[4] “It was while these plans for a coup d’etat before the 4th of March were being matured in the very Cabinet itself and in the presence of a President too feeble to resist them and too blind oven to see them, that Mr. Stanton was sent for by Mr. Buchanan to answer the question, ‘Can a State be coerced?’ For two hours he battled, and finally scattered for the time being the heresies with which secession had filled the head of that old broken-down man.  He was requested to prepare an argument in support of the power, to be inserted in the forthcoming message.”—­Hon. H.L.  Dawes, in the “Boston Congregationalist.”  See “Atlantic Monthly,” October, 1870, p. 468.

[5] Slavery existed by virtue of express enactments in the several constitutions of the slave States, but the Constitution of the United States gave it only implied recognition and toleration.

[6] “It was with some surprise, I confess, that I read the message of the President.  The message laid down certain conditions as those upon which alone the great Confederacy of the United States could be preserved from disruption.  In so doing the President appeared to be preparing beforehand an apology for the secession.  Had the conditions, indeed, been such as the Northern States would be likely to accept, the message might have been considered one of peace.  But it seems very improbable that the Northern States should now, at the moment of their triumph, and with large majorities of Republicans in their assemblies, submit to conditions which, during many years of struggle, they have rejected or evaded.”—­Lord John Russell to Lord Lyons, December 26, 1860.  British Blue Book.

[7] The logic of the message breaks down by the palpable omission to state the well-known fact that, though every citizen of South Carolina, or any other State, might refuse to accept or execute the office of United States marshal, or, indeed, any Federal office, the want could be immediately lawfully supplied by appointing any qualified citizen of any other State, who might lawfully and properly lead either a posse, or Federal forces, or State militia, to put down obstruction of the Federal laws, insurrection, or rebellion.  President Buchanan admitted his own error, and repudiated his own doctrine, when on January 2, following, he nominated a citizen of Pennsylvania for the office of collector of the port of Charleston, South Carolina.

Sections two and three of the Act of February 28, 1795, authorize the President, when the execution of the laws is obstructed by insurrection too powerful for courts and marshals, to call forth the militia of any and all the States, first and primarily to “suppress such combinations,” and, secondly, “to cause the laws to be duly executed, and the use of militia so to be called forth may be continued, if necessary, until the expiration of thirty days after the commencement of the then next session of Congress.”  In performing this duty the act