon the powers implied in its 
 right of existence, and that if a man like Jackson had been in 
 Buchanan's place he would have resorted to coercion in some 
 form as a necessary measure of governmental self-preserva- 
 tion. Here is precisely where I differ from all the recent 
 critics who have questioned Buchanan's course, even from 
 some of those who have considerately and fairly conceded his 
 patriotic intent. In the first place, I ask whether we are to 
 have it understood hereafter that when a State undertakes to 
 violate a provision of the Federal Constitution there is no con- 
 stitutional remedy, but that resort must be had to the extra 
 constitutional method, or to a method implied in the vague 
 and boundless right of self-preservation ? I do not understand 
 the reasoning, or the assumption, which begins with the posi- 
 tion that the Constitution has within itself no means, or no 
 adequate means, for encountering such a case as the secession 
 of a State. If the Constitution is so defective, it is just as 
 defective to-day as it ever was. I deny the defect. The 
 provision which the Constitution has made for its own su- 
 premacy through its judicial power, and through the Presi- 
 dent's oath of office, which binds him to the execution of the 
 laws, excludes a resort to any other means of self-preservation, 
 because these are the very means which the Constitution pro- 
 vided for the very purpose. They have the only adequacy 
 which the Constitution ever contemplated. They are, more- 
 over, in fact, adequate. They are direct, efficacious, oper- 
 ating just where they ought to operate — that is, upon the 
 conduct and persons of individuals. They leave no room for 
 excursions into the boundless realms of a supposed NECESsrrr. 
 We know by the record that these means were chosen in the 
 formation of the Constitution for the express purpose of ex- 
 cluding a resort to coercion or force of any kind applied to a 
 State to keep it in its constitutional orbit. When 1 hear or 
 read of the coercion which Buchanan ought to have applied I 
 am obliged to ask, Coercion for what purpose ? Why, of 
 course, to prevent a State, by force, from adopting an ordi- 
 
APPENDIX. 311 
 
 nance of secession. Then by the same token a President may 
 now or hereafter say to a State : "If you attempt to enact a 
 law that will violate one of the provisions of the Federal Con- 
 stitution, 1 will disperse your Legislature by my bayonets. ^ I 
 am the Commander-in-Chief. This Government has a right 
 to exist and to forestall and prevent anything that threatens 
 its existence." Where shall we be if this doctrine is to pre- 
 vail ? It is perfectly plain that if Buchanan had resorted to 
 any other means than those whicb the Constitution had pro- 
 vided for we should have had this constitutional Government 
 converted into a military despotism more than twenty years 
 ago. 
 
 JACKSON AND BUCHANAN. 
 
 Then, in regard to Jackson, or to " a man like Jackson ;" 
 if what a man did in an emergency that is supposed to bear 
 some resemblance to a subsequent and much greater emer- 
 gency, be any criterion of what he would have done in the 
 later case, I undertake to show that General Jackson, had he 
 been President in 1860, would, in all human probability, 
 have done just what Buchanan did. I am perfectly aware 
 that " Old Hickory" in the personal provocation given to him 
 by the insolence of the South Carolina Legislature used very 
 strong language and uttered in conversation some threats of 
 seizing the persons of the Nullifiers. But he was surrounded 
 by a body of constitutional advisers and political friends who 
 would never have consented to any such step. Edward Liv- 
 ingston, Roger B. Taney, Levi Woodbury, Benjamin F. 
 Butler, and Mahlon Dickerson, not to mention hosts of other 
 Democrats, never would have allowed even Jackson to act 
 otherwise than in a strictly constitutional manner in dealing 
 with nullification. Moreover, with all his characteristic pro- 
 pensity to strong measures, he had an extraordinary power of 
 self-control, and could curb his own passions when it was 
 necessary that he should do so. He was, too, a far better 
 constitutional lawyer than he has ever- had the credit of being ; 
 for although he could not, perhaps, formulate a constitutional 
 argument on paper as well as some other men, he had great 
 constitutional sagacity and penetration, which enabled him to 
 
