Team of Rivals_ The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln - Doris Kearns Goodwin [221]
Flattering letters from the South had compounded Seward’s erroneous assumption. Frederick Roberts in North Carolina assured him that everyone was looking to him for “a peaceful adjustment of the difficulties.” While Lincoln, the letter continued, was considered throughout the state as “a 3rd rate man,” Seward was looked upon as “the Hector or Atlas of not only his Cabinet, but the giant intellect of the whole north.” Another admirer swore that “Unionists look to yourself, and only to you Sir, as a member of the Cabinet—to save the country.” With these judgments of both the president’s failings and his own stature, Seward wholeheartedly agreed. He confided to Adams that Lincoln had “no conception of his situation—much absorption in the details of office dispensation, but little application to great ideas.” Adams needed little convincing. Despite accepting the high-ranking appointment as minister to Great Britain, he remained dismissive of Lincoln, writing in his diary: “The man is not equal to the hour.” The only hope, he repeatedly wrote, lay in the secretary of state’s influence with the president.
For weeks, Seward had acted under “two supreme illusions”: first, that he was in reality the man in charge; and second, that Southerners would be appeased by the abandonment of Sumter and would eventually return to the Union. He had risked his good name on his conviction that Lincoln would follow his advice and surrender Sumter. Three commissioners had been sent to Washington by the Confederacy to negotiate, among other issues, the question of the forts. Lincoln, however, had refused to allow any dealings with them on the grounds that direct communication would legitimize the seceded states. Stifled, Seward had resorted to an indirect link through Alabama’s John Campbell, who had remained on the Supreme Court despite the secession of his state. After the March 15 cabinet meeting, Seward, believing that his vote to evacuate would soon be confirmed by Lincoln, had sent a message that Campbell relayed to the commissioners, who reported to the Confederacy’s capital, then located in Montgomery, Alabama: Sumter “would be evacuated in the next five days.”
Desperate to save his own honor and prevent the country from drifting into war, while the administration established no clear-cut policy, Seward composed an extraordinary memo that would become the source of great criticism and controversy. During the afternoon of April 1, Fred Seward recalled, his father wrote “Some thoughts for the President’s consideration.” Since his “handwriting was almost illegible,” he asked Fred to copy it over and bring it personally to Lincoln, not allowing it “to be filed, or to pass into the hands of any clerk.”
“We are at the end of a month’s Administration, and yet without a policy either domestic or foreign,” the contentious memo began. Seward proceeded to reiterate his argument for abandoning Fort Sumter, placing new emphasis on reinforcing Fort Pickens. He asserted that focusing on Fort Pickens rather than on Sumter would allow Lincoln to retain “the symbolism of Federal authority” with far less provocation. Seward’s mistake was not the diabolical plot that some critics later charged, but a grave misreading of the situation and a grave misunderstanding of Lincoln.
Seward continued under the heading of “For Foreign Nations,” suggesting that Lincoln deflect attention from the domestic crisis by demanding that Spain and France explain their meddling in the Western Hemisphere and that Great Britain, Canada, and Russia account for their threats to intervene in the American crisis. If the explanations of any country proved unsatisfactory, war should be declared. In fact, some such explanations were eventually demanded, convincing European leaders to be more careful in their response to the American situation. It was Seward’s wilder proposal of declaring war, if necessary, that would arouse the harsh rebuke of biographers and historians.
Nor did Seward’s overreaching end there. The previous February, Seward