han if the attitude of the United States was
more definite and decided."

Meanwhile new pressure was brought to bear on President Lincoln. On the
2d of April, the commissioners, who kept up pretty well with the
situation, telegraphed Secretary Toombs: "The war party presses on the
President; he vibrates to that side." The rumor was given that the
President had conferred with an engineer in regard to Fort Sumter.
"Watch at all points." Three days later they telegraphed that the
movement of troops and the preparation of vessels of war were continued
with great activity. "The statement that the armament is intended for
San Domingo," they said, "may be a mere ruse." "Have no confidence in
this administration. We say, be ever on your guard.... Glad to hear you
are ready. The notice promised us may come at the last moment, if the
fleet be intended for our waters."

On the 6th of April Governor Pickens of South Carolina was informed that
the President had decided to supply Fort Sumter with provisions, and on
the 10th, Hon. Levi P. Walker, Secretary of War at Montgomery, notified
General Beauregard, then in command of the Confederate forces at
Charleston, to demand the evacuation of Fort Sumter, and, if refused, to
proceed to reduce it.

There is no doubt that the Lincoln Cabinet reversed its position about
Sumter. The pressure of New England and the West became too strong. What
Sumter lacked in military importance, it made up in political
significance. The Lincoln Government had already been taunted with
weakness by the people who had placed it in office. Mr. Lincoln decided,
against the better judgment of Mr. Seward, to make the issue in
Charleston Harbor.

Seward's mind was of finer and more reflective cast than Mr. Lincoln's.
He had all the points of a diplomatist, ingenuity, subtlety, adroitness.
He was temporizing over the natural antipathy of the North to war and
the probable transient nature of the secession feeling in the South. At
that very moment he was assuring England and France that "the
conservative element in the South, which was kept under the surface by
the violent pressure of secession, will emerge with irresistible force."
He believed "that the evils and hardships produced by secession would
become intolerably grievous to the Southern States."

Mr. Lincoln was not temporizing at all. He was looking the crisis in the
face. What he wanted was support at the North, not at the South. He was
willing to forc