312 APPENDIX. 
 
 discern the boundaries of Federal autliority. "What he would 
 have done in 1860 is to be measured not by his violent talk, 
 but by his ofiScial acts in 1833 ; and these show unmistakably 
 that both he and his advisers acted on the same principle 
 which governed the course of Buchanan ; for, instead of 
 undertaking to coerce the State of South Carolina, by acting 
 on her convention or her Legislature, his administration pro- 
 ceeded to put in motion the very means contemplated by the 
 Constitution for enforcing the supremacy of the Federal laws. 
 The State Legislature, after the ordinance had pronounced the 
 tariff unconstitutional and directed the Legislature to arrest 
 its operation within the limits of the State, passed a law for a 
 replevin by the sheriff of the goods that might be seized by 
 the marshal, and provided the sheriff with a military force to 
 maintain his possession. To encounter and frustrate this 
 nullification of the Federal statute, what did General Jackson 
 do ? Did he tell the Legislature that if they attempted to 
 pass such a law he would disperse them ? On the contrary, 
 he asked Congress to pass the well-known " Force Bill," and 
 he asked Webster to aid in framing and enacting it. It was 
 enacted at once ; and it . provided for the transfer of any 
 actions of replevin from the State Courts into the Federal 
 Courts, where the State laws could be declared to be viola- 
 tions of the Federal Constitution. To enforce the decisions 
 of the Federal Courts all the necessary posse comitatus was 
 given to the marshal, and it was for the regular and proper 
 collection of the duties, and for no other purpose, that the 
 President sent a small military and naval force into the port 
 of Charleston. If, therefore, there was any parallel between 
 the case of nullification and the case of secessibn, Jackson did 
 in principle what Buchanan endeavored to get Congress to 
 enable him to do. He had to collect the revenue in the port 
 of Charleston. The collector had resigned. Buchanan nom- 
 inated a suitable successor and the Senate would not confirm 
 him. He had to execute the laws of the United States 
 through the Federal tribunals, and the Federal judge and the 
 marshal had resigned. To re-establish the Federal machinery 
 in South Carolina, obstructions had to be removed. To re- 
 move them required means of compelling individuals to obey 
 
APPENDIX. 313 
 
 the laws of the United States. The " Force Bill" of 1833 
 had expired by its own limitation. There was no existing law 
 under which the President conld call for volunteers or could 
 call out the militia to suppress insurrections against the United 
 States. The President asked for such new laws, and he per- 
 sonally attended to the framing of the bills. That Congress 
 never enacted one of them, nor was any provision for such 
 purposes made until the civil war had been for some time 
 raging. President Buchanan, from October, 1860, to March 
 4:th, 1861, had but five companies of regular troops within his 
 reach, and by the middle of January, 1861, South Carolina 
 was armed to the teeth. 
 
 THE EEPCBLICAN CONGRESS AND BUCHANAN. 
 
 This brings me, therefore, to the consideration of what has 
 been said by some of the recent critics concerning the reason 
 why the Republican leaders in Congress were unwilling to 
 trust Buchanan with the executive means for which he asked. 
 1 have read with great care all the most important of the re- 
 cent suggestions, and the fairest and most considerate of them 
 amounts only to this, that the Republicans distrusted a President 
 who, although he asked for the necessary military prepara- 
 tions, was at the same time urging measures of conciliation. 
 One of the most impartial of the critics has said that, while 
 the inference drawn by the Republicans that Buchanan was 
 not to be trusted was a natural one, yet it was not a justifiable 
 one, and he admits emphatically that I have shown it was not. 
 My own view of the temper and spirit of the Republican 
 leaders in Congress at that time has always been that it par- 
 took largely of a temper and spirit that animated other prom- 
 inent men who were in other important public positions, and 
 I think it may be well illustrated by something that happened 
 within my personal knowledge. Every one who remembers 
 what was taking place remembers what a gallant struggle was 
 made by the Union men in Georgia to prevent the secession 
 *of that State. Her secession ordinance was not passed until 
 the 19th of January, 1861. At that time I was a citizen of 
 Massachusetts. The Legislature of Massachusetts was to 
 
314 APPENDIX. 
 
 assemble on the first Monday in January, and the newly- 
 elected Governor, the Hon. John A. Andrew, was then to be 
 inaugurated. There stood on the statute-book of the State at 
 that time a law which was an act of nullification of the Con- 
 stitution and law of the United States on the subject of the 
 extradition of fugitives from service, as palpably as the law 
 of South Carolina had thirty years before been a nullification 
 of the tariff. The most eminent jurists of Massachasetts held 
 this law of the State to be unconstitutional, and it was cer- 
 tainly unnecessary. In the latter part of December, just after 
 South Carolina had seceded, I received from a very active 
 Union man in Georgia, of great eminence and influence, an 
 earnest letter, portraying the struggle that was then pending 
 in that State, and asking if something could not be done to 
 bring about a repeal of these so-called " Liberty Laws." The 
 writer of the letter said that this concession on the part of 
 Massachusetts would greatly strengthen the hands of the Union 
 party in Georgia, and would go far to enable them to win a 
 victory. 
 
