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| James L. Orr. |
December, 1860. |
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[148]
that they were authorized and empowered to treat with the Government of the United States for the delivery of the forts, magazines, light-houses, and other real estate, with their appurtenances, in the limits of South Carolina; and also for an apportionment of the public debt, and for a division of all other property held by the Government of the United States as agent of the Confederated States, of which South Carolina was recently a member; and generally to negotiate as to all other measures and arrangements proper to be made and adopted in the existing relation of the parties, and for the continuance of peace and amity between the Commonwealth and the Government at Washington.
They also furnished him with a copy of the Ordinance of Secession.
They said it would have been their duty, under their instructions, to have informed him that they were ready to negotiate, “but (referring to Anderson's movements) the events of the last twenty-four hours” had altered the condition of affairs under which they came.
They reminded him that the authorities of South Carolina could, at any time within the past sixty days, have taken possession of the forts in Charleston harbor, but they were restrained by pledges given in a manner that they could not
doubt.1 They assured him that until the circumstances of Anderson's movements were explained in a manner to relieve them of all doubt as to the spirit in which the negotiations should be conducted, they would be compelled to suspend all discussion.
In conclusion, they urged the President to immediately withdraw all the National troops from Charleston harbor, because, under the circumstances, they were a “standing menace,” which rendered negotiations impossible, and threatened to “bring to a bloody issue questions which ought to be settled with temperance and judgment.”
2
The arrogance and insolence visible in this letter, considering the crimina position of the men who signed it, and the circumstances to which it related, offended the President, who would have been applauded by every loyal man in the country if he had arrested them on a charge of treason.3 Yet he treated the “Commissioners” and their letter with marked courtesy in a reply written on the 30th.
He referred them to his Annual Message for a definition of his intended course concerning the property of the United States and the collection of the revenue.
He could only meet them as private gentlemen of the highest character, and
1 See page 102.
2 Letter of the “Commissioners” to the President, dated Washington, December 28, 1861.
3 Three weeks later, Francis C. Treadwell, of New York, a counselor of the Supreme Court, offered to Chief-Justice Taney an affirmation, in due form, that certain persons (naming most of the public men known to have been engaged in the great conspiracy) were guilty of conspiring against the Constitution and Government of the United States, and had committed the crime of treason, or misprision of treason, and praying for their arrest. This paper was returned to Mr. Treadwell by the Clerk of the Supreme Court, Benjamin C. Howard, with the remark, that the Chief Justice deemed it “an improper paper to be offered to the Court.”
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