On his communications with the South Carolina Commissioners - photo 1
On his communications with the South Carolina Commissioners - photo 2

On his communications with the South Carolina Commissioners

Lot 124
16.10.2025 00:00UTC +01:00
Classic
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CHRISTIE'S
AuctioneerCHRISTIE'S
Event locationUnited Kingdom, London
Buyer Premiumsee on Website%
ID 1472046
Lot 124 | On his communications with the South Carolina Commissioners
Estimate value
$ 30 000 – 50 000

BUCHANAN, James. (1791-1868). . Autograph manuscript as President, [Washington, 8 February 1861].

Two pages, 345 x 212mm (toned at extreme right margin). With additional edits and emendations in Buchanan's hand and in the hand of his private secretary, Adam John GLOSSBRENNER, (1810-1889).

Buchanan's draft of his message to Congress on his communications between the "'Commissioners' of South Carolina and myself" regarding the delayed delivery of Governor Pickens's demand to surrender Fort Sumter, issued the same day that delegates in Montgomery approved a provisional constitution for the Confederate States of America. Buchanan writes that he had "deemed it a duty to transmit to Congress, with my message of the 8th January, the correspondence which occurred in December last between the 'Commissioners' of South Carolina and myself. Since that period on the 14th January, Colonel Isaac W Hayne, the Attorney General of South Carolina called & informed me that he was the bearer of a letter from Governor Pickens to myself which he would deliver the next day. He was, however, induced by the interposition of Hon. Jefferson Davis and nine other Senators from the seceded and seceding states, not to deliver it on the day appointed, nor was it communicated to me until the 31st January with his letter of that date. Their letter to him urging this delay bears date January 15th & was the commencement of a correspondence, the whole of which is in my possession I now submit to Congress…." On the other leaf, titled in Glossbrenner's hand, "Papers accompanying the President's Message Feb. 1861" lists seven letters dating between 15 January and 6 February 1861.

Isaac Hayne's letter of 31 January 1861 explained the delay, affirming Buchanan's assertion that other southern senators had urged its delay in light of their position that any "hostilities that commenced between South Carolina and your Government would necessarily involve the States represented by themselves in civil strife, and fearing that the action of South Carolina might complicate the relations of your Government to the seceded and seceding States, and thereby interfere with a peaceful solution of existing difficulties…" Hayne went on to deny that South Carolina's forces firing on The Star of the West was an "act of unprovoked aggression," arguing that although the ship was unarmed, "it was filled with armed men, entering her territory against her will, for the purpose of reinforcing a garrison held within her limits against her protest." To this, the acting Secretary of War, Joseph Holt responded that "if the authorities of that State shall assault Fort Sumter and peril the lives of the handful of brave and loyal men shut up within its walls, and thus plunge our common country into the horrors of civil war, then upon them and those they represent must rest the responsibility." ("Fort Sumter. The Official Demand for its Surrender, and the Response of the Secretary of War," New York Times, 9 February 1861, 1.)

The same day that Buchanan issued this message to Congress, delegates from Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina and Texas approved a provisional Constitution for the Confederate States of America.
Artist:James Buchanan (1791 - 1868)
Place of origin:USA
Auction house category:Letters, documents and manuscripts
Address of auction CHRISTIE'S
8 King Street, St. James's
SW1Y 6QT London
United Kingdom
Preview
02.10.2025 – 16.10.2025
Phone +44 (0)20 7839 9060
Email
4FQ.AYGKAGLUQ@FO3G@
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