 Let it be observed that this had nothing to do with slavery 
 in the Territories. If the concession should be made it would 
 not touch a single dogma of the Chicago platform on which 
 Mr. Lincoln had been elected. My first impulse was to apply 
 to Governor Banks, who was going out of office, but, on re- 
 flection, I thought that an outgoing Governor would not be 
 likely to take the responsibility of making any recommenda- 
 tion on the subject, and I did not know Governor Banks per- 
 sonally as well as I knew the gentleman who was to be his 
 successor. I wrote a note to Governor Andrew and he called 
 to see me. After reading to him the letter of my Georgia 
 correspondent, whose name and patriotic exertions for the 
 Union were well known to him, I said : " Mr. Andrew, this 
 is a matter that rises above all party considerations. The 
 concession that is asked for on the part of our State is one 
 that all parties can unite in for the purpose of aiding the 
 Union men in Georgia in their contest with .the secessionists. 
 We are only asked to take off from our statute-book a law 
 which the ablest men among us, of both parties, have long 
 regarded as unconstitutional. Will you not recommend this 
 
APPENDIX. 315 
 
 step in your inaugnral message?" "No," said the Gover- 
 nor ; " I will not make sueh a concession." " But, my dear 
 sir," I replied, "you see the situation: South Carolina has 
 already seceded ; if Georgia secedes, other Gulf States will 
 follow, and sooner or later there will be a civil war. You do 
 not, I know, wish to see a civil war. "Why will you not ad- 
 vise our Legislature to make this very small concession ?" 
 "Sir," said Mr. Andrew, "if it pleases the Lord to strike 
 those people down there with judicial blindness, 1 am not 
 going out of my way to help them. If they choose to secede, 
 let them, and if there is to be a civil war, let it come." 
 I did not report his language to my friend in Georgia, but I 
 was sorrowfully obliged to inform him that nothing could be 
 done. Now, Governor Andrew was an excellent and kind- 
 hearted as well as an able man, but he had wrought himself 
 into the conviction that the North should make no concessions 
 to the South. His state of mind was very much the same 
 with that of the Northern Senators in Congress who would 
 not make the small concession of the " Crittenden Compro- 
 mise." Undoubtedly it was most unfortunate tliat they were 
 confronted in the Senate by JefEerson Davis and the other 
 secessionists, who kept up, as long as they remained there, 
 the ceaseless din of the right of secession, who were contin- 
 ually saying that it must be peaceably allowed, and that any 
 kind of coercion would be war. This aggravated the Northern 
 Senators, most certainly, and strengthened their unwilling- 
 ness to make any concession. But I remember well how 1 
 longed to see some Northern man rise in the Senate and, 
 speaking to both sections, as Webster would have spoken, 
 scatter the doctrine of constitutional secession to the winds, 
 and then tell the North that in dealing with the passions of 
 great communities in such a crisis and before the clash of arms 
 was begun, a government never loses anything of dignity or 
 strength when it takes the olive branch in one hand while it 
 holds the sword in the other. To borrow a striking phrase of 
 one of the recent critics, it was a forcible illustration of the 
 " irony of fortune" that Buchanan had no one of command- 
 ing influence in the Senate to second him, as I have no doubt 
 Webster would have done if he had not been sleeping the 
 
316 APPENDIX. 
 
 everlasting sleep on the shore of Marshfield. Party spirit or 
 anything else may lead men to say that Buchanan wished to 
 have secession enough to force the Eepublican Party back 
 from its recent triumph ; but it will ever remain a decisive 
 answer to this charge that he pointed out to that Congress the 
 only possible means by which secession could be encountered 
 within the limits of the Constitution, and it is no disparage- 
 ment to him whatever that he did not go out of the Constitu- 
 tion in search of means which would have inevitably converted 
 our Government into a power without law, chart, or compass. 
 I think I have read that General Grant would have been the 
 kind of man for the emergency. Alas ! those who think so 
 are little aware what they impute to the character of General 
 Grant when they suggest that he would have found a way to 
 encounter secession which the Constitution had not furnished 
 to him. He might have found a way to make a military des-. 
 potism, but if he had been President in 1860 he could never 
 have restored the Constitution of the United States after he 
 had conquered the South if he had done what these critics say 
 Buchanan should have done. 
 
