Commissioner Hayne's letter to President Buchanan

Sir: I had the honor to hold a short interview with you on the 14th instant, informal and unofficial. Having previously been informed that you desired that whatever was official should be, on both sides, conducted by written communications, I did not at that time present my credentials, but verbally informed you that I bore a letter from the governor of South Carolina, in regard to the occupation of Fort Sumter, which I would deliver the next day under cover of a written communication from myself. The next day, before such communication could be made, I was waited upon by a senator from Alabama, who stated that he came on the part of all the senators then in Washington from the States which had already seceded from the United States, or would certainly have done so before the first day of February next. The senator from Alabama urged that he and they were interested in the subject of my mission in almost an equal degree with the authorities of South Carolina. He said that hostilities commenced between South Carolina and your government would necessarily involve the States represented by themselves in civil strife; and fearing that the action of South Carolina might complicate the relations of your government to the seceded and seceding States, and thereby interfere with a peaceful solution of existing difficulties, these senators requested that I would withhold my message to yourself until a consultation among themselves could be had. To this I agreed, and the result of the consultation was the letter of these senators addressed to me, dated January 15, a copy of which is in your possession. To this letter I replied on the 17th, and a copy of that reply is likewise in your possession. This correspondence, as I am informed, was made the subject of a communication from Senators Fitzpatrick, Mallory, and Slidell, addressed to you, and your attention called to the contents. These gentlemen received on the——day of January a reply to their application, conveyed in a letter addressed to them dated——, signed by the Hon. J. Holt, Secretary of War ad interim. Of this letter you of course have a copy. This letter from Mr. Holt was communicated to me under cover of a letter from all the senators of the seceded and seceding States who still remained in Washington, and of this letter, too, I am informed you have been furnished with a copy.

This reply of yours, through the Secretary of War ad interim, to the application made by the senators was entirely unsatisfactory to me. It appeared to me to be not only a rejection in advance of the main proposition made by these senators, to wit: that “an arrangement should be agreed on” between the authorities of South Carolina and your government, “at least until the 15th of February next,” by which time South Carolina and the States represented by the senators “might in convention devise a wise, just, and peaceable solution of existing difficulties.” “In the meantime,” they say, “we think,” that is, these senators, “that your State (South Carolina) should suffer Major Anderson to obtain necessary supplies of food, fuel, or water, and enjoy free communication, by post or special messenger, with the President, upon the understanding that the President will not send him re-enforcements during the same period;” but, besides this rejection of the main proposition, there was, in Mr. Holt’s letter, a distinct refusal to make any stipulation on the subject of re-enforcement, even for the short time that might be required to communicate with my government. This reply to the senators was, as I have stated, altogether unsatisfactory to me, and I felt sure would be so to the authorities whom I represented. It was not, however, addressed to me, or to the authorities of South Carolina; and as South Carolina had addressed nothing to your government, and had asked nothing at your hands, I looked not to Mr. Holt’s letter, but to the note addressed to me by the senators of the seceded and seceding States. I had consented to withhold my message at their instance, provided they could get assurances satisfactory to them that no re-enforcements would be sent to Fort Sumter in the interval, and that the peace should not be disturbed by any act of hostility.

The senators expressed in their note to me of the 23d instant their entire confidence “that no re-enforcements will be sent to Fort Sumter, nor will the public peace be disturbed within the period requisite for full communication between [you] (myself) and your (my) government,” and renewed their request that I would withhold the communication with which I stood charged, and await further instructions. This I have done. The further instructions arrived on the 30th instant, and bear date the 26th. I now have the honor to make to you my first communication as special envoy from the government of South Carolina. You will find enclosed the original communication to the President of the United States from the governor of South Carolina, with which I was charged in Charleston on the 12th day of January instant, the day on which it bears date. I am now instructed by the governor of South Carolina to say that his opinion as to the propriety of the demand which is contained in this letter “has not only been confirmed by the circumstances which your (my) mission has developed, but is now increased to a conviction of its necessity. The safety of the State requires that the position of the President should be distinctly understood. The safety of all seceding States requires it as much as the safety of South Carolina. If it be so that Fort Sumter is held as property, then, as property, the rights, whatever they may be, of the United States can be ascertained, and for the satisfaction of these rights the pledge of the State of South Carolina you are (I am) authorized to give.” “If Fort Sumter is not held as property, it is held,” say my instructions, “as a military post, and such a post within the limits of South Carolina will not be tolerated.” You will perceive that it is upon the presumption that it is solely as property that you continue to hold Fort Sumter that I have been selected for the performance of the duty upon which I have entered. I do not come as a military man to demand the surrender of a fortress, but as the legal officer of the State—its attorney general—to claim for the State the exercise of its undoubted right of eminent domain, and to pledge the State to make good all injury to the rights of property which arise from tbe exercise of the claim.

