day, in the hope that some new occurrence might open a way for its solution.

It was well known that Lincoln's powers as a politi cal debater were of the first order, and of course the election had made him the head of the administration; but he had shown no qualities that had convinced even good judges of men that he would be President in the fullest sense of the word. He was awkward and rustic in his manners and appearance, and was thoroughly unconventional in his talk. It was assumed that either Seward or Chase would have a directing hand in af fairs. Coming into strange surroundings, Lincoln wisely leaned on the man he had chosen for the first place in his Cabinet. This must have reminded Seward of how, twelve years before, Taylor accepted his advice and assistance in regard to the most important questions of that time. No one in public life throughout the period since 1849 had been so prominent as Seward. He now really believed that his assurances, that sixty days' more suns would give a much brighter and more cheerful atmosphere, had been made good; that he had "brought the ship off the sands," and that it was his soothing words that had "saved us and carried us along thus far." And all this was entirely true in the sense he meant. What more natural than to infer that if he should either go home or become Minister to England, it would "leave the country to chance"; whereas, if he should go into Lincoln's "compound Cabinet," he could "endure enough to make the experiment successful."* When Southerners and their friends questioned his ability to make his policy that of the Republican administration, he had pointed to his influence over General Scott, the head of the army and, until recently, the chief of the coercionists. To the doubting he was

1 2 Seward, 505.

3

1

22 Seward, 518.

3 Gwin's recollections, 18 Overland Monthly, 2d series, 466.

able to show or quote a letter that the General addressed to him on March 3d, as if the Secretary of State instead of the President were to decide how to deal with secession.' In fact, had not Lincoln asked and accepted Seward's criticism upon the first written statement of his prospective policy? And although Seward had not been able to bar certain men from the Cabinet, had he not been refused permission to withdraw because Lincoln's feelings and the public interest forbade it? Sitting at the President's right at the Cabinet-table with men who, as he had stated in writing, had not studied the question as he had, was it not a matter of course that his plans must prevail? The tendencies had not changed with the coming of Lincoln and the departure of Buchanan. Seward's numerous channels of influence and information, extending throughout the border slave states and to the very heart of the Confederacy, were still open. What he had accomplished was, in his opinion, merely in preparation for the time when the new administration could meet, with charity and patience, what was declared to be groundless fear; when rewards and punishments could be substituted for warnings and promises, if nothing else sufficed. So Seward continued to think that the future depended upon his management.

1 It seems likely that this letter was chiefly inspired by Seward. One sentence in it reads: "I beg leave to repeat in writing what I have before said to you orally." Although Scott mentioned four ways of dealing with the difficulties, he made it plain that he preferred the one that was popularly supposed to be Seward's, and he was almost hysterically opposed to what Seward most deprecated.—Scott's Autobiography (1864), 625–28. There was a strong suspicion that Thurlow Weed had a hand in the matter. As has been noticed, both Seward and Greeley drafted letters of acceptance for Scott in 1852. Near the end of 1861 the old General published in London and Paris a very able and important letter about the seizure of the Trent, every word of which was written by John Bigelow. For a discussion of the question of the intimacy between Seward and Scott, see post, p. 124.

While the other members of the Cabinet were chiefly occupied with a few special questions, or were giving their time to applicants for place, Seward's activity seemed to extend in every direction and to touch all departments. The day he took charge of his new office, he requested Stanton to draw up a nomination of Crittenden for the United States Supreme Court.' By means of a prominent resident of Washington he kept up close communications with some of the unionist leaders in the Virginia state convention, and despatched Lander to the South to "kindle a 'backfire' against secession" in Texas. He telegraphed to Gilmer asking for recommendations about appointing a marshal and a United States attorney in North Carolina. And by scores of acts he showed that he had time and energy for any task, great or small, that came to his hand.