 THE POOE EXCUSE OF DISTEUSTING BUCHANAN. 
 
 It is a poor excuse for the Northern members of that Con- 
 gress to say that they distrusted Buchanan. The argument 
 proves a great deal too much. Did they distrust Lincoln, 
 also ? The Presidency never dies. The Executive power is 
 held to-day by one man and to-morrow at twelve o'clock it 
 passes into the hands of another man. It is the same power, 
 comprehending the same functions, the same duties, the same 
 relations to the Legislative department, whether the man who 
 holds it is named Buchanan or Lincoln, and whether he is 
 called Democrat or Kepublican. It was the Executive power 
 that Mr. Buchanan begged and implored that Congress to 
 strengthen ; not his power, not James Buchanan's power, 
 but the power of the President of the United States. The 
 bills for this purpose which Mr. Buchanan personally revised 
 were well and suitably drawn. They covered the whole field, 
 supplying amply the means which the Constitution contem- 
 
APPENDIX. 317 
 
 plated for preserving the life and vigor of the Government. 
 Congress had an abundance of time to enact them into law^, 
 for the last of the Gulf States seceded on the 5th of February, 
 1861, and when their Senators and Representatives were gone 
 from the Oapitol the Eepublicans could, before the 4th of 
 March, have passed without obstruction the very bills that 
 Buchanan urged upon them and which he stood publicly 
 pledged to approve. If they feared that Buchanan would not 
 execute them, why did they not, before the term of their 
 authority would expire, put them on the statute-book to be 
 executed by their own President, who was to be inaugurated 
 on the day when Buchanan was to go out of office ? They 
 suffered that Congress to go out of existence without taking a 
 single step to strengthen the Executive power in any direc- 
 tion, either upon the theory of coercing States or coercing 
 individuals. What was the consequence ? When Mr. Lincoln 
 came into office he had no authority of law to call out the 
 militia or to call for volunteers in order to suppress insurrections 
 against the United States or to collect the revenue outside of 
 custom-houses, nor had he the necessary means to reconstruct 
 the Federal judiciary in the seceding or the seceded States. 
 When, after more than a month of informal negotiation be- 
 tween the Lincoln Administration and the Confederate Com- 
 missioners and other persons about the evacuation of Fort 
 Sumter, it was determined to re-enforce that garrison, and re- 
 enforcements were sent and Beauregard was ordered by Davis 
 to bombard the fort, and it was done — when the Civil War was 
 thus begun — Mr. Lincoln's call for seventy-five thousand men 
 was made, and had .to be made, without any legal authority. 
 When the first troops from the North poured into Washing- 
 ton, after forcing their way through Maryland, there was not 
 the slightest preparation by the Government to receive them ; 
 no billeting, no subsistence, no forage, no anything ; all was 
 at first confusion worse confounded ; private individuals and 
 extemporized local committees had to do the whole. Whose 
 fault was this ? Certainly it was not the fault of President 
 Lincoln or his Secretary of War. It was the fault of that 
 Congress, which had expired on the 4th of March without 
 having made any provision either to coerce the seceded States 
 
318 APPENDIX. 
 
 back into the TJnion, or to execute the laws of the Uiiited 
 States upon individuals, or to recapture the public property 
 in the seceded States, or to do anything that would save the 
 border States from being swept into the control of the Mont- 
 gomery Confederacy. 
 
 BUCHANAN AND THE AEMY. 
 
