11/28/1859
Governor Wise, fearing an incursion into Virginia to rescue John Brown, had requested that Buchanan use federal troops to break up rumored "depots" in Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Ohio where such a force may be gathering. Buchanan assured Wise that federal troops would be available in Virginia but that any such federal efforts in other states would be a "palpable invasion of state sovereignty" and would set a dangerous precedent. (By John Osborne)
Source Citation:
James Buchanan to Governor Wise, November 28, 1859, quoted in John B. McMaster, A history of the people of the United States: from the Revolution to the Civil War Volume 8, 1850-1861 (New York: D. Appleton and Company, 1913), 323-324.