Buchanan Dying by John Updike

Author:John Updike [Updike, John]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-8129-8491-0
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Published: 2013-04-09T00:00:00+00:00

Blackout.

December 30th, 1860, a Sunday.

Church bells ring. BUCHANAN alone. BLACK enters.

BLACK: You sent for me, Mr. President.

BUCHANAN: Yes, Mr. Black. Did you sleep well?

BLACK: Not at all, Mr. Buchanan. I spent a comfortless night.

BUCHANAN: And there is little news this morning to comfort us.

BLACK: What do you hear from Charleston?

BUCHANAN: Captain Humphreys has telegraphed that the arsenal too has been seized.

BLACK: And from Springfield?

BUCHANAN: Mr. Lincoln sends me silence.

BLACK is silent.

BUCHANAN: Is it true that you, too, talk of leaving me?

BLACK: It is true that I am going to resign.

BUCHANAN: I am overwhelmed to know that you of all other men are going to leave me in this crisis. You are from my own State, my closest political and personal friend. I have leaned upon you in these troubles as upon none other, and I insist that you shall stand by me to the end.

BLACK: Mr. President, from the start I had determined to stand by you to death and destruction if need be. There is no storm of popular indignation I would not breast by your side, no depth of misfortune into which I would not descend with you, provided you have a cause to defend. But your answer to the Commissioners leaves you no cause; it sweeps the ground from under our feet; it places you where no man can stand with you, and where you cannot stand alone. (Bells continue; one is Buchanan’s BELL.)

BUCHANAN: You take this reply so much to heart? I thought to gain time for passions to subside, and for reason to resume her sway. We must not have an open rupture. We are not prepared for war, and if war is provoked, Congress cannot be relied upon to strengthen my arm, and the Union must utterly perish.

BLACK: That document is the powder that has blown your Cabinet to the four winds. It forces the Southern men out, and you cannot ask that we stay. I would not leave you for any earthly consideration so long as I could stay by you with self-respect, but I cannot do it, if the paper you have prepared is sent to the gentlemen from South Carolina.

BUCHANAN (toys with paper, then flips it over): I cannot part with you. Here, take this paper and modify it to suit yourself, but do it before the sun goes down. (His BELL sounds.)

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