12November 2010
NOTICE: IMPORTANT CHANGE IN DECEMBER SCHEDULE
Because of a scheduling discrepancy with Palisades Presbyterian Church this year’s Christmas Social is being moved from Wednesday December 15, 2010 to Thursday December 16, 2010.
The time has not changed and the location is still the same.
This will be the 292nd Meeting of the San Dido Civil War Round Table at Palisades Presbyterian Church, 6301 Birchwood St., San Diego, CA 92120.
We apologize for any inconvenience, but we were just as surprised as anyone else. We are still looking forward to seeing one and all for what we believe will be fun night with good food and good friends. Don’t forget to bring any guest you wish, but please make sure they know of the change. Also remember a White Elephant Gift for our Gift Exchange.
Once again we apologize for the change and if you are unable to attend your Round Table Officers wish you and yours a very Merry Christmas and the Happiest of Holidays.
November 2010 Meeting
By Travis Fuqua
On November 17, 2010, Pedro Garcia presented “Men Really Do Go Mad”. In this presentation, Mr. Garcia asked: “Can men really go mad?” and answered this question by showing the madness of the events which took place in Washington, D.C. and Charleston, S.C. in the couple of months after the election of Abraham Lincoln in November of 1860.
The question of slavery had been contained through compromise until the admission of California in 1850 undid the even balance between slave and free states in the Senate with the free states gaining a majority. Throughout the 1850s, there arose an ever increasingly debate over slavery and its expansion and future in the Sectional Crisis. The South felt increasingly encircled and pushed harder for states’ rights in the face of their increasing minority. They did not see the Union as permanently binding. The North did, however. With the election of Abraham Lincoln in November of 1860, the Sectional Crisis reached its peak with the South fearing a Federal war on slavery by the Republican majority. As a response, South Carolina seceded from the Union on December 20, 1860 beginning the Secession Crisis.
When the Secession Crisis began in December, neither President James Buchanan nor President-Elect Abraham Lincoln had any real plans with which to handle the crisis. Buchanan’s goal was to keep the Union together long enough until Lincoln’s inauguration in March of 1861, while Lincoln did not take the problem seriously as he was not yet President.
Earlier in his career, Lincoln had consented to the expansion of slavery to save the Union, but by the time of his campaign, he opposed its expansion but not yet its abolition. When South Carolina began to move for secession in late-November of 1860, Lincoln remained a recluse in Springfield. Many thought Lincoln was foolish for ignoring the impending disaster. When he was asked about the deteriorating Union, Lincoln referred people to his campaign speeches, but they had been designed to enflame the enemies of slavery and did nothing to slow the dissolution of the Union. In part, the Secession Crisis was fueled by Lincoln’s inaction.
President Buchanan, on the other hand, represented the failed politics of compromise. He was a famous diplomat and was skilled at compromise, but was ill-equipped for harsh politics. While trying to please everyone through compromise like a good diplomat, he pleased no one. In the final four months of his term, Buchanan’s distinguished career was forever tarnished by his inaction during the Secession Crisis. As people became increasingly unhappy with him, Buchanan became worried since he had never before been attacked in public and did not take criticism well. As mentioned before, Buchanan eagerly looked forward to Lincoln’s coming inauguration as deliverance from the increasingly unpleasant office.
Buchanan first heard news of the crisis from John Lane Gardner who was in charge of Charleston Harbor. Gardner wrote he was being harassed by locals and requested re-enforcements. Buchanan then called his Secretary of War, John Buchanan Floyd (of no relation to the then president, but the son of the Virginia governor who ended the Nat Turner Rebellion), to assess the situation. Floyd told Buchanan there was nothing to fear. Floyd then dismissed Gardner.
It was later discovered Floyd was one of the most disloyal men in the government. Floyd’s corruption was soon discovered and he was forced to resign on December 29, 1860 when Buchanan refused to order the abandonment of Ft. Sumter in Charleston. An audit soon began and it was discovered that Floyd had sent 115,000 muskets to the South, or 1/6 of the national arsenal. While it was legal to give these things to the southern states since they were still part of the Union, given that they were becoming increasingly hostile to the Federal Government, it was an exceedingly imprudent thing to do. The audit also showed Floyd redeployed much of the Federal Regular Army to the West, leaving the North without defense. Floyd was later indicted in the following month and appeared in court in March of 1861, but the charges were dropped. He later fled to the Confederacy where he became a brigadier general in Virginia, but died of ill health in 1863.
Despite Floyd’s claims of calm in South Carolina, Buchanan still worried and called a meeting of his Cabinet. The Cabinet gave him diverse responses and in the following months, almost all of the Cabinet would resign or be given new positions.
There were some in the Cabinet who supported Federal interests in the South. The Attorney General, Jeremiah Black, was the most capable Cabinet member and served as Buchanan’s conscience. He convinced the President to send relief to the South. Black later finished Buchanan’s term as Secretary of State beginning in mid-December of 1860 after Lewis Cass resigned. He was succeeded as Attorney General by Edwin Stanton. The Secretary of State, Lewis Cass, at 78 was feeble and less capable, but resigned when Buchanan failed to protect Federal interests in the South. The Postmaster General, Joseph Holt, despite his southern roots, was a staunch unionist. He was made Secretary of War in January of 1861 after Floyd’s resignation. He was replaced as Postmaster General by Horatio King. Secretary of the Navy, Isaac Toucey, was the only member of Buchanan’s Cabinet to stay in his position all four years, and as a constitutional lawyer argued against secession, but also argued against coercion.
The southerners in the Cabinet were not eager to send re-enforcements to the South. The Secretary of War’s position has already been mentioned. Secretary of the Treasury, Howell Cobb of Georgia, who began as a unionist and disliked slavery, decided the days of the Union were numbered and resigned on December 8, 1860 to help found the Confederacy. His successor Philip F. Thomas resigned in January of 1861 after failing to gain a bond for the deteriorating Union. His successor John A. Dix strongly supported the North, however. The Interior Secretary, Jacob Thomson of Mississippi, sided with the secessionists and resigned in January of 1861 to help the Confederacy.
Buchanan has often been portrayed as a southern sympathizer. Buchanan’s Cabinet, after all, was divided with an inclination to the South. Buchanan himself had won fourteen of the fifteen slave states in 1856, but few free states. Finally, he did not use coercion to keep the Union together.
Through a closer examination, however, it can be seen that Buchanan was not completely pro-South. In many ways, he was simply stalling until Lincoln’s inauguration. Buchanan viewed the Secession Crisis as Lincoln and the Republicans’ fault. In addition, Buchanan realized he had a small army since Floyd had redeployed it. Buchanan also believed the Secession Crisis was a problem for Congress—since before the Civil War, the Executive branch was seen as weaker than the Legislative branch. Congress, however, did nothing beyond argue and combined with the Executive’s inaction, the crisis continued.
There were a couple of efforts by the politicians to save the Union. The southern-made Crittenden Compromise, which would have made constitutional amendments and Congressional resolutions on slavery which would have undermined the Missouri Compromise and given favor to the South, failed as did the Virginia Peace Convention which was composed of many elderly statesmen who said nothing new in the rapidly developing crisis.
By the beginning of 1861, the Union’s disintegration continued and as Mr. Garcia will show in his presentation to be given in February of 2011, the nation’s eyes turned to Charleston, S.C.