2

4

Before the middle of March, Gustavus V. Fox, formerly an officer in the United States Navy, had somewhat counteracted the impression Scott, Anderson, and others had made upon the President. On March 15th Lincoln requested each member of the Cabinet to give a written opinion on this question: "Assuming it to be possible now to provision Fort Sumter, under all the circumstances is it wise to attempt it?" 5

Seward's answer was given on the same day. It was comprehensive and direct, and as it contains the fullest explanation he ever made of his policy, the leading passages may well be quoted here:

"If it were possible to peacefully provision Fort Sumter,

1 2 Curtis's Buchanan, 528.

2 Statement of Mr. F. W. Seward to the author.

'3 Nicolay and Hay, 444; 2 Seward, 521.

4 Gilmer to Seward, March 27th, Seward MSS.

'The striking contrast between this question and the promise in the inaugural address "to hold, occupy, and possess the property and places belonging to the government," seems to have been overlooked.

of course I should answer that it would be both unwise and inhuman not to attempt it. But the facts of the case are known to be that the attempt must be made with the employment of a military and marine force which would provoke combat and probably initiate a civil war, which the government of the United States would be committed to maintain through all changes to some definite conclusion."

As a citizen, he considered the Union necessary; as a public official, he believed that it must be maintained at all hazards. Yet next to disunion he regarded "civil war as the most disastrous and deplorable of national calamities." Therefore, he had studied how to save the Union without war. He felt confident that secession was based upon false reasoning and had been carried forward in the seven states by means of artificial excitement so as to overcome for the time the devotion to the Union, which he believed to be a "profound and permanent national sentiment," "even in South Carolina." Yet he was sure that this sentiment

"could, if encouraged, be ultimately relied upon to rally the people of the seceding states to reverse, upon due deliberation, all the popular acts of legislatures and conventions by which they were hastily and violently committed to disunion.

"The policy of the time, therefore, has seemed to me to consist in conciliation, which should deny to disunionists any new provocation or apparent offence, while it would enable the Unionists in the slave states to maintain with truth and with effect that the alarms and apprehensions put forth by the disunionists are groundless and false.

"I have not been ignorant of the objections that the administration was elected through the activity of the Republican party; that it must continue to deserve and retain the confidence of that party; while conciliation toward the slave states tends to demoralize the Republican party itself, on which party the main responsibility of maintaining the Union must rest.

"But it has seemed to me a sufficient answer-first, that

the administration could not demoralize the Republican party without making some sacrifice of its essential principles, while no such sacrifice is necessary, or is anywhere. authoritatively proposed; and secondly, if it be indeed true that pacification is necessary to prevent dismemberment of the Union and civil war, or either of them, no patriot and lover of humanity could hesitate to surrender party for the higher interests of country and humanity.

"Partly by design, partly by chance, this policy has been hitherto pursued by the late administration of the Federal government, and by the Republican party in its corporate action. It is by this policy, thus pursued, I think, that the progress of dismemberment has been arrested after the seven Gulf states had seceded, and the border states yet remain, although they do so uneasily, in the Union.

"It is to a perseverance in this policy for a short time longer that I look as the only peaceful means of assuring the continuance of Virginia, Maryland, North Carolina, Kentucky, Tennessee, Missouri, and Arkansas, or most of those states in the Union. It is through their good and patriotic offices that I look to see the Union sentiment revived and brought once more into activity in the seceding states, and through this agency those states themselves. returning into the Union."

"The fact, then, is that while the people of the border states desire to be loyal, they are at the same time sadly, though temporarily, demoralized by a sympathy for the slave states, which makes them forget their loyalty whenever there are any grounds for apprehending that the Federal government will resort to military coercion against the seceding states, even though such coercion should be necessary to maintain the authority, or even the integrity, of the Union.' This sympathy is unreasonable, unwise, and dangerous, and therefore cannot, if left undisturbed, be permanent. It can be banished, however, only in one way, and that is by giving time for it to wear out, and for reason to resume its sway. Time will do this, if it be not hindered by new alarms and provocations."

"The question submitted to us, then, practically is: Supposing it to be possible to reinforce and supply Fort Sumter.

1 Not italicized in the original.

Uor M