Page:The Presidents of the United States, 1789-1914, v. II.djvu/300

 240 LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS also because he was a southern man, and the duties of this office were subsequently performed by Moses Kelly, chief clerk. Gen. Cass and Gov. Floyd re signed their offices in December ; Judge Black was transferred from the attorney-generalship to the state department, and Edwin M. Stanton became attorney-general. Joseph Holt succeeded Secre tary Floyd in the war department. The two critical questions which it was important that the president should correctly and consistently decide were, whether he was to receive in their assumed official character any commissioners sent by the southern states .as to a foreign power, and whether re-enforcements should be sent to Maj. Anderson at Fort Sumter, or to any other southern fort. Mr. Buchanan always refused to receive both the South Carolina commissioners and also Mr. Crawford, the first of the commissioners from the confederate government at Montgomery, who arrived in Washington just before the close of his term; he thus left the new president entirely free to act as he saw best, and entirely untrammelled by any previous pledges. As to re-enforcements for southern forts, Maj. Anderson was instructed to report to the government any necessity for assist ance, and in the meantime an expedition was fitted out at New York and held in readiness to sail at an hour s notice. Until the close of Mr. Buchanan s administration, Maj. Anderson considered himself