Dec. 8, 2010
CIVIL WAR JOURNAL: Cabinet Begins Disintegrating
Special to Huntingtonnews.net
President James Buchanan’s attempts to placate both northern and southern interests backfired in early December of 1860.
On Dec. 8 the president’s cabinet began to disintegrate with the resignation of Secretary of the Treasury Howell Cobb. Cobb, of Georgia, had once been considered a Union loyalist but had come to believe the republican abolitionist movement was out of control. He would join the Confederate government only a few months later.
That same day, a group of congressmen from South Carolina visited President Buchanan and urged him to turn over federal property in the state. The delegation returned Dec. 10 and reached an agreement with the president. On the condition that there was no change in the current military situation, they agreed that South Carolina would not attack federal forts before secession was debated or an agreement was reached between the state and the federal government.
Secretary of State Lewis Cass, former governor and senator from Michigan, resigned on Dec. 12 in protest of the president’s choice not to reinforce Charleston, South Carolina’s federal defenses, including Fort Sumter.
Meanwhile, in a confidential letter dated Dec. 10 to Senator Lyman Trumbull of Illinois, President-elect Abraham Lincoln reaffirmed his stand as an abolitionist. Lincoln wrote, “Let there be no compromise on the question of extending slavery. If there be, all our labor is lost, and ere long, must be done again. The dangerous ground—that into which some of our friends have a hankering to run—is popular sovereignty. Have none of it. Stand firm. The tug has come & better now than any time hereafter…”
Civil War Journal is produced by the Rich Mountain Battlefield Foundation and Historic Beverly Preservation in commemoration of the 150th anniversary of the Civil War. For more information, please visit www.richmountain.org.
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CIVIL WAR JOURNAL: Cabinet Begins Disintegrating
Special to Huntingtonnews.net
President James Buchanan’s attempts to placate both northern and southern interests backfired in early December of 1860.
On Dec. 8 the president’s cabinet began to disintegrate with the resignation of Secretary of the Treasury Howell Cobb. Cobb, of Georgia, had once been considered a Union loyalist but had come to believe the republican abolitionist movement was out of control. He would join the Confederate government only a few months later.
That same day, a group of congressmen from South Carolina visited President Buchanan and urged him to turn over federal property in the state. The delegation returned Dec. 10 and reached an agreement with the president. On the condition that there was no change in the current military situation, they agreed that South Carolina would not attack federal forts before secession was debated or an agreement was reached between the state and the federal government.
Secretary of State Lewis Cass, former governor and senator from Michigan, resigned on Dec. 12 in protest of the president’s choice not to reinforce Charleston, South Carolina’s federal defenses, including Fort Sumter.
Meanwhile, in a confidential letter dated Dec. 10 to Senator Lyman Trumbull of Illinois, President-elect Abraham Lincoln reaffirmed his stand as an abolitionist. Lincoln wrote, “Let there be no compromise on the question of extending slavery. If there be, all our labor is lost, and ere long, must be done again. The dangerous ground—that into which some of our friends have a hankering to run—is popular sovereignty. Have none of it. Stand firm. The tug has come & better now than any time hereafter…”
Civil War Journal is produced by the Rich Mountain Battlefield Foundation and Historic Beverly Preservation in commemoration of the 150th anniversary of the Civil War. For more information, please visit www.richmountain.org.
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