North Branch democrat. [volume] (Tunkhannock, Pa.) 1854-1867, 1865-11-29
President Buchanan's Vindica tioD,
FfFrom the New York World.1

We print without curtailment the eighth,
the ninth, ond the eleventh chapters of Mr..
Buchan ans book, giving the history of the
last eveutful months of his a6ministration.-
FROM. want of fspace we reluctantly omit the
intervening tenth chapter, making chasm
in ihe continuity of that part of the book
which relates to and refutes the charges of
reprehensble negligence and feebleness in
his failure to confront the nascent rebellion
with strong display of military menace and
preparation. Mr.. Buchanan's book contains
a rapid discussion of the causes which led TO
the rebellion. and an ample one of the ineffec-
tual measures attempted in the memorable
winter Of l860-6l for its peaceful prevention.
We will not offer even slight skeleton of
this part of its contents, which relate 70
events on which men will continue to differ,
and which do not concern the reputation of
Mr.. Buchanan more than of hundreds of
others. But the charges discussed in the
striking chapters, we reproduce are met by
such an overwhelming array of evidence, that
they can never be repeated by persons hav-
ing any pretensions to truth.
The patience with which Mr.. Buchanan
has submitted to obloquy when he had such
means of vindication, is accounted for in bis
preface by his unwilngness, while the war
lasted, to do anything which might embarIass
President Lincoln. His book was written
soon after his retirement from the Presiden.
cy. Had he been taken away, its posthu-
NOUS publication would have indicated his
memory but we congratulate him that he
has lived to publish 1t himself, in time to re-
ceive from his contemporar aries that justice,
which, will be done him by history.
Mr.. Buchanan's message of December
1860, has been msrepresonted at the North,
but it was correctly understood at the South,
| and so offended the secession leaders in
Washington that his intercourse with them
was completely interrupted during the last
two months of the administration. Its ideas
in respect to coercion were repeated with
great clearness and compensation by Senator
Johnson, of Tennessee, (now President,) in
speech delivered by him that winter, from
which Mr.. Buchanan makes pertinent ex-
tract. He always upheld the authority of
| the Federal Government 10 compel the in
kabitants of the States, by military force, to
obey the laws,
President Buchanan has Deen persstently
accused of fecbleness and imbecllitY in neg
lecting to put strong garrisons in the SOUTH
ern forts in falling to assume toward the
South high attitu de Of military menace .
and in not preventing Secretary Floyd sup
plying the South with al ms taken from
Northern arsenals. These charges have been
industr ously circulated by common rumor,
and more than once made in print by so re-
| nowned an officer as General Scott. All
these charges are triumphantly relutel by
the cx President everybody will regret to
see with how much damage to the reputation
for accuracy of their chief author.
There was certainly a discreditabe an d
| improvident imbeclity in that threatening
crisis, but it Law at the door of Congress not
of the Presld ent. The blindness and infatu
alton of that body was as disgracefu as it
was astonishing. With State after Stale Sc
ceding, and the whole South full of the bus
tle Of military preparation. no law was pass
ed authorizing the President to raise an
additional soldier, or appropriating a
dollar to pay one. The incoming admins.
tration wa S left as helpless and destitute as
the outgoing and when Sumter was fred on
end cap ured, President Lincoln was
compelled, in the stress of the emergency, to
raise troops without the authority of law
Why did not President Buchanan do the
same? For two sufficient reasons: the
crisis justifying so b,ld step had not come
and even if it had Congress pas in session
and could have supplied the authority.
President Buchanan, as early as the 9Th
Of January, sent special message to Congress
laying before them the alarming state Of the
country, and submitting to their decision the
necessity of efficien Mt military preparation. -
On the 10th, this message was referred to a
special committee of which Mr. Reynolds
was chairman he reported bill on he 30th
and killed his oUn bill by withdrawing 1t,
the same day, with the appreciation of the
House. Mr.. Stanton, of Ohio, chairman of
] the Military Committee, afterwards reported
bill for put ting the government in a state
of preparation, and this a1as killed by the
House. Still another bill was reported, but
action on it was postponed till the las, day
but one of the session, When the House
etused to suspend the rules to take it up.-
Mr.. Lincoln had previously arrived in
Washington, fresh from making speeches, in
which he declared that Nobody was hurt, and
it was by the motion of his intimate friend,
Mr.. Corwin, that action on this subject was
finally defeated. The friends of the new
President must have been, at that time, very
Il