"
This message of Buchanan marked the lowest point to which the
temperature of his patriotism fell. Soon afterward, stimulated by heat
applied from outside, it began to rise. The first intimation which
impressed upon his anxious mind that he was being too acquiescent
towards the South came from General Cass. That steadfast Democrat, of
the old Jacksonian school, like many of his party at the North, was
fully as good a patriot and Union man as most of the Republicans were
approving themselves to be during these winter months of vacillation,
alarm, and compromise. In November he was strenuously in favor of
forcibly coercing a seceding State, but later assented to the tenor of
Mr. Buchanan's message. The frame of mind which induced this assent,
however, was transitory; for immediately he began to insist upon the
reinforcement of the garrisons of the Southern forts, and on December 13
he resigned because the President refused to accede to his views. A few
days earlier Howell Cobb had had the grace to resign from the Treasury,
which he left entirely empty. In the reorganization Philip F. Thomas of
Maryland, a Secessionist also, succeeded Cobb; Judge Black was moved
into the State Department; and Edwin M. Stanton of Pennsylvania followed
Black as attorney-general. Mr. Floyd, than whom no Secessionist has left
a name in worse odor at the North, had at first advised against any
"rash movement" in the way of secession, on the ground that Mr.
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