o be
quite the most astounding thing in the whole episode. The "Thoughts"
outlined a course of policy by which the buoyant Secretary intended to
make good his prophecy of domestic peace within ninety days. Besides
calmly patronizing Lincoln, assuring him that his lack of "a policy
either domestic or foreign" was "not culpable and... even unavoidable,"
the paper warned him that "policies...both domestic and foreign" must
immediately be adopted, and it proceeded to point out what they ought to
be. Briefly stated, the one true policy which he advocated at home was
to evacuate Sumter (though Pickens for some unexplained reason might be
safely retained) and then, in order to bring the Southerners back into
the Union, to pick quarrels with both Spain and France; to proceed as
quickly as possible to war with both powers; and to have the ultimate
satisfaction of beholding the reunion of the country through the general
enthusiasm that was bound to come. Finally, the paper intimated that the
Secretary of State was the man to carry this project through to success.

All this is not opera bouffe, but serious history. It must have taxed
Lincoln's sense of humor and strained his sense of the fitness of things
to treat such nonsense with the tactful forbearance which he showed and
to relegate it to the pigeonhole without making Seward angry. Yet this
he contrived to do; and he also managed, gently but firmly, to make it
plain that the President intended to exercise his authority as the chief
magistrate of the nation. His forbearance was further shown in passing
over without rebuke Seward's part in the affair of Sumter, which might
so easily have been made to appear treacherous, and in shouldering
himself with all responsibility for the failure of the Charleston
expedition. In the wave of excitement following the surrender, even so
debonair a minister as Seward must have realized how fortunate it was
for him that his chief did not tell all he knew. About this time Seward
began to perceive that Lincoln had a will of his own, and that it was
not safe to trifle further with the President. Seward thereupon ceased
his interference.

It was in the dark days preceding the fall of Sumter that a crowd of
office-seekers gathered at Washington, most of them men who had little
interest in anything but the spoils. It is a distressing commentary on
the American party system that, during the most critical month of the
most critical period of American