2d Session. CORRESPONDENCE BETWEEN THE COMMISSIONERS OF SOUTH CAROLINA AND THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES. MESSAGE FROM No. 26. THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES, COMMUNICATING Copies of correspondence with the commissioners of South Carolina. JANUARY 9, 1861.-Read and referred. with instructions, to a select committee of five, and ordered to be printed. To the Senate and House of Representatives: At the opening of your present session I called your attention to the dangers which threatened the existence of the Union. I expressed my opinion freely concerning the original causes of these dangers, and recommended such measures as I believed would have the effect of tranquillizing the country and saving it from the peril in which it had been needlessly and most unfortunately involved. Those opinions and recommendations I do not propose now to repeat. My own convictions upon the whole subject remain unchanged. The fact that a great calamity was impending over the nation was even at that time acknowledged by every intelligent citizen. It had already made itself felt throughout the length and breadth of the land. The necessary consequences of the alarm thus produced were most deplorable. The imports fell off with a rapidity never known before, except in time of war, in the history of our foreign commerce; the treasury was unexpectedly left without the means which it had reasonably counted upon to meet the public engagements; trade was paralyzed; manufactures were stopped; the best public securities suddenly sunk in the market; every species of property depreciated more or less; and thousands of poor men, who depended upon their daily labor for their daily bread, were turned out of employment. I deeply regret that I am not able to give you any information upon the state of the Union which is more satisfactory than what I was then obliged to communicate. On the contrary, matters are still worse at present than they then were. When Congress met, a strong |