 I will not again answer the reiterated slanders which have 
 accused the Buchanan Administration of having placed and 
 kept the regular military and naval forces of the Government 
 where they could be of no avail in the coming emergency. I 
 have accounted for the position of the army and for the posi- 
 tion of every important vessel of the navy in the month of 
 December, 1860, and in the three following months, and if 
 critics will not read, or having read will not fairly admit the 
 truth, their and my readers will know how to estimate their 
 criticisms. It is as plain as the noonday sun that without new 
 legislation the Government of the United States was, in the 
 then situation of things, practically powerless to encounter 
 secession, whether you call secession revolution or call it re- 
 bellion, or call it anything else. For ±he needed legislation 
 there was ample time before the 4th of March, and that legis- 
 lation never came until after the Civil War was raging and the 
 Confederate Government was seated at Richmond, with the 
 whole of great and historic Virginia at its absolute command, 
 along with all vigorous North Carolina, and with nearly half 
 the people of Missouri, Tennessee, and Kentucky in active 
 sympathy and co-operation with all its doings. 
 
 THE GOVEENMENT AND EEVOLUTTON. 
 
 But there is one other view which has been respectfully 
 urged by more than one of the critics in the most considerate 
 terms, and it shall have a respectful answer. To formulate 
 it as I understand what has been written and published, and 
 as it has reached me privately from sources entitled to my 
 most sincere respect, it may"be stated thus : "Within the limits 
 of the Constitution, Mr. Buchanan may have had no adequate 
 means to encounter secession without new legislation. But 
 
APPENDIX. 319 
 
 secession was, in fact, revolution ; and as every government 
 has, by the great law of self-preservation, the right to en- 
 counter revolution, what was needed was the exercise by the 
 President of powers such as any government would resort to 
 in encountering a revolution which threatens its very existence 
 and aims to terminate it. As the natural right of revolution 
 is bounded by no law, so, it is argued, the correlative right 
 of a government to prevent the success of a revolution is not 
 to be measured by positive law or established precedent. Mr. 
 Buchanan failed to perceive and act upon this correlative right 
 of the Government to prevent a revolution from becoming 
 successful, although the purity and patriotism of his motives 
 must be conceded. 
 
 The first answer to this criticism is that the ordinances of 
 secession and the public proceedings of the States which 
 seceded before the 4th of March, 1801, based the alleged right 
 of secession not upon any right of revolution, but .upon a 
 certain construction of the Constitution of the United States, 
 as a right impliedly reserved to the States by the nature and 
 effect of that instrument. It was the Constitution itself, 
 therefore, to which the Government of the United States was 
 to look for the means of encountering such an asserted right 
 of a State to absolve its people from the duty of obeying the 
 laws of the United States, and those means were to execute 
 the laws of the' United States upon individuals in spite of the 
 secession ordinances. 
 
 But, in the next place, if secession was practically and in 
 effect an attempt at revolution, the case for the Government 
 of the United States is not altered by the name that is given 
 to the attempt. Nullification by a State of a single act of 
 Congress is practically a revolution ^o tam,to. But to base it 
 on the inherent right of revolution against intolerable oppres- 
 sion, or to call it an attempt to make a revolution, does not 
 enlarge the sphere or enhance the means in and by which a 
 constitutional government like that of the United States is to 
 act in a case of such resistance to its authority. In other 
 words, it is not correct to say that, because the natural right 
 to make a revolution is boundless in its scope and justifiable 
 by its success, a constitutional government holds a correlative 
 
320 APPENDIX, 
 
 right to resort to any and all means to prevent that snecess. 
 If the government is one that has in its own fundamental law 
 express provision for the assertion of its authority, and legis- 
 lative, judicial, and executive means of defending that author- 
 ity against all resistance by combinations of men or public 
 bodies, whether they are nullifications, secessions, insurrec- 
 tions, rebellions, attempted revolutions, or what not ; whether 
 they extend to a total overthrow of the legitimate authority 
 or are only aimed at one exercise of that authority, the whole 
 field is covered ; and the government, if it intends to preserve 
 its constitutional authority and the great law of its being, and 
 not to make itself a party to a revolution in its turn, must 
 reject all distinction between nullifications, secessions, revo- 
 lutions, rebellions, and insurrections, and must act by encoun- 
 tering them all in the method provided for it by the great law 
 that has given it the right to exist and to defend its existence. 
 Mr. Buchanan saw this with perfect clearness of vision from 
 the first. But he was not the only man of that period who 
 saw it. Mr. Seward, for example, saw it and acted upon it 
 for a short time, although he soon went to the extreme of 
 exercising revolutionary, arbitrary, and extra constitutional 
 powers, upon the idea of the correlative right of a govern- 
 ment to measure its own powers by the unlimited powers of 
 those who were said to be trying to accomplish a revolution. 
 Mr. Seward's letter of April 10th, 1861, to Mr. Adams, is 
 ■worthy of the attention of the critics of Mr. Buchanan's 
 course. It is the glory of our Constitution that it has within 
 itself all the necessary means for encountering any emergency, 
 and if our Civil War and its result have not taught this lesson, 
 all the blood was shed and all the treasure expended in vain. 
 
