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Ferry would be seized, and held for the purpose of opposing the Government.
Already Judge A. H. Handy, a commissioner from Mississippi, had visited Maryland for the purpose of engaging that State in the Virginia scheme of seizing the National Capital, and preventing the inauguration of Mr. Lincoln.
The conspirators were so confident of the success of their schemes, that one of the leading Southern Senators, then in Congress, said:--“Mr. Lincoln will not dare to come to Washington after the expiration of the term of Mr. Buchanan.
This city will be seized and occupied as the capital of the Southern Confederacy, and Mr. Lincoln will be compelled to take his oath of office in Philadelphia or in New York.”
1 And the veteran editor, Duff Green, the friend and confidential co-worker with Calhoun when the latter quarreled with President Jackson, and who naturally espoused the cause of the secessionists, told Joseph C. Lewis, of Washington, while under the half-finished dome of the Capitol, early in 1861:--“We intend to take possession of the Army and Navy, and of the archives of the Government; not allow the electoral votes to be counted; proclaim Buchanan provisional President, if he will do as we wish, and if not, choose another; seize the Harper's Ferry Arsenal and the Norfolk Navy Yard simultaneously, and sending armed men down from the former, and armed vessels up from the latter, take possession of Washington, and establish a new government.”
There is ample evidence that the seizure of Washington City, the Government buildings, and the archives of the nation, was an original and capital feature in the plan of the conspirators; and their assertions, after they were foiled in this, that they sought only for “independence,” and that all they asked was “to be let alone,” was the most transparent hypocrisy.
They aimed at revolution at first, and disunion afterwards.
They had assurances, they believed, that the President would not interfere with their measures.
Should Congress pass a Force Bill, he was pledged by the declarations of his annual Message to withhold his signature from it; and most of them were satisfied that they might, during the next seventy days, establish their “Southern Confederacy,” and secure to it the possession of the Capital, without governmental interposition.
Yet all were not satisfied.
Some vigilant South Carolina spies in Washington would not trust the President.
One of them, signing only the name of “Charles,” in a letter to Rhett, the editor of the Charleston Mercury, said: “I know all that has been done here, but depend upon nothing that Mr. Buchanan promises.
He will cheat us ”
1 Correspondence (Occasional) of the Philadelphia Press, December 21, 1860. In the same letter, which was a trumpet-call to the country to arouse it to a sense of its danger and to act, the writer (J. W. Forney) said:--“The Administration of the Government is in the hands of the enemies of the country. The President of the United States has ceased to be the Chief Magistrate of a free people, and may be called the chief of those who are seeking to enslave a free people. He is quoted by the secessionists, if not as their active, at least as their quiescent ally l He refuses to exercise his functions, and to enforce the laws l He refuses to protect the public property, and to re-enforce the gallant Anderson at Fort Moultrie! He sends the Secretary of the Interior to North Carolina, with the intention of forcing that loyal and conservative State into the ranks of the disunionists! While sending General Harney to Kansas with a large military force to suppress a petty border insurgent, he folds his arms when General Scott and his brave subordinates in the South appeal to him for succor. His Attorney-General argues with all his ingenuity against the power of the Federal Government to enforce the laws of the country. His confidants are disunionists. His leaders in the Senate and in the House are disunionists and while he drives into exile the oldest Statesman in America, simply and only because he dares to raise his voice in favor of the country, he consults daily with men who publicly avow, in their seats in Congress, that the Union is dissolved, and that the laws are standing still! Is it not time, then, for the American people to take the country into their own hands, and to administer the Government in their own way?”
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