White:  You are determined?

Lincoln:  I beg you to tell them.

Jennings:  It shall be as you wish.

Lincoln:  Implore them to order Beauregard’s return.  You can telegraph it now, from here.  Will you do that?

White:  If you wish it.

Lincoln:  Earnestly.  Mr. Seward, will you please place a clerk at their service.  Ask for an answer.

SEWARD rings a bell.  A CLERK comes in.

Seward: Give these gentlemen a private wire.  Place yourself at their disposal.

Clerk:  Yes, sir.

WHITE and JENNINGS go out with the CLERK. For a moment LINCOLN and SEWARD are silent, LINCOLN pacing the room, SEWARD standing at the table.

Lincoln: Seward, this won’t do.

Seward:  You don’t suspect—­

Lincoln:  I do not.  But let us be plain.  No man can say how wisely, but Providence has brought me to the leadership of this country, with a task before me greater than that which rested on Washington himself.  When I made my Cabinet, you were the first man I chose.  I do not regret it.  I think I never shall.  But remember, faith earns faith.  What is it?  Why didn’t those men come to see me?

Seward:  They thought my word might bear more weight with you than theirs.

Lincoln:  Your word for what?

Seward:  Discretion about Fort Sumter.

Lincoln:  Discretion?

Seward:  It’s devastating, this thought of war.

Lincoln:  It is.  Do you think I’m less sensible of that than you?  War should be impossible.  But you can only make it impossible by destroying its causes.  Don’t you see that to withdraw from Fort Sumter is to do nothing of the kind?  If one half of this country claims the right to disown the Union, the claim in the eyes of every true guardian among us must be a cause for war, unless we hold the Union to be a false thing instead of the public consent to decent principles of life that it is.  If we withdraw from Fort Sumter, we do nothing to destroy that cause.  We can only destroy it by convincing them that secession is a betrayal of their trust.  Please God we may do so.

Seward:  Has there, perhaps, been some timidity in making all this clear to the country?

Lincoln:  Timidity?  And you were talking of discretion.

Seward:  I mean that perhaps our policy has not been sufficiently defined.

Lincoln:  And have you not concurred in all our decisions?  Do not deceive yourself.  You urge me to discretion in one breath and tax me with timidity in the next.  While there was hope that they might call Beauregard back out of their own good sense, I was determined to say nothing to inflame them.  Do you call that timidity?  Now their intention is clear, and you’ve heard