Jefferson Davis, The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government

“ [514] (Sunday, the 30th) been taken by force of arms.” It is estimated that the munitions of war belonging to the United States in this arsenal are worth half a million of dollars.

Comment is needless. After this information, I have only to add that, while it is my duty to defend Fort Sumter, as a portion of the public property of the United States, against hostile attacks from whatever quarter they may come, by such means as I may possess for this purpose, I do not perceive how such a defense can be construed into a menace against the city of Charleston.

With great personal regard, I remain

Yours, very respectfully,

James Buchanan. To Honorable Robert W. Barnwell, James H. Adams, James L. Orr.

reply of the commissioners to the President

Washington, D. C., January 1, 1861.

Sir: We have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your letter of the 30th December, in reply to a note addressed by us to you on the 28th of the same month, as commissioners from South Carolina.

In reference to the declaration with which your reply commences, that “your position as President of the United States was clearly defined in the message to Congress of the 3d instant,” that you possess “no power to change the relations heretofore existing” between South Carolina and the United States, “much less to acknowledge the independence of that State”; and that, consequently, you could meet us only as private gentlemen of the highest character, with an entire willingness to communicate to Congress any proposition we might have to make, we deem it only necessary to say that, the State of South Carolina having, in the exercise of that great right of self-government which underlies all our political organizations, declared herself sovereign and independent, we, as her representatives, felt no special solicitude as to the character in which you might recognize us. Satisfied that the State had simply exercised her unquestionable right, we were prepared, in order to reach substantial good, to waive formal considerations which your constitutional scruples might have prevented you from extending. We came here, therefore, expecting to be received as you did receive us, and perfectly content with that entire willingness of which you assured us, to submit any proposition to Congress which we might have to make upon the subject of independence of the State. The willingness was ample recognition of the condition of public affairs which rendered our presence necessary. In this position, however, it is our duty, both to the State which we represent and to ourselves, to correct several important misconceptions of our letter into which you have fallen.

You say, “It was my earnest desire that such a disposition might be made of the whole subject by Congress, who alone possesses the power to prevent the inauguration of a civil war between the parties in regard to the possession of the Federal forts in the harbor of Charleston; and I, therefore, deeply regret that, in your opinion, ‘the events of the last twenty-four hours render this impossible.’ ” We expressed no such opinion, and the language which you quote as ours is altered in its sense by the omission of a most important part of the sentence.