Chapter X

The Task

Seward and Lincoln-Sumter-Peril of Washington-Lincoln's War Task-His Policy-First Message to Congress-M 'Clellan-Frémont -The Trent Affair-Second Message-Lincoln's Attitude toward the War.

THE ceremony of inauguration being over, the new President's labours began in earnest. He had not only to rearrange and repair the somewhat dilapidated structure of the Government, he had himself to deal with a rebellion already formidable.

His first task was to complete his cabinet-making. Seward honourably reconsidered his withdrawal in the light of the public service, and on the 5th March all the nominations were sent to the Senate and confirmed. Then came the prolonged and indescribably tedious and exasperating labour of filling the other Public Offices, from foreign embassies to hundreds of country postmasterships, almost every case being contested by the friends and enemies of the applicants with a minimum of patriotism and a maximum of far-reaching political entanglements. Fortunately Lincoln was a politician in the narrower, as well as in the broader, sense of the word. Disaffection and treason, together with the claims of his own party, compelled him to change, more completely than any of his predecessors, the personnel of the Government, down to its smallest

offices. He used his patronage, now and henceforward, in such a manner as to solidify the party of the Union. He seems to have achieved his task by means of a certain half-amused detachment.1 He consulted every one concerned in an appointment, let everything that would do so settle itself, within certain conditions, and remembered that while he was, in his own words, "letting rooms in one end of his house," a fire was burning in the other, which he was so busy he could not stop to put out. The grotesqueness of the situation appealed vividly to the President.

For from the beginning of his Presidency the country was really in a state of war, though formal hostilities had not yet begun. The critical point was, appropriately enough, in South Carolina, always the seat of disaffection to the Federal Power. Here the national fort of Sumter, in the throat of Charleston Harbour, was being blockaded and menaced by the rebels on every side. Already, all but two of the other fortresses, besides most of the Federal property and materials, situated in the seceding States, had been seized or handed over by their commanders.

Buchanan had attempted and then abandoned the relief of Sumter. On the day after his inauguration, Lincoln was startled by the news that its commander, Anderson, his old major in the Black Hawk War, could not hold the fort more than four weeks, unless he was relieved.

While General Scott, as head of the army, assured

1 Dr C. R. Fish, Civil Service and Patronage. Of course, there were many more applicants than posts. Of disappointed petitioners, and those whom he could not satisfy, Lincoln said quaintly, "There are too many pigs for the tits."

him such relief was impossible within as many months, and the great majority of his cabinet declared that to attempt its relief at all would be inadvisable, Lincoln himself was explicitly pledged by his own words in the Inaugural, in so far as he had power, to hold the fortress. But Seward, his Secretary of State, favoured evacuation in order to avoid a civil war, and he fully expected to have his way.

On 1st April, however, he began to discover with what kind of a President he was dealing. He wrote out and submitted a paper of "Thoughts for the President's consideration." Thus far, he had been unable to discern any real policy behind the actions of the Executive; but supposed that this was due to the pressure of the details of patronage. Now, he urged, it is time we decide on a clear policy; and, supposing that the President needed such an one, he proceeded to outline his own.

"My system," he wrote, "is built upon this idea as a ruling one, viz., that we must change the question before the public from one upon Slavery, or about Slavery, for a question upon Union or Disunion; in other words, from what would be regarded as a party question to one of patriotism. . . ." As Sumter seemed to him to raise the former issue, he would abandon Sumter; but forthwith would blockade the Southern ports, and maintain every other federal fort and possession in the South. Then he would pursue a determined and even aggressive foreign policy, demanding immediate explanations from European Powers, and stirring up a spirit of independence in Canada, Mexico, and Central America, with a view to war with France and Spain. But the main matter

was, a policy, and its "energetic prosecution" by some one person. Seward indicated that he was prepared for this responsibility, if it should devolve on him,

The paper was, in effect, a slightly condescending proffer of assistance to a President who was supposed to be obviously incapable of filling the position into which an ironic destiny had pushed him. You are doing as well as one could expect, under your difficult circumstances; but this, my dear fellow, is a great crisis in our history. We need a MAN. Do you not think you had better ask me to help you, and to step into your place in order to transact this business?

Lincoln's reply set his Secretary right; and his Secretary was at once too sagacious a man to repeat his indiscretion, and too earnestly eager to serve his country in its peril to resent his correction.

The President began by pointing to the Inaugural as the clear statement of his policy, and reminded Seward that as far as the South was concerned it coincided, save in the matter of Sumter, with Seward's own. He alluded to, but did not discuss Seward's basis of policy, and his proposals towards foreign powers. But, quoting his closing proposals, he remarked upon Seward's dictum that the business of prosecuting the policy must be done by one person"If this must be done, I must do it. When a general line of policy is adopted, I apprehend there is no danger of its being changed without good reason, or continuing to be a subject of unnecessary debate; still, upon points arising in its progress I wish, and suppose I am entitled to have, the advice of all the Cabinet."

Seward, when he might have remained a dangerous

rival and centre of disaffection, had loyally supported Lincoln's candidature for the Presidency as soon as the party had chosen the Illinoisian instead of the New Yorker; and now again, he promptly withdrew from a false position and gave the man he had misunderstood his faithful and invaluable aid. Two months later he wrote generously, in a letter to his wife: "The President is the best of us."

Lincoln, on his side, maintained his very high opinion of Seward. There can be no doubt that he was practically essential to the Cabinet, and, failing Sumner, perhaps the only man who could then have adequately filled his office. Of his own part Lincoln said to his wife: "The only ruler I have is my conscience, following God in it."

Lincoln had corrected Seward's blunder only to commit another of his own. Although it was only a matter of detail, probably arising from his confusion of the similar names of two vessels selected for the relief of Forts Sumter and Pickens, it was largely responsible for the fall of the former on 13th April after thirty hours' bombardment. It serves as an illustration of his occasional lack of accuracy in detail, and his habitual lack of method. But the fall of the fortress consequent upon this second failure to relieve the garrisons did not seriously affect the fortunes of the war. Jefferson Davis had apparently “taken the first trick," but Lincoln's real purpose was achieved when it became absolutely clear to the Northern people that Secession really intended an armed assault upon the life of the nation.

The fall of Sumter was perhaps the result of the President's mistake, or of his failure to prosecute a