In the heart of Washington, D.C., inside the Presbyterian Church in Georgetown.

Built in 1780, it is the oldest Protestant church in the Washington area, and has long been sponsored by Judas Touro, owner of the New Orleans shipping company and businessman from Southern Louisiana, and Nathaniel Hayward, one of South Carolina's largest plantation owners.

And at this moment, no one could have imagined that the unsuccessful Democratic candidate for the presidency, John Cabell Breckenridge, the current vice president and speaker of the Senate of the United States of America, appeared in the Presbyterian church.

In the church, there are dozens of devout Scottish worshippers, Hao Ran is a member of the U.S. Senate or House of Representatives, etc., and their common characteristic is that they are all from the southern states.

As the presidential candidate of the Southern Democratic Party, the defeat of the election once made the young Breckenridge very frustrated. However, the changes in the past few days have made him feel a sense of joy and happiness that the knots in his chest have been relieved!

All he knew was that as soon as the news of Lincoln's election as president broke, several South Carolina legislators in Congress resigned and returned to their hometowns, and even the justices of the U.S. Supreme Court, also from South Carolina, resigned. Not even that, a few days later, the governor of South Carolina convened state legislators to discuss the withdrawal from the Union, and in just one month, the planning was completed, and the state of South Carolina was absolutely declared independent from the Union. These are clearly a naked slap in the face to the new Republican president named Lincoln!

In response to the battle of public opinion in the newspapers of the North and the South, the incumbent President James Buchanan could not hold his breath and formally proposed to Congress yesterday morning to convene a special national convention in Congress to allow members of the North and South to negotiate a settlement of South Carolina's secession from the Union. However, Buchanan's proposal was opposed by more than 30 Southern legislators. I don't know if Buchanan played a trick or was forced to do so, but in the afternoon, the new attorney general from the northern state of Ohio, Edwin M. Stanton, came forward directly and came up with a statement dealing with the governor and state legislators of South Carolina, in which he made it clear in a strong tone that in order to preserve the integrity of the Union, the federal government did not hesitate to use force, urging the governor of South Carolina and state legislators to immediately change their decisions and resume becoming members of the Union. Moreover, the opinion also set a time limit for Governor William Gist to give a reply within three days, or face a direct federal force.

"Ladies and gentlemen, we are all parliamentarians from the southern states and have common interests. I invite you to meet in the Presbyterian Church today, and I think it is clear to you that it is to discuss how to deal with the opinion submitted by the Northerner in Stanton yesterday. Breckenridge said straight to the point.

As soon as Breckenridge spoke, a senator from Georgia immediately sneered and said, "Mr. Speaker, do those Northerners think that they can do whatever they want by virtue of their large numbers and successful presidential election?" Joke! What kind of bullshit opinion, who are they threatening, I'm afraid that in addition to threatening Mr. Gist, the governor of South Carolina, they want to take us together! Is this a warning to us, the legislators from the southern states, that the Northerners have control of the federal government and can easily clean us up? ”

"That's right, that's what those Yankees must think! Even the president was elected by them, and they thought that they had the final say in the entire federation. A Mississippi legislator followed: "Mr. Speaker, don't heed their threats, they will never dare to use force." Otherwise, the Southern states would have become as independent as South Carolina. Moreover, even if they wanted to use force, they would not be able to do so without the approval of Congress. These members of Congress in our southern states, if they unite and unanimously reject their proposals, can prevent them from using force and prevent the outbreak of war! ”

Another Alabama legislator said even more bluntly: "In my opinion, everyone should resign and go back to their hometowns." Stop serving the federal government, which is already a Yankee. ”

Breckenridge hurriedly stretched out his hand to stop the Alabama congressman and said, "No! When the South Carolina congressmen and justices were about to resign, I persuaded them to stay in the federal government in order to limit the power of those dignitaries who represented the interests of the North, to resist the unreasonable murder of the South, and to better serve the people of the South! ”

Then, Breckenridge nodded to the Mississippi congressman and the Georgia senator and said appreciatively, "That's a good point!" As he spoke, he turned to the others and said, "I invite you here today to unify your thoughts and actions through this meeting, since we are all elected by the southern states, we must fight for the interests of the people in the south, not to mention that there are our relatives there." Therefore, the new Attorney General Stanton's proposal against South Carolina must be prevented from passing, and I propose that everyone immediately split up and inform the Southern members of Congress that they will all reject that proposal tomorrow! And, if President Buchanan has any future proposals for action against the Southern states or South Carolina, we will do our best to reject them in Congress, or at least make them impossible to implement! ”

Breckenridge finally said what he was trying to do.

All the congressmen nodded tacitly, agreed, and said in unison: "We listen to Mr. Speaker and safeguard the interests of our hometown!" ”

..........

The next day, the Attorney General again asked for a disciplinary opinion against the governor and state legislators of South Carolina, and President Buchanan agreed with it and offered a Cabinet to issue a policy statement stating that the federal government would not hesitate to use force in order to preserve the integrity of the Union. But as soon as it was proposed, it was immediately met with fierce opposition from members of the cabinet from the southern states!

