al to deliver five or ten thousand muskets (altered from flint to
percussion) to Mr. Lamar's order. Mr. Lamar will pay the United States
paymaster for them, and rely upon the State to repay him. I have been
most fortunate in having been enabled to meet the payments for the
arms through Mr. L., for I feel satisfied that without his
intervention we could not have effected the purchase at this time....
I expect to return at daylight to-morrow to New York, for I am very
anxious about getting possession of the arms at Watervliet, and
forward them to Charleston. The Cabinet may break up at any moment, on
differences of opinion with the President as to the rights of
secession, and a new Secretary of War might stop the muskets going
South, if not already on their way when he comes into office.

I will write to you again by the next mail. The impression here and
elsewhere among many Southern men is, that our Senators have been
precipitate in resigning; they think that their resignations should
have been tendered from their seats after they had announced to the
Senate that the State had seceded. Occupying their seats up to this
period would have kept them in communication with Senators from the
South and assisted very powerfully in shaping to our advantage coming
events.

If any further quotation be necessary to show the audacity with which
at least three Secretaries and one Assistant Secretary of Mr.
Buchanan's Cabinet engaged in flagrant conspiracy in the early stages
of rebellion, it may be found in an interview of Senator Clingman with
the Secretary of the Interior, which the former has recorded in his
"Speeches and Writings" as an interesting reminiscence. It may be
doubted whether Secretary Thompson correctly reported the President as
wishing him success in his North Carolina mission, but the Secretary
is, of course, a competent witness to his own declarations and acts.

[Sidenote] T.L. Clingman, "Speeches and Writings," pp. 526, 527.

About the middle of December [1860] I had occasion to see the
Secretary of the Interior on some official business. On my entering
the room, Mr. Thompson said to me, "Clingman, I am glad you have
called, for I intended presently to go up to the Senate to see you. I
have been appointed a commissioner by the State of Mississippi to go
down to North Carolina to get your State to secede, and I wished to
talk with you about your Legislature before I start down in the
morning to Raleigh, and t