 Finally, you cannot, by calling " secession" " revolution," 
 or treating it as an attempt at revolution, change in one iota 
 the relative functions and duties of the President and the 
 Congress. The President can no more encounter an at- 
 tempted revolution without being supplied by Congress with 
 the necessary means, especially when Congress is in session, 
 than he can proceed on his own sole authority in ordinary and 
 peaceful times to do anything without law. If there is a ■ 
 threatened revolution the President can make himseK a die- 
 
APPENDIX. 321 
 
 tator, if he will, and the people will permit him, and so he 
 and the people can destroy the Government in the process of 
 preserving it. But the President happens to have taken a 
 solemn oath to his God to presei"ve, protect, and defeqd the 
 Constitution of the United States ; and this binds him by all 
 the force that can rest upon the conscience of man to preserve, 
 protect, and defend the authority and function of every de- 
 partment of the Government in its appropriate sphere, 
 whether he has to encounter a revolution, or to enforce a civil 
 execution for five hundred dollars, or to sign the death war- 
 rant of a convicted criminal, or to issue a patent for a tract of 
 land. 
 
 WAS REBELLION INEVITABLE ? 
 
 There is one other of the recent criticisms of Mr. Buchan- 
 an's course on which I will say a few words. The Civil War, 
 it is said, was bound to come. The temper of the North and 
 the South toward each other had become such that it was 
 nothing short of an entire lack of prescience and wisdom in 
 Mr. Buchanan that he did not see the uselessness of all efforts 
 at conciliation. The war had to come ; slavery had to'be de- 
 stroyed by force ; the irrepressible conflict had culminated ; 
 it could not be arrested. It is not probable that this will be 
 the final judgment of history. But suppose it is. Make the 
 case as strong as the facts will warrant, and then add your 
 belief that civil war had become inevitable. No aspect which 
 you can give to the case, no belief in the inevitable conflict 
 that you can hold, will vary in the least degree the political, 
 the patriotic, the public, or the moral duty of a statesman 
 situated as Mr. Buchanan was. 
 
 The fact, if it is a fact, that the two sections had become 
 so embittered against each other that the voice of moderating 
 wisdom was not likely to be heard, could not render it the 
 less a duty for Buchanan to utter that voice in all earnestness 
 and sincerity. There can be no exasperation bf nation against 
 nation, no excitement of section against section in the same 
 country, no conflict of human passions or interests, in which 
 the beatitude pronounced for the peace-makers can ever be 
 lost. We may refine as we please about the course of God's 
 21 
 
332 APPENDIX. 
 
 providence ; we may say that war is permitted for inscrutable 
 purposes, or that it works out of slaughter and desolation and 
 brave men's lives and widows' tears and the orphan's destitU' 
 tion great and beneficent ends. Human anger, self-interest, 
 popular violence, ambition, greed of power, greed of gain, 
 love of country, love of honor, philanthropy, real or pre- 
 tended — a thousand vices and ten thousand virtues — may all 
 be wrought into the multitudinous means by which the 
 Almighty governs the world. But notwithstanding all this, 
 the statesman who does not labor to avert the calamity of 
 civil war by every means within his reach that may be con- 
 sistent with the dictates of an enlightened conscience, fails to 
 fulfil a duty that is just as divinely appointed as the duty of 
 the soldier can be said to be after the clash of arms has begun 
 and the battle is raging. This was true when Buchanan was 
 subjected to his great trial, and it will remain true of all other 
 men in like situations to the end of time. Is it said that ho 
 strove to save his party and to save slavery, because he tried 
 to save the Union by compromise and conciliation ? Well, 
 what is this but to judge him by an utterly uncharitable judg- 
 ment ? Do you imagine that posterity is going to judge him 
 in this way ? We can so judge him to-day, if we will ; in 
 the near to-morrow of another age he will be judged by an- 
 other tribunal, and even now it may behoove us to take care 
 how we permit the rising generation to be misled concerning 
 the man who propounded and asserted the constitutional doc- 
 trine that saved us of the North from having a conquered 
 Ireland or a subjugated Poland on our hands. 
 
