It would not be true to say that any thing like popularity attended the President in his new position; but the change of feeling was so great that the Legislature of Massachusetts, on the 23d of January, 1861, adopted resolutions in which they declared that they regarded "with unmingled satisfaction the determination evinced in the recent firm and patriotic special message of the President of the United States to amply and faithfully discharge his constitutional duty of enforcing the laws, and preserving the integrity of the Union." The Legislature "proffered to the President, through the Governor of the Commonwealth, such aid in men and money as he may require to maintain the authority of the National Government." These resolutions were forwarded to Mr.Buchanan by Governor Andrew.

They were only one of many manifestations which the President received of approval of his course.
The Massachusetts Legislature was radically Republican in both branches, and even in making a reference to "men and money" as requisite to maintain the Union, they had gone farther than the public sentiment at that time approved.

Coercive measures were generally condemned.

A few days after the action of the Legislature, a large meeting of the people of Boston, held in Faneuil Hall, declared that they "depended for the return of the seceding States, and the permanent preservation of the Union, on conciliatory counsels, and a sense of the benefits which the Constitution confers on all the States, and not on military coercion." They declared that they shrunk "with horror from the thought of civil war between the North and the South." It must always be remembered that the disbelief in ultimate secession was nearly universal throughout the free States.

The people of the North could not persuade themselves that the proceedings in the Southern States would lead to any thing more serious than hostile demonstrations, which would end, after coaxing and compromise, in a return to the Union.