The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1869-03-31
WEDNESDAY, MARCH 81, 1869.
nnehnnnn and Casr in 1890.

THR correspondence between James buohansn
and Lewis Cass, in December, 1860, which was
transmitted to the Senate yesterday, furnishes
an important link in the history of that criti-
cal period, and vividly recalls the issues which
then agitated the nation.
Both the writer's have since entered the
portals of another world, and their opinions
and actions can now be reviewed without pas
sion or prejudice.
The letter of Lewis Cass will do more for
his future fame than any previous act OF his
life. It proves that he belonged, heart ami
soul, to that wing Of the Democracy who re-
fused to sacrifice patriotism upon the altar Of
psrtisanship, or to connive at the reasonable
schemes of the secessionists.
Lewis Cass had, thirty years before, been
member of General Jaekson's Cabinet, at the
time when nullfcation was threatened by
South Carolina, and he had not forgotten the
zeal and courage which Old Hickory dis
played in preserving the Federal Union. He
desired that James Buchanan should initiate
this illustrious example, and therefore
urged that additional troops should be sent
to reinforce the forts in the harbor of Charles
tom" that an EARNED vessel should likewise
be ordered there, to aid, II necessary, In the
dsfense;" that "these measures should be
adopted without the least delay" that the
Custom House at Charleston should be re-
moved to one Of the forts, and that all "these
arrangements should be Immediately made"
Thus Lewis Csss, one OF the most popular
and influential leaders of the old Democratic
party, cleared his skirts of completely with
the rebellion and Of weak aoluieaceuoe in
the wishes Of the traitors in the Cabinet.
II James Buchanan had done nothing else
than allow Lewis Cass to retire from his
administration on account of their irreoon-
oilable differences Of opinion on the subject
at issue, while men whose hsgrant treason
has since been blszoned to the world we're
permitted to remain, he would have commit
ted an error that posterity will be slow to
forgive; but as this act was in strict accord
ance with the leneral tenor OF his policy, it Is
curious to note the reasons he assigned at that
period for disregarding the patriotic counsels
thrust upon him by the venerable Michigan
statesman.
He assumes at the outset, on apparently
insufficient grounds, that Cass concurs 'iu
the opinion that Congress does not possess
the power, under the Constitution, to ooercs
State by force Of arms to remain in the Con-
fsderaoy." Whatever Cass may have thought
Of this question theoretically, he evidently
did not concur In the practical conolu sions
Buchanan had drawn from an abstraction; and
both parties agree that the real difference was
In regard to the propriety of ordering de
taohment of the army and navy to Charleston
The phrase used by Buchanan that Congress
does not possess the power to "coerce" State
TO remain "in the Confsderacy'' affords sig
nifcant indication of the extent to which his
mind had been poisoned by the prevailing
Southern theories. He gave to the nation
over which he was then presiding the name
the traitors subsequently chose for their
reasonable organic atien, and thus in single
sentence of q carefully written document wrote
his own condemnation, alike by his denial OF
the right Of coercion and by his use of ths
word ssConfederacy'' instead of Union.
His reasons for refusing to adopt the advice
Of General Cass are also peculiar. They are,
first, that the Secretaries of War and the
Navy, through whom the orders must have
issued to reinforce the forts did not endorse it.
Buchanan's letter is dated December Is, and
John B. Floyd was then still Secretary of
War. II is now known that he was, even
before that period, an object of suspicion to
loyal officers Of the army, and all
men who had their eyes open, and who
were anxious to maintain the national autho-
rity, were fully convinced Of his reasonable
proclivities. But Buchanan weakly, if not
wicksdly, suffered the energies and arms OF
the War Department to be turned against the
nation that supported 1t, under the direction
of the most infamous traitor of them all,
John b. Floyd, until at last, on the 10Th of
December, 1850, when this unmitigated vii
lain had perfected his reasonable machina-
tiens, and Buchanan had begun to question
tho propriety of an absolute surrender to
everything that treason demanded, Floyd re-
signed in defiant letter, charging the Presi-
dent with desire to provoke civil war, be-
cause he refused to withdraw Major Anderson
from Fort Sumter. Late as this refusal came,
and far as 1t fell short of the true require
ments Of the occasion, It will do something to
redeem the Pennsylvania statesman from the
charge of abject submission to all the demands
of treason, and it will prove that there was a
lower deep into which he was unwilling to
venture.
The other reason assigned by Buchanan for
his refusal TO adopt the views Of General Cass