 THE ATJTHOe's LIFETIME VIEWS OF COERCION. 
 
 Let me conclude, Mr. Editor, by saying that the distinction 
 between coercing a State and enforcing the laws of the TJnited 
 States upon individuals is no new one with me, nor has it 
 been adopted for tlje purpose of defending President Buchan- 
 an ; nor did I derive it from him, much as I respect and honor 
 him for the clear and forcible manner in which he stated it. 
 It was in substance set forth in an oration which I .delivered 
 on the 4th of July, 1862, before the municipal authorities of 
 
APPENDIX. 333 
 
 the city of Boston, and which was published in pamphlet by 
 the city government at the time, and was twice printed at 
 length in the New York Journal of Commerce. If any one 
 cares anything about the consistency of my opinions, or at- 
 taches any importance to them, he can compare what 1 said 
 in 1862 with what I have said in the recent " Life of Buchan- 
 an ;" or he can go back to an earlier period and consult 
 Chapter XII. of Volume 11. of my history of the Constitution, 
 first published in 1894 ; or he can come down to a period 
 since the Civil War and consult a published lecture which I de- 
 livered in New York in 1875, long before I ever knew Mr. 
 Buchanan's executors or a single member of his family. In 
 fact, from the years of my earliest manhood to this day I 
 never had but one set of opinions upon the mode in which 
 tJie Government of the United States is to maintain its right- 
 ful supremacy, and those opinions have been expressed by me 
 quite as freely and frequently as could become a citizen who 
 never held or sought an ofiSeial position. 
 Very respectfully, your obedient servant, 
 
 Geoege Ticknoe CUETIS. 
 
: ME. SEWAED UPON COEECION OF STATES. 
 
 The following extracts are taken from an official letter ad- 
 dressed by Mr. Seward, as Secretary of State under President 
 Lincoln, to Mr. C. F. Adams, who had just gone abroad as 
 United States Minister to England. The letter bears date 
 April 50th, 1861 : 
 
 " You will hardly be asked by responsible statesmen abroad, 
 Why has not the new administration already suppressed the 
 revolution? Thirty-five days are a short period in which to 
 repress, chiefly by moral means, a movement which is so 
 active while disclosing itself throughoiit an empire. . . . 
 He (President Lincoln) believes that the citizens of those 
 States, as well as the citizens of the other States, are too 
 intelligent, considerate, and wise to follow the leaders to that 
 destructive end — anarchy. For these reasons he would not 
 be disposed to reject a cardinal dogma of theirs — namely, that 
 the Federal Government could not reduce the seceding States 
 to obedience by conquest, even although he were disposed to 
 question that proposition. But, in fact, the President will- 
 ingly accepts it as true. Only an imperial and despotic 
 government could subjugate thoroughly disafEected and insur- 
 rectionary members of the State. This federal, republican 
 country of ours is, of all forms of government, the very one 
 which is most unfitted for such a labor. Happily, however, 
 this is only an imaginary defect. The system has within 
 itself adequate, peaceful, conservative, and recuperative 
 forces. Firmness on the part of the Government in main- 
 taining ^nd preserving the public institutions and property, 
 and in executing the laws where authority can be exercised with- 
 out waging war, combined with such measures of justice, 
 moderation, and forbearance as will disarm reasoning opposi- 
 tion, will be sufficient to secure the public safety until return- 
 ing reflection, concurring with the fearful experience of social 
 
APPENDIX. 325 
 
 evils, the inevitable fruits of faction, shall bring the recusant 
 members cheerfully into the family, which, after all, must 
 prove their best and happiest, as it undeniably is their most 
 natural, home." He then goes on to show that the caUing of 
 a national convention, by authority of Congress, will remove 
 all real obstacles to a reunion by revising the Constitution, 
 and he adds : " Keeping that remedy steadily in view, the 
 President, on the one hand, will not suffer the federal author- 
 ity to fall into abeyance, nor will he, on the other hand, 
 aggravate existing evils * hy attempts at coercion which must 
 assume the form, of direct war against any of the revoho- 
 tionary States." 
 
