Note 4 — A HISTORY (continued 7)

"It was while these plans for a coup d'état before the 4th of March were being matured in the very Cabinet itself and in the presence of a President too feeble to resist them and too blind oven to see them, that Mr. Stanton was sent for by Mr. Buchanan to answer the question, 'Can a State be coerced?' For two hours he battled, and finally scattered for the time being the heresies with which secession had filled the head of that old broken-down man. He was requested to prepare an argument in support of the power, to be inserted in the forthcoming message."—Hon. H.L. Dawes, in the "Boston Congregationalist." See "Atlantic Monthly," October, 1870, p. 468.