In compliance with our statement to you yesterday, we now express to you our strong convictions that neither the constituted authorities nor any body of the people of the State of South Carolina will either attack or molest the United States forts in the harbor of Charleston previously to the action of the convention, and we hope and believe not until an offer has been made through an accredited representative to negotiate for an amicable arrangement of all matters between the State and Federal Government, provided that no reënforcements shall be sent into those forts, and their relative military status shall remain as at present. [Sidenote] Buchanan to Commissioners, Dec. 31, 1860. Ibid. When President Buchanan came to look at the explicit language of this document, he shrank from the definite programme to which it committed him. "I objected to the word 'provided,' as it might be construed into an agreement on my part which I never would make. They said nothing was further from their intention; they did not so understand it, and I should not so consider it." There followed mutual protestations that the whole transaction was voluntary, informal, and in the nature of a mediation; that neither party possessed any delegated authority or binding power. They were not frank enough to explain to one another that the true object of each was delay--of the President, "that time might be gained for reflection"; of the Members, that time might be gained for the unmolested meeting of the convention, for passing the ordinance of secession, for further organizing public sentiment, and pushing forward military preparations at Charleston. [Sidenote] Buchanan to Commissioners, Dec. 31, 1860. W.R. Vol. I., p. 117. The mask of official propriety worn over this pernicious intrigue, the disclaimers, the implications and mental reservations of which it was made up--all became absurd in view of the results it produced. The President, indeed, explains that it was no pledge or agreement. "But I acted," he naïvely admits, "in the same manner as I would have, done had I entered into a positive and formal agreement with parties capable of contracting, although such an agreement would have been, on my part, from the nature of my official duties, impossible. The world knows that I have never sent any reënforcements to the forts in Charleston harbor, and I have certainly never authorized any change to be made in their 'relative military status.'"