South Carolina, as a separate, independent sovereign, assumes the right to take into her own possession everything within her limits essential to maintain her honor or her safety, irrespective of the question of property, subject only to the moral duty requiring that compensation should he made to the owner. This right she cannot permit to be drawn into discussion. As to compensation for any property, whether of an individual or a government, which she may deem it necessary for her honor or safety to take into her possession, her past history gives ample guarantee that it will be made, upon a fair accounting, to the last dollar.

The proposition now is, that her law officer should, under authority of the governor and his council, distinctly pledge the faith of South Carolina to make such compensation in regard to Fort Sumter, and its appurtenances and contents, to the full extent of the money value of the property of the United States delivered over to the authorities of South Carolina by your command. I will not suppose that a pledge like this can be considered insufficient security. Is not the money value of the property of the United States in this fort, situated where it cannot be made available to the United States for any one purpose for which it was originally constructed, worth more to the United States than the property itself? Why then, as property, insist on holding it by an armed garrison? Yet such has been the ground upon which you have invariably placed your occupancy of this tort by troops—beginning prospectively with your annual message of the 4th December, again in your special message of tbe 9th January, and still more emphatically in your message of the 28th January. The same position is set forth in your reply to the senators, through the Secretary of War ad interim. It is there virtually conceded that Fort Sumter “is held merely as property of the United States, which you deem it your duty to protect and preserve.” Again, it is submitted that the continuance of an armed possession actually jeopards the property you desire to protect. It is impossible but that such a possession, if continued Iong enough, must lead to collision. No people not completely abject and pusillanimous could submit indefinitely to the armed occupation of a fortress in the midst of the harbor of its principal city, and commanding the ingress and egress of every ship that enters the port—the daily ferry-boats that ply upon its waters moving but at the sufferance of aliens. An attack upon this fort would scarcely improve it as property, whatever the result; and if captured, it would no longer be the subject of account. To protect Fort Sumter merely as property, it is submitted that an armed occupancy is not only unnecessary, but that it is manifestly the worst possible means which can be resorted to for such an object.

Your reply to the senators, through Mr. Holt, declares it to be your sole object “to act strictly on the defensive, and to authorize no movement against South Carolina, unless justified by a hostile movement on their part.” Yet, in reply to the proposition of the senators—that no re-enforcements should be sent to Fort Sumter, provided South Carolina agrees that during the same period no attack should be made—you say “it is impossible for me (your Secretary) to give you (the senators) any such assurance;” that “it would be manifest violation of his (your) duty, to place himself (yourself ) under engagements that he (you) would not perform the duty, either for an indefinite or a limited period.” In your message of the 28th instant, in expressing yourself in regard to a similar proposition, you say: “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.” The proposition, it is suggested, was addressed to you under the laws as they now are, and was not intended to refer to a new condition of things arising under new legislation. It was addressed to the executive discretion, acting under existing laws. If Congress should, under the war-making power, or in any other way, legislate in a manner to affect the peace of South Carolina, her interests, or her rights, it would not be accomplished in secret; South Carolina would have timely notice, and she would, I trust, endeavor to meet the emergency.