 It is impossible for human ingenuity to draw a sensible dis- 
 tinction between the policy of President Lincoln, as laid down 
 by Mr. Seward just before the attack on Fort Sumter, and the 
 policy adopted and steadily pursued by President Buchanan ; 
 and it is to be hoped that the world will hereafter hear no 
 more reproaches of President Buchanan because he denied the 
 authority of the Federal Government to make aggressive war 
 upon a State to compel it to . remain in the Union, or because 
 he proposed conciliatory measures looking to an amendment 
 of the Constitution. — Curtis, ^^Life of Jam,es Buchana/n,^'' 
 vol, ii., p. 351. 
 
 Copies of this volume may be obtained from J. Buchanan Henry, 16 Ex- 
 change Place, Eoom 25, New York City. 
 
 * Italics the compiler's. 
 
Iiq^D EX. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Inaugural Address 5 
 
 Annual Message to Congress, December 8tU, 1857 14 
 
 Annual Message to Congress, December 6tli, 1858 ^ 53 
 
 Annual Message to Congress, December IQth, 1859 98 
 
 Annual Message to Congress, December 3d, 1860 133 
 
 Special Message. Capture of Walker, Violation of Nicaraguan Terri- 
 tory 173 
 
 Special Message to Congress Transmitting the Constitution of Kansas. 177 
 
 Special Message. Utah Affairs 193 
 
 Special Message. Acquisition of Cuba by Purchase Recommended. . . . 194 
 
 Special Message. Condition of the Treasury 195 
 
 Special Message. California Mail Service 199 
 
 Special Message. Protection of the Transit Routes across the Isthmus. 300 
 Special Message. Veto of the Agricultural College Bill, Constitutional 
 
 Questions 204 
 
 Special Message. Preservation of the Credit of the United States 315 
 
 Special Message. Veto of Bill for Relief of Hockaday &, Leggit 317 
 
 Special Message. Reasons for not Approving the Bill for Deepening 
 
 the Saint Clair Flats : 330 
 
 Special Message. Bill in Relation to Removal of Obstructions in the 
 
 Mouth of the Mississippi 333 
 
 Special Message. Protest against the Attack upon the Independence of 
 the Executive in the Passage of the " Covode " Investigation Reso- 
 lutions 333 
 
 Special Message. Veto of Bill for Relief of Arthur Edwards 341 
 
 Special Message. Captured Africans, Disposal of 343 
 
 Special Message. Solemn Protest against the Proceedings of the 
 
 " Covode " Investigating Committee 348 
 
 Special Message. Veto of " Homestead Bill." Reasons and Constitu- 
 tional Argument 258 
 
 Special Message. California Mails ' 267 
 
 Special Message. Captured Africans 368 
 
 Special Message. Washington Aqueduct, Constitutional Questions, etc. 369 
 Special Message. Virginia Peace Resolutions Submitted to Congress. . 373 
 Special Message Transmitting Resolutions of the Kentucky Legislature 
 in Favor of a Convention for Proposing Amendments to the 
 
 Constitution '. 375 
 
 Special Message Transmitting Correspondence with the " Commission- 
 ers " of South Carolina 376 
 
328 INDEX. 
 
 p ae 
 
 Special Message. Seizure of the U. S. Mint at New Orleans 277 
 
 Special Message. Assembling ot Troops in Washingrton City 378 
 
 Special Message. Communicating Correspondence with South Carolina 
 " Commissioners," Questions of Constitutional Authority, War- 
 Power, etc., January 8th, 1861 380 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 Communication from Hon. Joseph Holt, Secretary of War under Presi- 
 dent Buchanan, and Judge Advocate-General under President 
 Lincoln, in Regard to the so-culled " Cabinet Crisis" 288 
 
 Communication from Hon. Jeremiah S. Black, Attorney-General and 
 Secretary of State under President Buchanan, in Regard to his 
 Biography 299 
 
 Communication from Hon. Horatio King, Postmaster-General under 
 President Buchanan, upon some Inaccuracies of Hay and Nicolay's 
 " Life of Abraham Lincoln " 301 
 
 Letter of President Buchanan of September 21st, 1861 303 
 
 Letter of President Buchanan to Mrs. M. E. Gwin, May 4th, 1801 805 
 
 Letter from George Ticknor Curtis, Esq. Review of the CriticismB 
 upon his Biography of James Buchanan 800 
 
 Secretary Seward to Hon. C. F. Adams, U. S. Minister to Great Britain, 
 
 upon the Coercion of States, etc 324 
 
-r J- J