A World on Fire_ Britain's Crucial Role in the American Civil War - Amanda Foreman [46]
On February 8, 1861, Henry Adams wrote to his brother that Seward was in high spirits “and chuckles himself hoarse with his stories. He says it’s all right. We shall keep the border states … the storm is weathered.” The next day in Montgomery, Alabama, the Provisional Congress of the Confederate States of America elected Senator Jefferson Davis—one of Seward’s closest Washington friends before the crisis—as provisional president. William Lowndes Yancey, the voice of secession, proclaimed memorably “that the man and the hour have met.” Davis was inaugurated on February 18. A future general in the Confederate army informed his wife that “the firm conviction here is that Great Britain, France and Russia will acknowledge us at once in the family of nations.”17 Davis placed so much confidence in the power of cotton that he appointed Yancey, who had never been abroad, to lead the Confederate diplomatic mission to Europe.
Seward was still offering deals to Southern negotiators, even though Confederate troops were threatening the tiny federal garrison at Fort Sumter in Charleston, when Lincoln arrived in Washington on February 23. Everything about the new president proclaimed his rusticity. The two years he had spent in Congress during the late 1840s appeared to have left him in the same unpolished state as when he first entered it. During Seward’s first private conversation with him, Lincoln admitted with startling candor that he had no idea about international relations, saying, “I shall have to depend upon you for taking care of these matters of foreign affairs, of which I know so little, and with which I reckon you are familiar.” More extraordinarily still, Lincoln showed Seward his inaugural address and invited him to give his comments.18 Less than a week before Lincoln’s arrival, Seward had insisted to the Bremen minister that the presidency was a matter of luck—rather like the monarchy—and no one took the officeholder seriously. “The actual direction of public affairs belongs to the leader of the ruling party here.”19 Seward was obviously referring to himself, as though he was expecting Lincoln to settle meekly into his role as the ceremonial leader of the country, leaving him in charge.
No matter how hard Seward argued and cajoled, however, Lincoln would not be swayed from his notion that he alone had the right to select the members of his cabinet. Nor did he accept Seward’s contention that the United States should abandon Fort Sumter rather than take a stand against Southern threats. Seward dared not reveal his promises to the Southern negotiators that Fort Sumter would not be reinforced. While Seward struggled to assert his will over Lincoln, the Northern Republicans in the Senate took advantage of the missing Southern politicians, who were free-traders to a man, to pass the Morrill Tariff on February 27. The protectionist bill placed high import duties on most imported manufacturing goods; since 40 percent of Britain’s export trade went to the United States, the effect of the tariff on Britain would be devastating. Its impact on international relations ought to have been of the highest priority to the State Department.3.1
Seward was bitterly disappointed by Lincoln’s refusal to alter his appointments to the cabinet. His dismay was not palliated by the fact that the six other members were either neutral toward the president or former rivals, and equally suspicious of one another. Three—Caleb Smith (Interior), Edward Bates (attorney general), and Simon Cameron (War)