Eight to ten States on the verge of insurrection--nine principal sea-coast forts within their borders, absolutely at the mercy of the first handful of street rabble that might collect, and only about four hundred men, scattered in five different and distant cities, available to reënforce them! It was a startling exhibit of national danger from one professionally competent to judge and officially entitled to advise. His timely and patriotic counsel President Buchanan treated with indifference and neglect. "From the impracticable nature of the 'Views,' and their strange and inconsistent character, the President dismissed them from his mind without further consideration." Such is Mr. Buchanan's own confession. He indulges in the excuse that to have then attempted to put these five companies in all or part of these nine forts "would have been a confession of weakness instead of an exhibition of imposing and overpowering strength." "None of the Cotton States had made the first movement towards secession. Even South Carolina was then performing all her relative duties, though most reluctantly, to the Government," etc. "To have attempted such a military operation with so feeble a force, and the Presidential election impending, would have been an invitation to collision and secession. Indeed, if the whole American army, consisting then of only sixteen thousand men, had been 'within reach' they would have been scarcely sufficient for this purpose." The error of this reasoning was well shown by General Scott in a newspaper controversy which subsequently ensued.[3] He pointed out that of the nine forts enumerated by him, six, namely, Forts Moultrie and Sumter in Charleston harbor, Forts Pickens and McRae in Pensacola harbor, and Forts Jackson and St. Philip guarding the Mississippi below New Orleans, were "twin forts" on opposite sides of a channel, whose strength was more than doubled by their very position and their ability to employ cross and flanking fire in mutual support and defense. These works, together with the three others mentioned by General Scott, namely, Fort Morgan in Mobile harbor, Fort Pulaski below Savannah, and Fortress Monroe at Hampton Roads, were all, because of their situation at vital points, not merely works of local defense, but of the highest strategical value. The reënforcements advised would surely have enabled the Government to hold them until further defensive measures could have been arranged; and the effect of such possession on the incipient insurrection may be well imagined when we remember the formidable armaments afterwards employed in the reduction of such of them as were permitted, without an effort on the part of President Buchanan to prevent it, to be occupied by the insurgents.