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.
