Section #1 - The Congressmen Who Built Then Broke The Union
Chapter 115: Buchanan blunders along blaming the turmoil on meddling northerners.
His final state of the nation address to Congress begins by blaming northerners for causing the present crisis.
The long-continued and intemperate interference of the Northern people with
the question of slavery in the Southern States has at length produced its natural
effects. The different sections of the Union are now arrayed against each other,
and the time has arrived… when hostile geographical parties have been formed.
His proposed solution lies in a three part “explanatory amendment” to the Constitution
- An express recognition of the right of property in slaves in the States where it now exists or may hereafter exist.
- The duty of protecting this right in all the common Territories throughout their Territorial existence, and until they shall be admitted as States into the Union.
- A like recognition of the right of the master to have his slave who has escaped from one State to another restored and “delivered up” to him, and of the validity of the fugitive-slave law enacted for this purpose.
Behind the scenes, Secretary of War Scott urges him to defend the Charleston forts before sending instructions to Major Robert Anderson at Sumter to hold but not provoke an attack.