ident 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."

Nor must mention be omitted of the astounding phenomenon that,
encouraged by President Buchanan's doctrine of non-coercion and purpose
of non-action, a central cabal of Southern senators and representatives
issued from Washington, on December 14, their public proclamation of the
duty of secession; their executive committee using one of the rooms of
the Capitol building itself as the headquarters of the conspiracy and
rebellion they were appointed to lead and direct.

During the month of December, while the active treason of cotton-State
officials and the fatal neglect of the Federal executive were in their
most damaging and demoralizing stages, an officer of the United States
army had the high courage and distinguished honor to give the
ever-growing revolution its first effective check. Major Robert
Anderson, though a Kentuckian by birth and allied by marriage to a
Georgia family, was, late in November, placed in command of the Federal
forts in Charleston harbor; and having repeatedly reported that his
little garrison of sixty men was insufficient for the defense of Fort
Moultrie, and vainly asked for reinforcements which were not sent him,
he suddenly and secretly, on the night after Christmas, transferred his
command from the insecure position of Moultrie to the strong and
unapproachable walls of Fort Sumter, midway in the mouth of Charleston
harbor, where he could not be assailed by the raw Charleston militia
companies that had for weeks been threatening him with a storming
assault. In this stronghold, surrounded on all sides by water, he
loyally held possession for the government and sovereignty of the United
States.

The surprised and baffled rage of the South Carolina rebels created a
crisis at Washington that resulted in the expulsion of the President's
treacherous counselors and the reconstruction of Mr. Buchanan's cabinet
to unity and loyalty. The new cabinet, though unable to obtain President
Buchanan's consent to aggressive measures to reestablish the Federal
authority, was, nevertheless, able to prevent further concessions to the
insurre