"
The reason for this change in your position is that, since your arrival
in Washington, "an officer of the United States, acting as we (you) are
assured, not only without your (my) orders, has dismantled one fort and
occupied another, thus altering, to a most important extent, the
condition of affairs under which we (you) came." You also allege that
you came here "the representatives of an authority which could at any
time within the past sixty days have taken possession of the forts in
Charleston Harbor, but which, upon pledges given in a manner that we
(you) can not doubt, determined to trust to your (my) honor rather than
to its own power."
This brings me to a consideration of the nature of those alleged
pledges, and in what manner they have been observed. In my message of
the 3d of December last, I stated, in regard to the property of the
United States in South Carolina, that it "has been purchased for a fair
equivalent 'by the consent of the Legislature of the State, for the
erection of forts, magazines, arsenals,' etc., and over these the
authority 'to exercise exclusive legislation' has been expressly granted
by the Constitution to Congress. It is not believed that any attempt
will be made to expel the United States from this property by force;
but, if in this I should prove to be mistaken, the officer in command of
the forts has received orders to act strictly on the defensive.
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