Greatly excited and fearful of designs
against them, the South Carolina commissioners held two
conferences with the President on the 27th and 28th of December.
They believed that he had broken his word, and they told him so.
Deeply agitated and refusing to admit that he had committed
himself at the earlier conference, he said that Anderson had
acted on his own responsibility, but he refused to order him back
to the now ruined Fort Moultrie. One remark which he let fall
has been remembered as evidence of his querulous state of mind:
"You are pressing me too importunately" exclaimed the unhappy
President; "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." One remembers Hampden "seeking
the Lord" about ship money, and one realizes that the same act
may have a vastly different significance in different
temperaments.
Buchanan, however, was virtually ready to give way to the demand
of the commissioners. He drew up a paper to that effect and
showed it to the Cabinet. Then the turning-point came. In a
painful interview, Black, long one of his most trusted friends,
told him of his intention to resign, and that Stanton would go
with him and probably also the Postmaster-General, Holt.
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