navy officers including franklin buchanan. he writes a letter to the president saying can you cancel my previous resignation, i decided to stay. no. that certainly is not permitted. also, seen a number of -- what i would say rather pathetic letters of resignation from serving officers saying, i know i should stand by the american flag, i know it is my duty, i can't do it, my family is in nashville. i would be a pariah if i did my duty. so i have to resign. and go. who are the people that write in? i will talk about it today. they come from all walks of life. bankers, civil engineers. average people. carriage makers and including a fair number of anonymous. i'm curious when i see letters by anonymous, either they really wish to remain completely unknown or they sort of knew the ideas they were suggesting were so ludicrous that they did not want their name to be attached to it. and, i should also say -- in all of the letters that i looked at, the word css virginia are never used, it is always the merimac. call her what you will.

the two that i am particularly involved with in freedom's cap, franklin pearce and james buchanan were really good though. so most of the action took place in the senate, where you could see henry clay, john c. calhoun, daniel webster, thomas hart bandstand, stephena douglas, jefferson davis, sam houston, the names everybody knew. not only did everybody know them, but they stayed and were in washington all time. they came and went. but the senators were forever and they were the stars. people love to be able to get seats in the gallery there and watch the debate. there is another thing that was wrong and besides having not too much space, with the senate was very hot in the summer, very cold in the winter. there were 20 that fat he hind the vice president's chair because the vice president was actually served as the president of the senate. senator walked behind the president of the senate in these old guys with hands on behind walking around and standing in front of this does, warming their hands. when they were doing that, they were sitting in chairs wrapped in buffalo robes and wrap

buchanan do? it's a very simple answer. nothing. but, seriously, he could have done something. obviously, we all know that he like his predecessor franklin pierce and pierce's predecessor were doe faces, northerners who had great sympathy for the south. buchanan was greatly conflicted with this whole crisis. he was a devoted to the union at the same time he had great emotional attachment to the south. he was a man with few friends. those friends were southerners. what he could have done differently, i think, is that he could have reached out to those faxes who he despisecxes who h . republicans, he couldn't tell the difference between those who were against the extension of slavery and those who were for the abolition of slavery. to him, all republicans were radical crazies. and then there were the douglas democrats. he never had a close relationship with douglas. and, of course, they broke over the la compton constitution that buchanan supported and douglas, of course, considering it against his concept and democratic party's concept of popular sovereignty, they split. and then as a result, buchanan basically tried to purge the democrat