James Buchanan: Fourth Annual Message to Congress

( 1860 ) Commentary by Brooks D. Simpson, Arizona State University

“The long-continued and intemperate interference of the Northern people with the question of slavery in the Southern States has at length produced its natural effects. The different sections of the Union are now arrayed against each other, and the time has arrived, so much dreaded by the Father of his Country, when hostile geographical parties have been formed.” - Fourth Annual Message to Congress
“How easy would it be for the American people to settle the slavery question forever and to restore peace and harmony to this distracted country! They, and they alone, can do it. All that is necessary to accomplish the object, and all for which the slave States have ever contended, is to be let alone and permitted to manage their domestic institutions in their own way.” - Fourth Annual Message to Congress
“The fact is that our Union rests upon public opinion, and can never be cemented by the blood of its citizens shed in civil war. If it can not live in the affections of the people, it must one day perish.” - Fourth Annual Message to Congress

James Buchanan (Library of Congress)

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