North was alienated in feeling from the South, and was determined to trample upon Southern rights. It is a melancholy story of perversion, misrepresentation and mistake, operating upon a sensitive and excited people. But it does not justify the belief that the secession of those States was the accomplishment of a previous and long-standing plot to destroy the Union; nor, if such a plot ever existed, is there any reason to believe that any member of Mr. Buchanan’s cabinet was a party to it. General Scott, in 1862, adopted and gave currency to charges which had no foundation in fact, and which were originated for the purpose of making Mr. Buchanan odious to the country. The General, however, went further than the adoption of charges originated by others. He claimed credit for himself for the discovery and prevention of the “robbery” of the Pittsburgh ordnance. In his letter of November 8, 1862, he said: “Accidentally learning, early in March (!), that, under this _posthumous_ order, the shipment of these guns had commenced, I communicated the fact to Secretary Holt, acting for Secretary Cameron, just in time to defeat the robbery.” This was a tissue of absurd misstatements. Copies of the official papers relating to this order are before me. The order was given by the Ordnance Office on the 22d of December, 1860. The shipment of the guns was never commenced. General Scott had nothing to do with the countermand of the order. On the 25th of December, certain citizens of Pittsburgh telegraphed to the President that great excitement had been caused there by this order, and advising that it be immediately revoked. Floyd was Secretary of War when the order was given for the removal of the guns, but at that time he was not a secessionist, or aiding the secessionists. He tendered his resignation of the office on the 29th of December, under circumstances which will be fully related hereafter. It was promptly accepted, and Mr. Holt was appointed Secretary of War _ad interim_. By the President’s direction, Mr. Holt countermanded the order, and the guns remained at Pittsburgh. Judge Black, at the President’s request, investigated the whole affair, and made the following brief report to the President on the 27th: “Mr. President: The enclosed are the two orders of the War Department. I suppose the forts happened to be in that state of progress which made those guns necessary just at this time, and they were directed to be sent without any motive beyond what would have caused the same act at any other time. Ever yours, J. S. BLACK”. Finally, it only remains for me to quote Mr. Buchanan’s more elaborate account of his reasons for not acting upon General Scott’s “views” of October, 1860, which he gave in the account of his administration, published in 1866.[68] Footnote 68: