definitely put into words, what could have been more astute? Lincoln
himself had said in the inaugural, "One section of our country believes
slavery is right and ought to be extended; while the other believes
it is wrong and ought not to be extended. That is the only substantial
dispute." In the same inaugural, he had pledged himself not to
"interfere with the institution of slavery in the States where it now
exists;" and also had urged a vigorous enforcement of the Fugitive
Slave Law. He never had approved of any sort of emancipation other than
purchase or the gradual operation of economic conditions. It was well
known that slavery could flourish only on fresh land amid prodigal
agricultural methods suited to the most ignorant labor. The Virginia
Compromise, by giving to slavery a fixed area and abolishing its hopes
of continual extensions into fresh land, was the virtual fulfillment of
Lincoln's demand.
The failure of the Virginia Compromise is one more proof that a great
deal of vital history never gets into words until after it is over.
During the second half of March, Unionists and Secessionists in the
Virginia Convention debated with deep emotion this searching new
proposal. The Unionists had a fatal weakness in their position. This was
the feature of the situation that had not hitherto been put into words.
Lincoln had not been accurate when he said that the slavery question
was "the only substantial dispute." He had taken for granted that the
Southern opposition to nationalism was not a real thing,--a mere device
of the politicians to work up excitement. All the compromises he was
ready to offer were addressed to that part of the South which was
seeking to make an issue on slavery. They had little meaning for that
other and more numerous part in whose thinking slavery was an incident.
For this other South, the ideas which Lincoln as late as the middle of
March did not bring into play were the whole story. Lincoln, willing to
give all sorts of guarantees for the noninterference with slavery, would
not give a single guarantee supporting the idea of State sovereignty
against the idea of the sovereign power of the national Union. The
Virginians, willing to go great lengths in making concessions with
regard to slavery, would not go one inch in the way of admitting that
their State was not a sovereign power included in the American Union
of its own free will, and not the legitimate subject of any sort of
coercion.
The Virginia Compromise was really a profound new complication. The very
care with which it divided the issue of nationality from the issue
of slavery was a storm signal. For a thoroughgoing nationalist like
Lincoln, deep perplexities lay hidden in this full disclosure of the
issue that was vital to the moderate South. Lincoln's shifting of his
mental ground, his perception that hitherto he had been oblivious of his
most formidable opponent, the one with whom compromise was impossible,
occurred in the second half of the month.
As always, Lincoln kept his own counsel upon the maturing of a purpose
in his own mind. He listened to every adviser--opening his office doors
without reserve to all sorts and conditions--and silently, anxiously,
struggled with himself for a decision. He watched Virginia; he watched
the North; he listened--and waited. General Scott continued hopeless,
though minor military men gave encouragement. And whom should the
President trust-the tired old General who disagreed with him, or the
eager young men who held views he would like to hold? Many a time he was
to ask himself that question during the years to come.
On March twenty-ninth, he again consulted the Cabinet.(17) A great deal
of water had run under the mill since they gave their opinions on March
sixteenth. The voice of the people was still a bewildering roar, but
out of that roar most of the Cabinet seemed to hear definite words. They
were convinced that the North was veering toward a warlike mood. The
phrase "masterly inactivity," which had been applied to the government's
course admiringly a few weeks before, was now being applied
satirically. Republican extremists were demanding action. A subtle
barometer was the Secretary of the Treasury. Now, as on the sixteenth,
he craftily said something without saying it. After juggling the word
"if," he assumed his "if" to be a fact and concluded, "If war is to
be the result, I perceive no reason why it may not best be begun in
consequence of military resistance to the efforts of the Administration
to sustain troops of the Union, stationed under authority of the
government in a fort of the Union, in the ordinary course of service."
This elaborate equivocation, which had all the force of an assertion,
was Chase all over! Three other ministers agreed with him except that
they did not equivocate. One evaded. Of all those who had stood with
Seward on the sixteenth, only one was still in favor of evacuation.
Seward stood fast. This reversal of the Cabinet's position, jumping as
it did with Lincoln's desires, encouraged him to prepare for action.
But just as he was about to act his diffidence asserted itself. He
authorized the preparation of a relief expedition but withheld sailing
orders until further notice.(18) Oh, for Seward's audacity; for the
ability to do one thing or another and take the consequences!
Seward had not foreseen this turn of events. He had little respect for
the rest of the Cabinet, and had still to discover that the President,
for all his semblance of vacillation, was a great man. Seward was
undeniably vain. That the President with such a Secretary of
State should judge the strength of a Cabinet vote by counting
noses--preposterous! But that was just what this curiously simple-minded
President had done. If he went on in his weak, amiable way listening to
the time-servers who were listening to the bigots, what would become of
the country? And of the Secretary of State and his deep policies? The
President must be pulled up short--brought to his senses--taught a
lesson or two.
Seward saw that new difficulties had arisen in the course of
that fateful March which those colleagues of his in the
Cabinet--well-meaning, inferior men, to be sure--had not the subtlety to
comprehend. Of course the matter of evacuation remained what it always
had been, the plain open road to an ultimate diplomatic triumph. Who
but a president out of the West, or a minor member of the Cabinet, would
fail to see that! But there were two other considerations which, also,
his well-meaning colleagues were failing to allow for. While all this
talk about the Virginia Unionists had been going on, while Washington
and Richmond had been trying to negotiate, neither really had any
control of its own game. They were card players with all the trumps out
of their hands. Montgomery, the Confederate Congress, held the trumps.
At any minute it could terminate all this make-believe of diplomatic
independence, both at Washington and at Richmond. A few cannon shots
aimed at Sumter, the cry for revenge in the North, the inevitable
protest against coercion in Virginia, the convention blown into the air,
and there you are--War!
And after all that, who knows what next? And yet, Blair and Chase
and the rest would not consent to slip Montgomery's trumps out of her
hands--the easiest thing in the world to do!--by throwing Sumter into
her lap and thus destroying the pretext for the cannon shots. More than
ever before, Seward would insist firmly on the evacuation of Sumter.
But there was the other consideration, the really new turn of events.
Suppose Sumter is evacuated; suppose Montgomery has lost her chance to
force Virginia into war by precipitating the issue of coercion, what
follows? All along Seward had advocated a national convention to
readjust all the matters "in dispute between the sections." But what
would such a convention discuss? In his inaugural, Lincoln had advised
an amendment to the Constitution "to the effect that the Federal
government shall never interfere with the domestic institutions of
the State, including that of persons held to service." Very good! The
convention might be expected to accept this, and after this, of course,
there would come up the Virginia Compromise. Was it a practical scheme?
Did it form a basis for drawing back into the Union the lower South?
Seward's whole thought upon this subject has never been disclosed. It
must be inferred from the conclusion which he reached, which he put
into a paper entitled, Thoughts for the President's Consideration, and
submitted to Lincoln, April first.
The Thoughts outlined a scheme of policy, the most startling feature
of which was an instant, predatory, foreign war. There are two clues to
this astounding proposal. One was a political maxim in which Seward had
unwavering faith. "A fundamental principle of politics," he said, "is
always to be on the side of your country in a war. It kills any party to
oppose a war. When Mr. Buchanan got up his Mormon War, our people, Wade
and Fremont, and The Tribune, led off furiously against it. I supported
it to the immense disgust of enemies and friends. If you want to sicken
your opponents with their own war, go in for it till they give it
up."(19) He was not alone among the politicians of his time, and some
other times, in these cynical views. Lincoln has a story of a politician
who was asked to oppose the Mexican War, and who replied, "I opposed
one war; that was enough for me. I am now perpetually in favor of war,
pestilence and famine."
The second clue to Seward's new policy of international brigandage was
the need, as he conceived it, to propitiate those Southern expansionists
who in the lower South at least formed so large a part of the political
machine, who must somehow be lured back into the Union; to whom the
Virginia Compromise, as well as every other scheme of readjustment yet
suggested, offered no allurement. Like Lincoln defeating the Crittenden
Compromise, like the Virginians planning the last compromise, Seward
remembered the filibusters and the dreams of the expansionists,
annexation of Cuba, annexation of Nicaragua and all the rest, and he
looked about for a way to reach them along that line. Chance had
played into his hands. Already Napoleon III had begun his ill-fated
interference with the affairs of Mexico. A rebellion had just taken
place in San Domingo and Spain was supposed to have designs on the
island. Here, for any one who believed in predatory war as an infallible
last recourse to rouse the patriotism of a country, were pretexts
enough. Along with these would go a raging assertion of the Monroe
Doctrine and a bellicose attitude toward other European powers on less
substantial grounds. And amid it all, between the lines of it all, could
not any one glimpse a scheme for the expansion of the United States
southward? War with Spain over San Domingo! And who, pray, held the
Island of Cuba! And what might not a defeated Spain be willing to do
with Cuba? And if France were driven out of Mexico by our conquering
arms, did not the shadows of the future veil but dimly a grateful Mexico
where American capital should find great opportunities? And would not
Southern capital in the nature of things, have a large share in all that
was to come? Surely, granting Seward's political creed, remembering the
problem he wished to solve, there is nothing to be wondered at in his
proposal to Lincoln: "I would demand explanations from Spain and France,
categorically, at once." . . . And if satisfactory explanations were not
received from Spain and France, "would convene Congress and declare war
against them."
His purpose, he said, was to change the question before the public,
from one upon slavery, or about slavery, for a question upon Union or
Disunion. Sumter was to be evacuated "as a safe means for changing
the issue," but at the same time, preparations were to be made for
a blockade of the Southern coast.(20) This extraordinary document
administered mild but firm correction to the President. He was told
that he had no policy, although under the circumstances, this was "not
culpable"; that there must be a single head to the government; that the
President, if not equal to the task, should devolve it upon some member
of the Cabinet. The Thoughts closed with these words, "I neither seek to
evade nor assume responsibility."
Like Seward's previous move, when he sent Weed to Springfield, this
other brought Lincoln to a point of crisis. For the second time he must
render a decision that would turn the scale, that would have for his
country the force of destiny. In one respect he did not hesitate. The
most essential part of the Thoughts was the predatory spirit. This
clashed with Lincoln's character. Serene unscrupulousness met unwavering
integrity. Here was one of those subjects on which Lincoln was not
asking advice. As to ways and means, he was pliable to a degree in the
hands of richer and wider experience; as to principles, he was a rock.
Seward's whole scheme of aggrandizement, his magnificent piracy,
was calmly waved aside as a thing of no concern. The most striking
characteristic of Lincoln's reply was its dignity. He did not,
indeed, lay bare his purposes. He was content to point out certain
inconsistencies in Seward's argument; to protest that whatever action
might be taken with regard to the single fortress, Sumter, the question
before the public could not be changed by that one event; and to say
that while he expected advice from all his Cabinet, he was none the less
President, and in last resort he would himself direct the policy of the
government.(21)
Only a strong man could have put up with the patronizing condescension
of the Thoughts and betrayed no irritation. Not a word in Lincoln's
reply gives the least hint that condescension had been displayed. He
is wholly unruffled, distant, objective. There is also a quiet tone of
finality, almost the tone one might use in gently but firmly correcting
a child. The Olympian impertinence of the Thoughts had struck out of
Lincoln the first flash of that approaching masterfulness by means of
which he was to ride out successfully such furious storms. Seward was
too much the man of the world not to see what had happened. He never
touched upon the Thoughts again. Nor did Lincoln. The incident was
secret until Lincoln's secretaries twenty-five years afterward published
it to the world.
But Lincoln's lofty dignity on the first of April was of a moment only.
When the Secretary of the Navy, Gideon Welles, that same day called on
him in his offices, he was the easy-going, jovial Lincoln who was always
ready half-humorously to take reproof from subordinates--as was evinced
by his greeting to the Secretary. Looking up from his writing, he said
cheerfully, "What have I done wrong?"(22) Gideon Welles was a pugnacious
man, and at that moment an angry man. There can be little doubt that his
lips were tightly shut, that a stern frown darkened his brows. Grimly
conscientious was Gideon Welles, likewise prosaic; a masterpiece of
literalness, the very opposite in almost every respect of the Secretary
of State whom he cordially detested. That he had already found occasion
to protest against the President's careless mode of conducting business
may be guessed--correctly--from the way he was received. Doubtless the
very cordiality, the whimsical admission of loose methods, irritated
the austere Secretary. Welles had in his hand a communication dated
that same day and signed by the President, making radical changes in the
program of the Navy Department. He had come to protest.
"The President," said Welles, "expressed as much surprise as I felt,
that he had sent me such a document. He said that Mr. Seward with two
or three young men had been there during the day on a subject which he
(Seward) had in hand and which he had been some time maturing; that it
was Seward's specialty, to which he, the President, had yielded, but as
it involved considerable details, he had left Mr. Seward to prepare
the necessary papers. These papers he had signed, many of them without
reading, for he had not time, and if he could not trust the Secretary of
State, he knew not whom he could trust. I asked who were associated with
Mr. Seward. 'No one,' said the President, 'but these young men who were
here as clerks to write down his plans and orders.' Most of the work was
done, he said, in the other room.
"The President reiterated that they (the changes in the Navy) were not
his instructions, though signed by him; that the paper was an improper
one; that he wished me to give it no more consideration than I thought
proper; to treat it as cancelled, or as if it had never been written. I
could get no satisfactory explanation from the President of the origin
of this strange interference which mystified him and which he censured
and condemned more severely than myself. . . . Although very much
disturbed by the disclosure, he was anxious to avoid difficulty, and to
shield Mr. Seward, took to himself the whole blame."
Thus Lincoln began a role that he never afterward abandoned. It was the
role of scapegoat Whatever went wrong anywhere could always be loaded
upon the President. He appeared to consider it a part of his duty to
be the scapegoat for the whole Administration. It was his way of
maintaining trust, courage, efficiency, among his subordinates.
Of those papers which he had signed without reading on April first,
Lincoln was to hear again in still more surprising fashion six days
thereafter.
He was now at the very edge of his second crucial decision. Though the
naval expedition was in preparation, he still hesitated over issuing
orders to sail. The reply to the Thoughts had not committed him to any
specific line of conduct. What was it that kept him wavering at this
eleventh hour? Again, that impenetrable taciturnity which always
shrouded his progress toward a conclusion, forbids dogmatic assertion.
But two things are obvious: his position as a minority president, of
which he was perhaps unduly conscious, caused him to delay, and to delay
again and again, seeking definite evidence how much support he could
command in the North; the change in his comprehension of the problem
before him-his perception that it was not an "artificial crisis"
involving slavery alone, but an irreconcilable clash of social-political
idealism--this disturbed his spirit, distressed, even appalled him.
Having a truer insight into human nature than Seward had, he saw that
here was an issue immeasurably less susceptible of compromise than was
slavery. Whether, the moment he perceived this, he at once lost hope of
any peaceable solution, we do not know. Just what he thought about the
Virginia Compromise is still to seek. However, the nature of his mind,
the way it went straight to the human element in a problem once his eyes
were opened to the problem's reality, forbid us to conclude that he
took hope from Virginia. He now saw what, had it not been for his near
horizon, he would have seen so long before, that, in vulgar parlance, he
had been "barking up the wrong tree." Now that he had located the right
tree, had the knowledge come too late?
