Jacob Thompson, Secretary of the Interior, also resigned, January 8th,
1861, on the pretext that "additional troops, he had heard, have been
ordered to Charleston" in the "Star of the West."--[McPherson's History
of the Rebellion, p. 28.]
Several changes were thus necessitated in Mr. Buchanan's cabinet, by
these and other resignations, so that by the 18th of January, 1861,
Jeremiah S. Black was Secretary of State; General John A. Dix, Secretary
of the Treasury; Joseph Holt, Secretary of War; Edwin M. Stanton,
Attorney General; and Horatio King, Postmaster General. But before
leaving the Cabinet, the conspiring Southern members of it, and their
friends, had managed to hamstring the National Government, by scattering
the Navy in other quarters of the World; by sending the few troops of
the United States to remote points; by robbing the arsenals in the
Northern States of arms and munitions of war, so as to abundantly supply
the Southern States at the critical moment; by bankrupting the Treasury
and shattering the public credit of the Nation; and by other means no
less nefarious. Thus swindled, betrayed, and ruined, by its degenerate
and perfidious sons, the imbecile Administration stood with dejected
mien and folded hands helplessly awaiting the coming catastrophe.
On December 28th, 1860, the three Commissioners of South Carolina having
reached Washington, addressed to the President a communication, in
which--after reciting their powers and duties, under the Ordinance of
Secession, and stating that they had hoped to have been ready to proceed
to negotiate amicably and without "hostile collision," but that "the
events--[The removal, to Fort Sumter, of Major Anderson's command, and
what followed.
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