It is added, in the letter of Mr. Holt, that “at the present moment it is not deemed necessary to re-enforce Major Anderson, because he makes no such request, and feels quite secure in his position;” “but should his safety require it, every effort will be made to supply re-enforcements.” This would seem to ignore the other branch of the proposition made by the senators, viz: that no attack was to be made on Fort Sumter during the period suggested, and that Major Anderson should enjoy the facilities of communication, &c., &c. I advert to this point, however, for the purpose of saying that to send re-enforcements to Fort Sumter could not serve as a means of protecting and preserving properly; for, as must he known to your government, it would inevitably lead to immediate hostilities, in which property on all sides would necessarily suffer. South Carolina has every disposition to preserve the public peace, and feels, I am sure, in full force, those high “Christian and moral duties” referred to by your Secretary; and it is submitted that on her part there is scarcely any consideration of mere property, apart from honor and safety, which could induce her to do aught to jeopard that peace, still less to inaugurate a protracted and bloody civil war. She rests her position on something higher than mere property. It is a consideration of her own dignity as a sovereign, and the safety of her people, which prompts her to demand that this property should not longer be used as a military post by a government she no longer acknowledges. She feels this to be an imperative duty. It has, in fact, become an absolute necessity of her condition.

Repudiating, as you do, the idea of coercion, avowing peaceful intentions, and expressing a patriot’s horror for civil war and bloody strife among those who once were brethren, it is hoped that, on further consideration, you will not, on a mere question of property, refuse the reasonable demand of South Carolina, which honor and necessity alike compel her to vindicate. Should you disappoint this hope, the responsibility for the result surely does not rest with her. If the evils of war are to be encountered, especially the calamities of civil war, an elevated statesmanship would seem to require that it should be accepted as the unavoidable alternative of something still more disastrous, such as national dishonor, or measures materially affecting the safety or permanent interests of a people; that it should be a choice deliberately made, and entered upon as war, and of set purpose. But that war should be the incident or accident attendant on a policy professedly peaceful, and not required to effect the object which is avowed, as the only end intended, can only be excused where there has been no warning given as to the consequences.

I am further instructed to say that South Carolina cannot, by her silence, appear to acquiesce in the imputation that she was guilty of an act of unprovoked aggression in firing on the “Star of the West.” Though an unarmed vessel, she was filled with armed men, entering her territory against her will with the purpose of re-enforcing a garrison held within her limits against her protest. She forbears to recriminate by discussing the question of the propriety of attempting such a re-enforcement at all, as well as of the disguised and secret manner in which it was intended to be effected; and on this occasion she will say nothing as to the manner in which Fort Sumter was taken into the possession of its present occupants. The interposition of the senators who have addressed you was a circumstance unexpected by my government, and unsolicited certainly by me. The governor, while he appreciates the high and generous motives by which they were prompted, and while he fully approves the delay which, in deference to them, has taken place in the presentation of this demand, feels that it cannot longer be withheld.

I conclude with an extract from the instructions just received by me from the government of South Carolina. “The letter of the President, through Mr. Holt, may be received as the reply to the question you were instructed to ask, as to his assertion of his right to send re-enforcements to Fort Sumter. You were instructed to say to him, if he asserted that right, that the State of South Carolina regarded such a right, when asserted, or with an attempt at its exercise, as a declaration of war. If the President intends it shall not be so understood, it is proper, to avoid any misconception hereafter, that he should be informed of the manner in which the governor will feel bound to regard it. If the President, when you have stated the reasons which prompt the governor in making the demand for the delivery of Fort Sumter, shall refuse to deliver the fort upon the pledge you have been authorized to make, you will communicate that refusal without delay to the governor. If the President shall not be prepared to give you an immediate answer, you will communicate to him that his answer may be transmitted within a reasonable time to the governor at this place, (Charleston, South Carolina.) The governor does not consider it necessary that you (I) should remain longer in Washington than is necessary to execute this, the closing duty of your (my) mission, in the manner now indicated to you, (me). As soon as the governor shall receive from you information that you have closed your mission, and the reply, whatever it may be, of the President, he will consider the conduct which will he necessary on his part.”

Allow me to request that you would as soon as possible inform me whether, under these instructions, I need await your answer in Washington. And if not, I would be pleased to convey from you to my government information as to the time when an answer may be expected in Charleston.