Buchanan was very helpless, he didn't expect that only one day later, it would become like this, and it seemed that the entire Southern cabinet members were united.

As a result, Buchanan had to say in a soothing tone that the president had the authority to send a small number of troops to a state to assist the federal police in enforcing the federal court's ruling.

Unexpectedly, Vice President Breckenridge directly reminded him that if the justices of the Federal High Court resigned, without the ruling of the federal court, there would be no question of enforcement and non-enforcement. Buchanan then remembered that the federal justice, who was also a native of South Carolina, had resigned and returned to his hometown.

And sending troops to a state like South Carolina, which has declared secession from the Union, is tantamount to waging war against that state. Under the Constitution of the United States of America, only Congress has the power to declare war. And this is exactly what Buchanan wants, after several face failures, and in this stormy moment, he already knows that his president, who has only been less than 3 months, has no prestige in the cabinet, and he can't move the other members of the cabinet to listen to him. So Buchanan kicked the ball straight to Congress, which he wished it could handle.

Attorney General Stanton, who was still unwilling to give up, came forward and proposed that Congress approve the plan to send troops by force, and President Buchanan would order a military force to be sent to South Carolina to deter by force and force South Carolina to return to the Union.

But even Congress is helpless to send troops and force South Carolina back to the Union. The congressmen from the south are completely opposed to sending troops, and not all the congressmen from the north support sending troops. Therefore, Congress did not approve a plan to send troops. Eventually, some moderate members of Congress from the Central Territory came out to make a round, hoping that President Buchanan, in his annual address to Congress, would propose a compromise to deal with South Carolina and other Southern states.

It's not long before the New Year. Buchanan delivered the president's annual address to Congress as scheduled.

He opened by attacking the so-called abolitionists of freedom and equality in the North: "You pay lip service to freedom and equality and demand the abolition of slavery in the South, but in reality, which of you is not a big banker, factory owner, or trader? How much better could the employed workers work more hours and hours of their day than the slaves on the plantations of the South? You are responsible for the immediate crisis in the United States of America! Yes, that's you! It is precisely because of your intervention that the Southern states, especially South Carolina, are worried about the revolt of the slaves in the South, and most of their property is concentrated in the slaves, and if you want to free their slaves, you will be robbing them of their wealth, and in this case, they will rise up in revolt. If it were you, it would be the same! ”

What he said was very thorough. The radical abolitionist parliamentarians in the northern states bowed their heads. And the congressmen of the South looked at Buchanan in amazement, and were very surprised why the president, who had always only acted as a good gentleman, would speak for the South in favor of the South.

However, they soon learned that it was not, and that Mr. President was still the weak Mr. Yes who only cared about compromises on both sides. Buchanan then turned to the southern councillors and said, "And you, don't think I don't know, you are behind the plantation owners of the South, the owners of many slaves, and even yourselves, who own a lot of slaves!" ”

As he spoke, his face was full of expectation: "You must convince the people of the South to accept the reality of Mr. Lincoln's election as president!" The election of any citizen of the United States of America to the President of the United States in accordance with the electoral process should not be a cause for the dissolution of the Union. And for South Carolina, according to the Constitution, no state has the right to secede from the Union, therefore, South Carolina has undoubtedly violated the Constitution! You owe it to South Carolina's decision-makers to return to normalcy! ”

Speaking of this, seeing that no one responded to him, Buchanan softened his tone and said, "But then again, if any state like South Carolina insists on withdrawing from the Union, there is nothing we can do." In the final analysis, our federation is based on the will of the people, and must not be sustained by force to start a civil war and cause blood, if the federation does not live in the hearts of the people, it will eventually divide and perish. There is no point in forcing the Federation to be maintained by force. ”

Finally, Buchanan suggested that Congress propose a constitutional amendment to the issue of slavery. He said that the amendment should recognize the ownership of slaves by slave owners in slave holding states, and that such rights should be protected until the new territories became full-fledged states. The amendment would also repeal state interference legislation in returning runaway slaves to their owners.

This meant that Buchanan was completely biased towards the Southern states, and he had to publicly profess in favor of slavery in order to return South Carolina to the Union and prevent the other Southern states from secession.

But unfortunately, he still can't get everyone's support. Congress was silent, and not a single member of parliament responded to his claims for constitutional amendments. The members of the North did not like his weakness in the face of the division of the Union, and at the same time, the argument that it was unconstitutional to withdraw from the Union was difficult for the South legislators to accept, not to mention that the South Congressmen should not only approve of slavery, but also promote slavery, after all, for Southerners, slaves were their greatest possession, and they had the right to take their property anywhere, including other states in the United States. Just as the bankers and factory owners in the north took their capital to invest in factories and sell goods.

Buchanan's annual congressional report, which went unanswered, ended in disgrace.

And that's when a crisis in South Carolina began. Not only is the disposition of the federal government's property in South Carolina a problem, but most importantly, the newly built Fort Sumter near the Port of Charleston is facing a conflict between South Carolina and the Union.