in the Border States, that is, if Virginia would not demand a definite concession of the right of secession.  Up to this point I can not think that he had taken seriously Seward’s proposed convention of the States and the general discussion of permanent Federal relations that would be bound to ensue.  But now he makes his fateful discovery that the issue is not slavery but sovereignty.  He sees that Virginia is in dead earnest on this issue and that a general convention will necessarily involve a final discussion of sovereignty in the United States and that the price of the Virginia Amendment will be the concession of the right of secession.  On this assumption it is hardly conceivable that he offered to evacuate Sumter as late as the fourth of April.  The significance therefore of the Baldwin interview would consist in finally convincing Lincoln that he could not effect any compromise without conceding the principle of state sovereignty.  As this was the one thing he was resolved never to concede there was nothing left him but to consider what course would most strategically renounce compromise.  Therefore, when it was known at Washington a day or two later that Port Pickens was in imminent danger of being taken by the Confederates (see note 24), Lincoln instantly concentrated all his energies on the relief of Sumter.  All along he had believed that one of the forts must be held for the purpose of “a clear indication of policy,” even if the other should be given up “as a military necessity.”  Lincoln, VI, 301.  His purpose, therefore, in deciding on the ostentatious demonstration toward Sumter was to give notice to the whole country that he made no concessions on the matter of sovereignty.  In a way it was his answer to the Virginia compromise.

At last the Union party in Virginia sent a delegation to confer with Lincoln.  It did not arrive until Sumter had been fired upon.  Lincoln read to them a prepared statement of policy which announced his resolution to make war, if necessary, to assert the national sovereignty.  Lincoln, VI, 243-245.

The part of Montgomery in this tangled episode is least understood of the three.  With Washington Montgomery had no official communication.  Both Lincoln and Seward refused to recognize commissioners of the Confederate government Whether Seward as an individual went behind the back of himself as an official and personally deceived the commissioners is a problem of his personal biography and his private morals that has no place in this discussion.  Between Montgomery and Richmond there was intimate and cordial communication from the start.  At first Montgomery appears to have taken for granted that the Secessionist party at Richmond was so powerful that there was little need for the new government to do anything but wait But a surprise was in store for it During February and March its agents reported a wide-spread desire in the South to compromise on pretty nearly any terms that would not surrender the central Southern idea