Lincoln (after a pause):  “There is a tide in the affairs of men ...”  Do you read Shakespeare, Seward?

Seward:  Shakespeare?  No.

Lincoln:  Ah!

SALMON P. CHASE, Secretary of the Treasury, and MONTGOMERY BLAIR, Postmaster-General, come in.

Good-morning, Mr. Chase, Mr. Blair.

Seward:  Good-morning, gentlemen.

Blair:  Good-morning, Mr. President.  How d’ye do, Mr. Seward.

Chase:  Good-morning, Mr. President.  Something urgent?

Lincoln:  Let us be seated.

As they draw chairs up to the table, the other members of the Cabinet, SIMON CAMERON, CALEB SMITH, BURNET HOOK, and GIDEON WELLES, come in.  There is an exchange of greetings, while they arrange themselves round the table.

Gentlemen, we meet in a crisis, the most fateful, perhaps, that has ever faced any government in this country.  It can be stated briefly.  A message has just come from Anderson.  He can hold Fort Sumter three days at most unless we send men and provisions.

Cameron:  How many men?

Lincoln:  I shall know from Scott in a few minutes how many are necessary.

Welles:  Suppose we haven’t as many.

Lincoln:  Then it’s a question of provisioning.  We may not be able to do enough to be effective.  The question is whether we shall do as much as we can.

Hook:  If we withdrew altogether, wouldn’t it give the South a lead towards compromise, as being an acknowledgment of their authority, while leaving us free to plead military necessity if we found public opinion dangerous?

Lincoln:  My mind is clear.  To do less than we can do, whatever that may be, will be fundamentally to allow the South’s claim to right of secession.  That is my opinion.  If you evade the question now, you will have to answer it to-morrow.

Blair:  I agree with the President.

Hook:  We ought to defer action as long as possible.  I consider that we should withdraw.

Lincoln:  Don’t you see that to withdraw may postpone war, but that it will make it inevitable in the end?

Smith:  It is inevitable if we resist.

Lincoln:  I fear it will be so.  But in that case we shall enter it with uncompromised principles.  Mr. Chase?

Chase:  It is difficult.  But, on the whole, my opinion is with yours, Mr. President.

Lincoln:  And you, Seward?

Seward:  I respect your opinion, but I must differ.

A knock at the door.

Lincoln:  Come in.

HAY comes in.  He gives a letter to LINCOLN and goes.

(Reading): Scott says twenty thousand men.

Seward:  We haven’t ten thousand ready.