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On December 3, 1859, John Augustine Washington sat at his desk perusing the National Intelligencer. He frowned as he read the words of a speech given in Boston the previous night. Why was it always those firebrands in Massachusetts? They were, John Augustine, thought a proud and arrogant people.
There was a scratching at the door. The king circled the offending passages in the newspaper and looked up, “Enter”. A footman ushered in a paunchy, white haired, dough faced man in his sixties, who bowed deeply. “Your Majesty summoned me?”
The king looked at his prime minister. He never cared for the man. Buchanan was neither fish nor fowl. Small wonder his colleagues called him “Miss Nancy”.
“Prime Minister, are you aware of this,” said John Augustine II, pushing the newspaper across the desk.
James Buchanan, Prime Minster of the United Kingdom of America and the Trans-Mississippi Empire, read:
“The United Kingdom of America—where is it and what is it?
“In one-half of it no man can exercise freedom of speech or the press—no man can utter the words of Adams, of Jefferson, of Patrick Henry—except at the peril of his life; and Northern men are everywhere hunted and driven from the South if they are supposed to cherish the sentiment of freedom in their bosoms.
“We are living under an awful despotism, a brutal tyranny.
“I tell you our work is the dissolution of this slavery-cursed kingdom, if we would have a fragment of our liberties left to us! Surely between freemen, who believe in exact justice and impartial liberty, and slaveholders, who are for tearing down all human rights at a blow, it is not possible there should be any union whatever.
“The slaveholder with his hands dripping in blood—will I make a compact with him? The man who plunders cradles—will I say to him, ‘Brother, let us walk together in unity?’ The man who, to gratify his lust or his anger, scourges woman with the lash till the soil is red with her blood—will I say to him: ‘Give me your hand; let us form a glorious union?’ No, never—never! There can be no union between us.
“By the dissolution of the bonds of kingdom and empire we shall give the finishing blow to the slave system; and then God will make it possible for us to form a true, vital, enduring, all-embracing nation, with one God to be worshipped, one Saviour to be revered, one policy to be carried out—freedom everywhere to all the people, without regard to complexion or race—and the blessing of God resting upon us all! I want to see that glorious day!
“What is it that God requires of our King-Emperor to remove every root of bitterness in this land, to allay every fear, to fill our borders with prosperity? But one simple act of justice, without violence and convulsion, without danger and hazard. It is this: ‘Undo the heavy burdens, break every yoke, and let the oppressed go free!’
“How simple and how glorious! It is the complete solution of all the difficulties in the case. Oh, that our King-Emperor may be wise before it is too late, and give heed to the word of the Lord! But, whether he will hear or not, let us renew our pledges to the cause of bleeding humanity, and spare no effort or means to make this the land of the free and the refuge of the oppressed!
William Lloyd Garrison - December 2, 1859”
“It is a very passionate statement Your Majesty,” Buchanan said.
“It is a very treasonous statement, Mr. Buchanan, and We wish to know what you intend to do about it?”
Do? Do? That was always a difficult word for James Buchanan. Although from the non-slave holding province of Pennsylvania himself, Buchanan had vigorously enforced the royal edict requiring the return of runaway slaves found in non-slave holding provinces. The enforcement of the edict had been met with much resistance in the Northern provinces and only fueled the enmities between the Northern and Southern provinces. These bitter passions were further inflamed on the night of October 16, 1859, when the terrorist John Brown and a small band of fanatics seized the Royal arsenal at Harpers Ferry, Virginia. The weapons captured at the arsenal were to be used to arm a slave army, an “army of emancipation.” The rebels took sixty hostages and held out against the local militia, but were then attacked by Royal Marines under the command of Colonel Robert E. Lee. Ten people were killed during the course of Brown’s rebellion, including two of Brown’s sons. Brown himself was wounded in the assault by the Marines and taken prisoner. Brown was tried and convicted of treason, murder and inciting slaves to rebellion. Brown was hanged on December 2, 1859 in Charles Town, Virginia. On that day in Boston, William Lloyd Garrison delivered an emotional tribute to Brown and called upon the Northern provinces to secede from the United Kingdom of America, “as the only means by which we may be rid of slavery.” And now he, James Buchanan, was expected to “Do something” about Garrison and the agitating abolitionists, when all he wanted was a peaceful retirement at his beloved estate Wheatland outside of Lancaster, Pennsylvania.
But who was he, James Buchanan, to argue with the wishes of the most gracious of sovereigns? In the seventy years that the Washington dynasty had sat upon the American throne the kingdom had absorbed a continent. This was the most successful dynasty in the history of mankind, and few could doubt that the guiding hand of Providence blessed every action of the exceptional House of Washington. Clearly, something must be done if the King wished it so. “The King’s will is the highest law,” Buchanan muttered to himself.