It is known that Seward, possibly at Lincoln's request, made an attempt
to bring together the Virginia Unionists and the Administration. He sent
a special representative to Richmond urging the despatch of a committee
to confer with the President.
The strength of the party in the Convention was shown on April fourth
when a proposed Ordinance of Secession was voted down, eighty-nine to
forty-five. On the same day, the Convention by a still larger majority
formally denied the right of the Federal government to coerce a State.
Two days later, John B. Baldwin, representing the Virginia Unionists,
had a confidential talk with Lincoln. Only fragments of their talk,
drawn forth out of memory long afterward--some of the reporting being
at second hand, the recollections of the recollections of the
participants--are known to exist. The one fact clearly discernible is
that Baldwin stated fully the Virginia position: that her Unionists
were not nationalists; that the coercion of any State, by impugning
the sovereignty of all, would automatically drive Virginia out of the
Union.(23)
Lincoln had now reached his decision. The fear that had dogged him all
along--the fear that in evacuating Sumter he would be giving something
for nothing, that "it would discourage the friends of the Union,
embolden its adversaries"--was in possession of his will. One may hazard
the guess that this fear would have determined Lincoln sooner than
it did, except for the fact that the Secretary of State, despite his
faults, was so incomparably the strongest personality in the Cabinet.
We have Lincoln's own word for the moment and the detail that formed
the very end of his period of vacillation. All along he had intended to
relieve and hold Fort Pickens, off the coast of Florida. To this, Seward
saw no objection. In fact, he urged the relief of Pickens, hoping, as
compensation, to get his way about Sumter. Assuming as he did that the
Southern leaders were opportunists, he believed that they would not
make an issue over Pickens, merely because it had not in the public
eye become a political symbol. Orders had been sent to a squadron in
Southern waters to relieve Pickens. Early in April news was received at
Washington that the attempt had failed due to misunderstandings
among the Federal commanders. Fearful that Pickens was about to fall,
reasoning that whatever happened he dared not lose both forts, Lincoln
became peremptory on the subject of the Sumter expedition. This was on
April sixth. On the night of April sixth, Lincoln's signatures to the
unread despatches of the first of April, came home to roost. And
at last, Welles found out what Seward was doing on the day of All
Fools.(24)
While the Sumter expedition was being got ready, still without sailing
orders, a supplemental expedition was also preparing for the relief of
Pickens. This was the business that Seward was contriving, that Lincoln
would not explain, on April first. The order interfering with the Navy
Department was designed to checkmate the titular head of the department.
Furthermore, Seward had had the amazing coolness to assume that Lincoln
would certainly accept his Thoughts and that the simple President need
not hereinafter be consulted about details. He aimed to circumvent
Welles and to make sure that the Sumter expedition, whether sailing
orders were issued or not, should be rendered innocuous. The warship
Powhatan, which was being got ready for sea at the Brooklyn Navy Yard,
was intended by Welles for the Sumter expedition. One of those unread
despatches signed by Lincoln, assigned it to the Pickens expedition.
When the sailing orders from Welles were received, the commander of the
Sumter fleet claimed the Powhatan. The Pickens commander refused to
give it up. The latter telegraphed Seward that his expedition was "being
retarded and embarrassed" by "conflicting" orders from Welles. The
result was a stormy conference between Seward and Welles which was
adjourned to the White House and became a conference with Lincoln. And
then the whole story came out. Lincoln played the scapegoat, "took the
whole blame upon himself, said it was carelessness, heedlessness on his
part; he ought to have been more careful and attentive." But he insisted
on immediate correction of his error, on the restoration of the Powhatan
to the Sumter fleet. Seward struggled hard for his plan. Lincoln was
inflexible. As Seward had directed the preparation of the Pickens
expedition, Lincoln required him to telegraph to Brooklyn the change in
orders. Seward, beaten by his enemy Welles, was deeply chagrined. In
his agitation he forgot to be formal, forgot that the previous order
had gone out in the President's name, and wired curtly, "Give up the
Powhatan. Seward."