Instead of promptly dismissing these unfaithful servants, he retained
one of them a month, and the others twice that period, and permitted
them so far to influence his official conduct, that in his annual
message to Congress he announced the fallacious and paradoxical doctrine
that though a State had no right to secede, the Federal government had
no right to coerce her to remain in the Union.
Nor could he justify his non-action by the excuse that contumacious
speeches and illegal resolves of parliamentary bodies might be tolerated
under the American theory of free assemblage and free speech. Almost
from the beginning of the secession movement, it was accompanied from
time to time by overt acts both of treason and war; notably, by the
occupation and seizure by military order and force of the seceding
States, of twelve or fifteen harbor forts, one extensive navy-yard, half
a dozen arsenals, three mints, four important custom-houses, three
revenue cutters, and a variety of miscellaneous Federal property; for
all of which insults to the flag, and infractions of the sovereignty of
the United States, President Buchanan could recommend no more
efficacious remedy or redress than to ask the voters of the country to
reverse their decision given at the presidential election, and to
appoint a day of fasting and prayer on which to implore the Most High
"to remove from our hearts that false pride of opinion which would impel
us to persevere in wrong for the sake of consistency.
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