Buchanan (not exactly "sustaining the administration): "I am glad I am out of the scrape!" (LOC - LC-USZ62-89617)
Apparently northern women were ready to do more than make bandages in support of the Union during the fervently patriotic days after Fort Sumter.
From The New-York Times April 24, 1861:
The following dispatch was sent, a few days ago, to JAMES BUCHANAN, late President of the United States:
Resolved, By a few of the women of New-York that we have read with feelings of great indignation the dispatch sent to Mr LINCOLN by JAMES BUCHANAN, late President of the United States, saying that he will ‘sustain the administration;” and are determined, though abhorring this type of Southern civilization, unless said JAMES BUCHANAN keeps quiet and silent, henceforth in the cupboard of Wheatland to provide the necessary weight of feathers and other accompaniments for the single ladies of Wheatland, who we hear, have threatened to make a “coat” for the man who has, by his imbecility, involved us in one of the most dreadful wars the world has ever seen — the man who now offers to “sustain,” yet sustained nothing but the design of the rebels when he could have sustained the majesty of LAW — who said that if States wished to secede, no one could prevent it, while knowing that the Constitution distinctly says “The Union of those States is PERPETUAL” — the man who permitted the laws to be defied and the flag of his country to be disgraced without raising a hand to rebuke or prevent either outrage.
To the Editor of the New-York Times:
We learn that the meeting of ladies at your house this morning, adjourned to meet again in the vestry of Dr. POTTS’ Church, corner of Tenth-street and University-place, on Wednesday. It occurred to us that if notice was given, through the papers to-morrow morning, for the hotels in the City to contribute their old linen to make lint, a large quantity could be gathered of the best maternal for that purpose.
We will contribute all we have, and deliver it at the vestry on that day. We are, very respectfully,
Your obedient servants. CLARK & MOSELEY.
BREVOORT HOUSE, Tuesday, April 22.
The Civil War Reenactors explain that making lint means making bandages.
Here’s a different view of Buchanan and the secession crisis.
Buchanan tries to stop states other than South Carolina from seceding (LOC - LC-USZ62-92039)
For more detail on the elements of the cartoons check out the Library of Congress: Buchanan as a devilish coward and as a struggling cowherd
The cartoon showing Lincoln wielding a rail-club against secession seems appropriate for another article in the same issue of The Times:
Lincoln and the Country.
"I swear eternal fidelity to the just cause, as I deem it, of the land of my life, my liberty, and my love." (1846 or 1847 LOC - LC-USZC4-2439)
A correspondent sends us an extract from a speech made by ABRAHAM LINCOLN in 1840, during the great political campaign of that year. He had been holding a debate with Messrs. DOUGLAS and LAMBORN, and in reply to a remark of the latter that they were sure of victory, Mr. LINCOLN said:
“The probability that we may fall in the struggle, ought not to deter us from the support of a cause which we deem to be just; It shall not deter me. If ever I feel the soul within me elevate and expand to those dimensions not wholly unworthy of its Almighty Architect, it is when I contemplate the cause of my country, deserted by all the world besides, and I standing up boldly and alone, and hurling defiance at her victorious oppressors. Here, without contemplating consequences, before high Heaven, and in the face of the world, I swear eternal fidelity to the just cause, as I deem it, of the land of my life, my liberty, and my love. And who, that thinks with me, will not fearlessly adopt the oath that I take. Let none falter, who thinks he is right, and we may succeed. But, if after all we shall fall, be it so. We shall have the proud consolation of saying to our conscience, and to the departed shade of our country’s freedom, that the course approved by our judgment and adored by our hearts in disaster, in chains, in torture, in death, we never faltered in defending.”
This was language worthy even of the present emergency. It indicates a patriotic devotion to the welfare of the country, which should inspire confidence in the man who uttered it, and who is now the leader of the nation in its struggle for the preservation of its existence.
Background from Stephen B. Oates, With Malice Toward None: Lincoln and Douglas began their debates in 1839. The 1840 campaign was intense throughout the nation. “The campaign was as noisy in Illinois as everywhere else, complete with parades, bands, glee clubs, barbecues, and flatulent oratory.” (Mentor edition page 55) Although Lincoln, as a Whig, was re-elected as a representative to the state legislature, the Democrats won control of the legislature.
