Джон Апдайк - Memories of the Ford Administration

“But in no case will the Gulf States stay in.”

“The tide runs secessionist now. But when Virginia and Tennessee hold fast, that tide will turn.”

Black said, “I fear the ground where you stand is so narrow, not many will join you on it.”

“The ground is narrow, as the gate to salvation is strait!”

Black said, with some tenderness for his old chief and sponsor, and with some condescension, “Mr. President, you need rest. These pressures bear upon you cruelly.”

Buchanan brushed impatiently at cobwebs in the air. “They whittle, but there is still some stick left. All things pass. Sufficient unto the day. I say my prayers, and act by the light given me. The rest belongs to God.”

Or “is God’s.” SHAME. LOSS. The eternity of life. The eternal non-returningness of it. His DOUBT, deeper and deeper. Byron was right. Ann was right. The gravity of time as it presses on us, shapes us, destroys us. So grave it makes us break into sweat, like a gravedigger who suddenly imagines the walls of clay collapsing upon him. At some point, maybe later, have JB look out window at frozen White House gardens and join Ann the night in Philadelphia she was struck by the horror of the colorless ferns in garden? He joins her then on the floor of things, in hopelessness. PRAYERS. In a letter to his brother, the Reverend Edward Y. Buchanan, from Russia in 1833, we find this: I have thought much upon the subject since my arrival in this strange land, and sometimes almost persuade myself that I am a Christian; but I am often haunted by the spirit of scepticism and doubt. My true feeling upon many occasions is: “Lord, I would believe; help Thou my unbelief.” Yet I am far from being an unbeliever . To the same, from Washington in 1844: I think often & think seriously of my latter end; but when I pray (and I have preserved & with the blessing of God shall preserve this good habit from my parents) I can rarely keep my mind from wandering. I trust that the Almighty father, through the merits & atonement of his son, will yet vouchsafe to me a clearer & stronger faith than I possess . Prayers return him to childhood prayers with his mother, in the log cabin lit by the brutal unsteady flare of resiny pine splints stuck between the fireplace stones. When they spark out, time to close eyes and sleep. SLEEP. We remain children, though we seem to become men.

Next morning, the 28th, brought the Carolina Commissioners: Barnwell, Orr, and J. H. Adams. Men of parts , says Nevins. They had a natural sense of their dignity in representing a new republic, and came not to sue for terms but to treat as equals . Buchanan told them, “I receive you as private gentlemen of the highest character, and not as diplomatic agents. As I stated unmistakably in my message of December 3rd, Congress alone has the authority to decide what shall be the relations between South Carolina and the federal government.”

Former Governor James Hopkins Adams was the most extreme of the three: an old nullifier and ardent proponent of reviving the African slave trade, he owned one hundred ninety-two slaves on his cotton plantation in lower Richland County. He struck a note of high formality. “We have the honor, Mr. President, to transmit to you a copy of the ordinance of secession by which the state of South Carolina has resumed the powers she once delegated to the government of the United States.”

“A well-worded document, no doubt,” Buchanan said, but did not reach out his hand to accept it. Seated at his little walnut desk, while the commissioners stood, he was struck by the pendulous motion of Adams’s watch fob, a chain leading into the pocket of his dove-gray vest and swinging in sympathy with the motions of his diaphragm as he spoke.

It was Orr’s turn to speak. Buchanan liked James Lawrence Orr: a sound man. Like Buchanan himself, he had worked in his father’s store and then turned lawyer; a former Speaker of the House, Orr knew the North’s case better than most Southerners, and as recently as this past April had argued for the Union at his state’s Democratic convention. Campaigning for the Senate in 1858, he had dared quote Daniel Webster on nullification, and been defeated for it. But now the secessionist tide was carrying him along. He stated, “Mr. President, in this very office, little more than a fortnight ago, you made a solemn pledge, as a gentleman, to maintain the status quo in Charleston Harbor. Major Anderson has violated that pledge, and unless restitution is made, a bloody issue is most probable.”

The President permitted himself a wintry smile, and cocked his head to bring the other’s large, flushed face into focus. “But, Mr. Orr, word has just arrived that the troops of Governor Pickens have now seized Castle Pinckney and Fort Moultrie, not to mention the post office and the customhouse. How can we order Major Anderson back, when the place to which he would return has been occupied by force?” Buchanan waited briefly for their reply, while contemplating their three vests. These men had been his friends and political allies a few weeks ago, solid congenial men with whom, save for a few trifling matters such as the sacred status of slavery, he had no disagreements. It now seemed that that had been an illusion. These men were willing to sink his Presidency and douse Anderson and his troops in blood. These groomed and well-stuffed bellies, these bulging vests and starched shirtfronts were hollow: there was nothing in there; nothing had ever been there but self-interest and expediency. The President added, in the face of their momentarily baffled silence, “I ask my question in a rhetorical sense merely, for it is not my office, nor my purpose, to negotiate with you. Only Congress can negotiate.”

Barnwell, a Harvard graduate who had been President of the South Carolina College as well as Representative and Senator, bore down with a pedantic relentlessness. “Mr. Buchanan, sir, we came here as the representatives of an authority which could at any time within the past sixty days have taken possession of the forts, but which, upon pledges given in a manner that we cannot doubt, determined to trust to your honor rather than to its own power. We urge upon you the immediate withdrawal of all the troops from the harbor of Charleston. They constitute a standing menace; their presence poisons negotiations that should be settled with temperance and judgment. Remove them, Mr. President, to safeguard your own honor, and the welfare of the people who still accept your governance.”

“My honor is not at issue,” Buchanan said curtly. “I made no pledge; I distinctly recall stating that the President could not be bound by any proviso.”

Barnwell insisted, “But, Mr. President, your personal honor is involved in this matter; the faith you pledged has been violated; and your personal honor requires you to issue the order. Withdrawal or war, sir. Choose. Withdrawal or war.”

Buchanan then said, so memorably that Orr recounted it word for word in a letter written on September 17, 1871, “Mr. Barnwell, you are pressing me too importunely; you don’t give me time to consider; you don’t give me time to say my prayers. I always say my prayers when required to act upon any great state affair.”

In truth, history testifies, the three Commissioners had been badgering Buchanan for two hours. There is real time and narrative time; if they were not different, it would take as long to tell a man’s life as to live it.

Perhaps it was this troubled day, or the day before, that Buchanan had the agitated conversation with Senator Robert Toombs reported in Trescot’s Narrative . Trescot reports it but provides as clue to the exact day only this opening remark by Toombs: “I am aware Mr President ” said T “ that the Cabinet is in session and that today is the annual dinner to the Supreme Court and that you have scarcely time to see me .” It would take a trip to Washington City, I fear, and the dampest dimmest depths of the Library of Congress, to ferret out the date of that Supreme Court dinner. [ Retrospect eds.: Will make trip, if expenses covered. Just airfare and modest hotel — will pay for own meals and incidentals.] Toombs continued, “ But while I apologize for the intrusion, it is an evidence what importance I attach to the interview. I would ask Mr President whether you have decided upon your course as to Fort Sumter? ” [Italics indicate exact transcription of Trescot’s telegraphic style.]