13.Sherman,I,195-1%.
14.Lincoln,VI,175-176.
15.1270.R.,161.
16.Munford,274;Journal of the Virginia Convention,1861.
17.Lincoln,VI,227-230.
18.N.R.,first series,IV,227.
19.Hay MS,I,143.
20.The great authority of Mr.Frederick Bancroft is still on the side of the older interpretation of Seward's Thoughts,Bancroft,II,Chap.XXIX.It must be remembered that following the war there was a reaction against Seward.When Nicolay and Hay published the Thoughts they appeared to give him the coup de grace.Of late years it has almost been the fashion to treat him contemptuously.Even Mr.Bancroft has been very cautious in his defense.This is not the place to discuss his genius or his political morals.But on one thing Iinsist,Whatever else he was-unscrupulous or what you will-he was not a fool.However reckless,at times,his spread-eagleism there was shrewdness behind it.The idea that he proposed a ridiculous foreign policy at a moment when all his other actions reveal coolness and calculation;the idea that he proposed it merely as a spectacular stroke in party management;this is too much to believe.A motive must be found better than mere chicanery.
Furthermore,if there was one fixed purpose in Seward,during March and early April,it was to avoid a domestic conflict;and the only way he could see to accomplish that was to side-track Montgomery's expansive all-Southern policy.Is it not fair,with so astute a politician as Seward,to demand in explanation of any of his moves 'he uncovering of some definite political force he was playing up to?The old interpretation of the Thoughts offers no force to which they form a response.
Especially it is impossible to find in them any scheme to get around Montgomery.But the old view looked upon the Virginia compromise with blind eyes.That was no part of the mental prospect.In accounting for Seward's purposes it did not exist.
But the moment one's eyes are opened to its significance,especially to the menace it had for the Montgomery program,is not the entire scene transformed?Is not,under these new conditions,the purpose intimated in the text,the purpose to open a new field of exploitation to the Southern expansionists in order to reconcile them to the Virginia scheme,is not this at least plausible?And it escapes making Seward a fool.
21.Lincoln,VI,23~237.
22.Welles,1,17.
23.There is still lacking a complete unriddling of the three-cornered game of diplomacy played in America in March and April,1861.Of the three participants Richmond is the most fully revealed.It was playing desperately for a compromise,any sort of compromise,that would save the one principle of state sovereignty.For that,slavery would be sacrificed,or at least allowed to be put in jeopardy.Munford,Virginia's Attitude toward Slavery and Secession;Tyler,Letters and Times of the Tylers;Journal of the Virginia Convention of 1861.
However,practically no Virginian would put himself in the position of forcing any Southern State to abandon slavery against its will.Hence the Virginia compromise dealt only with the expansion of slavery,would go no further than to give the North a veto on that expansion.And its compensating requirement plainly would be a virtual demand for the acknowledgment of state sovereignty.
Precisely what passed between Richmond and Washington is still something of a mystery.John Hay quotes Lincoln as saying that he twice offered to evacuate Sumter,once before and once after his inauguration,if the Virginians "would break up their convention without any row or nonsense."Hay MS,I,91;Thayer,I,118-119.From other sources we have knowledge of at least two conferences subsequent to the inauguration and probably three.One of the conferences mentioned by Lincoln seems pretty well identified.Coleman II,337-338.It was informal and may be set aside as having little if any historic significance.When and to whom Lincoln's second offer was made is not fully established.Riddle in his Recollections says that he was present at an informal interview "with loyal delegates of the Virginia State Convention,"who were wholly satisfied with Lincoln's position.Riddle,25.Possibly,this was the second conference mentioned by Lincoln.It has scarcely a feature in common with the conference of April 4,which has become the subject of acrimonious debate.N.and H.,III,422-428;Boutwell,II,62-67;Bancroft,II,102-104;Munford,270;Southern Historical Papers,1,449;Botts,195-201;Crawford,311;Report of the Joint Committee on Reconstruction,first session,Thirty-Ninth Congress;Atlantic,April,1875.The date of this conference is variously given as the fourth,fifth and sixth of April.Curiously enough Nicolay and Hay seem to have only an external knowledge of It;their account is made up from documents and lacks entirely the authoritative note.They do not refer to the passage in the Hay MS,already quoted.
There are three versions of the interview between Lincoln and Baldwin.One was given by Baldwin himself before the Committee on Reconstruction some five years after;one comprises the recollections of Colonel Dabney,to whom Baldwin narrated the incident in the latter part of the war;a third is in the recollections of John Minor Botts of a conversation with Lincoln April 7,1862.No two of the versions entirely agree.
Baldwin insists that Lincoln made no offer of any sort;while'Botts in his testimony before the Committee on Reconstruction says that Lincoln told him that he had told Baldwin that he was so anxious "for the preservation of the peace of this country and to save Virginia and the other Border States from going out that (he would)take the responsibility of evacuating Fort Sumter,and take the chances of negotiating with the Cotton States."Baldwin's language before the committee is a little curious and has been thought disingenuous.Boutwell,I,66.
