But there were two other considerations which,also,his well-meaning colleagues were failing to allow for.While all this talk about the Virginia Unionists had been going on,while Washington and Richmond had been trying to negotiate,neither really had any control of its own game.They were card players with all the trumps out of their hands.Montgomery,the Confederate Congress,held the trumps.At any minute it could terminate all this make-believe of diplomatic independence,both at Washington and at Richmond.A few cannon shots aimed at Sumter,the cry for revenge in the North,the inevitable protest against coercion in Virginia,the convention blown into the air,and there you are--War!
And after all that,who knows what next?And yet,Blair and Chase and the rest would not consent to slip Montgomery's trumps out of her hands--the easiest thing in the world to do!--by throwing Sumter into her lap and thus destroying the pretext for the cannon shots.More than ever before,Seward would insist firmly on the evacuation of Sumter.
But there was the other consideration,the really new turn of events.Suppose Sumter is evacuated;suppose Montgomery has lost her chance to force Virginia into war by precipitating the issue of coercion,what follows?All along Seward had advocated a national convention to readjust all the matters "in dispute between the sections."But what would such a convention discuss?In his inaugural,Lincoln had advised an amendment to the Constitution "to the effect that the Federal government shall never interfere with the domestic institutions of the State,including that of persons held to service."Very good!
The convention might be expected to accept this,and after this,of course,there would come up the Virginia Compromise.
Was it a practical scheme?Did it form a basis for drawing back into the Union the lower South?
Seward's whole thought upon this subject has never been disclosed.It must be inferred from the conclusion which he reached,which he put into a paper entitled,Thoughts for the President's Consideration,and submitted to Lincoln,April first.
The Thoughts outlined a scheme of policy,the most startling feature of which was an instant,predatory,foreign war.There are two clues to this astounding proposal.One was a political maxim in which Seward had unwavering faith."A fundamental principle of politics,"he said,"is always to be on the side of your country in a war.It kills any party to oppose a war.
When Mr.Buchanan got up his Mormon War,our people,Wade and Fremont,and The Tribune,led off furiously against it.Isupported it to the immense disgust of enemies and friends.If you want to sicken your opponents with their own war,go in for it till they give it up."[19]He was not alone among the politicians of his time,and some other times,in these cynical views.Lincoln has a story of a politician who was asked to oppose the Mexican War,and who replied,"I opposed one war;that was enough for me.I am now perpetually in favor of war,pestilence and famine."The second clue to Seward's new policy of international brigandage was the need,as he conceived it,to propitiate those Southern expansionists who in the lower South at least formed so large a part of the political machine,who must somehow be lured back into the Union;to whom the Virginia Compromise,as well as every other scheme of readjustment yet suggested,offered no allurement.Like Lincoln defeating the Crittenden Compromise,like the Virginians planning the last compromise,Seward remembered the filibusters and the dreams of the expansionists,annexation of Cuba,annexation of Nicaragua and all the rest,and he looked about for a way to reach them along that line.Chance had played into his hands.Already Napoleon III had begun his ill-fated interference with the affairs of Mexico.A rebellion had just taken place in San Domingo and Spain was supposed to have designs on the island.
Here,for any one who believed in predatory war as an infallible last recourse to rouse the patriotism of a country,were pretexts enough.Along with these would go a raging assertion of the Monroe Doctrine and a bellicose attitude toward other European powers on less substantial grounds.And amid it all,between the lines of it all,could not any one glimpse a scheme for the expansion of the United States southward?War with Spain over San Domingo!And who,pray,held the Island of Cuba!And what might not a defeated Spain be willing to do with Cuba?And if France were driven out of Mexico by our conquering arms,did not the shadows of the future veil but dimly a grateful Mexico where American capital should find great opportunities?And would not Southern capital in the nature of things,have a large share in all that was to come?Surely,granting Seward's political creed,remembering the problem he wished to solve,there is nothing to be wondered at in his proposal to Lincoln:"I would demand explanations from Spain and France,categorically,at once.".
