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PUBLIC DOCUMENTS. 



PUBLIC DOCUMENTS. 



MESSAGE of President Buchanan at the Second 

 Session of the Thirty-Sixth Congress, Decem- 

 ber, 1860. 



Fellow-Citisens of the Senate 



and House of Representatives : 



Throughout the year, since our last meeting, the 

 country has been eminently prosperous in all its ma- 

 terial interests. The general health has been excel- 

 lent, our harvests have been abundant, and plenty 

 smiles throughout the land. Our commerce and man- 

 ufactures have been prosecuted with energy and in- 

 dustry, and have yielded fair and ample returns. In 

 short, no nation in the tide of time has ever presented 

 a spectacle of greater material prosperity than we have 

 done until within a very recent period. 



Why is it, then, that discontent now so extensively 

 prevails, and the union of the States, which is the 

 source of all these blessings, is threatened with destruc- 

 tion. The long-continued and intemperate interference 

 of the Northern people with the question of slavery in 

 the Southern States, has at length produced its natural 

 effects. The different sections of the Union are now 

 arrayed against each other, and the time has arrived, 

 so much dreaded by the Father of his Country, when 

 hostile geographical parties have been formed. I have 

 long foreseen and often forewarned my countrymen of 

 the now impending danger. This does not proceed 

 solely from the claim on the part of Congress or the 

 Territorial Legislatures to exclude slavery from the 

 Territories, or from the efforts of different States to 

 defeat the execution of the Fugitive Slave Law. All 

 or any of these evils might have been endured by the 

 South without danger to the Union as others have 

 been in the hope that time and reflection might apply 

 the remedy. The immediate peril arises, not so much 

 from these causes, as from the fact that the incessant 

 and violent agitation of the slavery question through- 

 out the North" for the last quarter of a century has at 

 length produced its malign influence on the slaves, and 

 inspired them with vague notions of freedom. Hence 

 a sense of security no longer exists around the family 

 altar. This feeling of peace at home has given place 

 4u apprehensions of servile insurrection. Many a ma- 

 tron throughout the South retires at night in dread of 

 what may befall herself and her children before the 

 morning. Should this apprehension of domestic danger, 

 whether real or imaginary, extend and intensify itself 

 until it shall pervade the masses of the Southern peo- 

 ple, then disunion will become inevitable. Self-preser- 

 vation is the first law of nature, and has been implanted 

 in the heart of man by his Creator for the wisest pur- 

 pose ; and no political union, however fraught with 

 blessings and benefits in all other respects, can long 

 continue, if the necessary consequence be to render the 

 homes and firesides of nearly half the parties to it 

 habitually and hopelessly insecure. Sooner or later 

 the bonds of such a union must be severed. It is my 

 conviction that this fatal period has not yet arrived ; 

 and my prayer to God is that He would preserve the 

 Constitution and the Union throughout all generations. 



But let us take warning in time, and remove the 

 cause of danger. It cannot be denied that, for five-and- 

 twenty years, the agitation at the North against slavery 

 in the South has been incessant. In 1835 pictorial 

 hand-bills and inflammatory appeals were circulated 

 extensively throughout the South, of a character to 

 excite the passions of the slaves ; and, in the language 

 of General Jackson, "to stimulate them to insurrec- 

 tion, and produce all the horrors of a servile war." 

 This agitation has ever since been continued by the 

 public press, by the proceedings of State and county 

 conventions, and by abolition sermons and lectures. 

 The time of Congress has been occupied in violent 

 speeches on this never-ending subject ; and appeals in 

 pamphlet and other forms, indorsed by distinguished 

 names, have been sent forth from this central point, 

 and spread broadcast over the Union. 



How easy would it be for the American people to 



settle the slavery question forever, and to restore peace 

 and harmony to this distracted country ! 



They, and they alone, can do it. All that is neces- 

 sary to accomplish the object, and all for which the 

 slave States have ever contended, is to be let alone, 

 and permitted to manage their domestic institutions in 

 their own way. As sovereign States, they, and they 

 alone, are responsible before flrod and the world for the 

 slavery existing among them. For this the people of 

 the North are not more responsible, and have no more 

 right to interfere, than with similar institutions in Rus- 

 sia or in Brazil. Upon their good sense and patriotic 

 forbearance I confess I still greatly rely. Without 

 their aid, it is beyond the power of any President, no 

 matter what may be his own political proclivities, to 

 restore peace and harmony among the States. Wisely 

 limited and restrained as is his power, under our Con- 

 stitution and laws, he alone can accomplish but little, 

 for good or for evil, on such a momentous question. 



And this brings me to observe that the election of 

 any one of our fellow-citizens to the office of President, 

 does not of itself afford just cause for dissolving the 

 Union. This is more especially true if his election has 

 been effected by a mere plurality, and not a majority 

 of the people, and has resulted from transient and tem- 

 porary causes which may probably never again occur. 

 In order to justify a resort to revolutionary resistance, 

 the Federal Government must be guilty of a "delib- 

 erate, palpable, and dangerous exercise" of powers 

 not granted by the Constitution. The late presidential 

 election, however, has been held in strict conformity 

 with its express provisions. How, then, can the result 

 justify a revolution to destroy this very Constitution? 

 Keason, justice, a regard for the Constitution, all re- 

 quire that we shall wait for some overt and dangerous 

 act on the part of the President elect before resorting 

 to such a remedy. 



It is said, however, that the antecedents of the Presi- 

 dent elect have been sufficient to justify the fears of 

 the South that he will attempt to invade their consti- 

 tutional rights. But are such apprehensions of con- 

 tingent danger in the future sufficient to justify the 

 immediate destruction of the noblest system of govern- 

 ment ever devised by mortals? From the very natur% 

 of his office, and its high responsibilities, he must ne- 

 cessarily be conservative. The stern duty of adminis- 

 tering the vast and complicated concerns of this Gov- 

 ernment, affords in itself a guarantee that he will not 

 attempt any violation of a clear constitutional right. 

 After all, he is no more than the chief executive officer 

 of the Government. His province is not to make, but 

 to execute the laws ; and it is a remarkable fact in our 

 history, that, notwithstanding the repeated efforts of 

 the anti-slavery party, no single act has ever passed 

 Congress, unless we may possibly except the Missouri 

 Compromise, impairing, in the slightest degree, the 

 rights of the South to their property in slaves. And it 

 may also be observed, judging from present indica- 

 tions, that no probability exists of the passage of such 

 an act by a majority of both Houses, either in the pres- 

 ent or the next Congress. Surely, under these circum- 

 stances, we ought to be restrained from present action 

 by the precept of Him who spake as never man spake, 

 that " sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof." The 

 day of evil may never come, unless we shall rashly 

 bring it upon ourselves. 



It is alleged as one cause for immediate secession 

 that the Southern States are denied equal rights with 

 the other States in the common Territories. But by 

 what authority are these denied? Not by Congress, 

 which has never passed, and I believe never will pass, 

 any act to exclude slavery from these Territories ; and 

 certainly not by the Supreme Court, which has solemn- 

 ly decided that slaves are property, and, like all other 

 property, their owners have a right to take them into 

 the common Territories, and hold them there under 

 the protection of the Constitution. 



So far, then, as Congress is concerned, the objection 

 is not to any thing they have already done, but to what 

 they may do hereafter. It will surely be admitted 

 that this apprehension of future danger is no good 



