not permanently continue.  Just how far Lincoln realized what he was doing in refusing to compromise will never be known.  Three months afterward, he took a course which seems to imply that his vision during the interim had expanded, had opened before him a new revelation of the nature of his problem.  At the earlier date Lincoln and the Southern people—­not the Southern machine—­were looking at the one problem from opposite points of view, and were locating the significance of the problem in different features.  To Lincoln, the heart of the matter was slavery.  To the Southerners, including the men who had voted lack of confidence in Breckinridge, the heart of the matter was the sphere of influence.  What the Southern majority wanted was not the policy of the slave profiteers but a secure future for expansion, a guarantee that Southern life, social, economic, cultural, would not be merged with the life of the opposite section:  in a word, preservation of “dominion” status.  In Lincoln’s mind, slavery being the main issue, this “dominion” issue was incidental—­a mere outgrowth of slavery that should begin to pass away with slavery’s restriction.  In the Southern mind, a community consciousness, the determination to be a people by themselves, nation within the nation, was the issue, and slavery was the incident.  To repeat, it is impossible to say what Lincoln would have done had he comprehended the Southern attitude.  His near horizon which had kept him all along from grasping the negative side of the Southern movement prevented his perception of this tragic instance of cross-purposes.

Lacking this perception, his thoughts had centered themselves on a recent activity of the slave profiteers.  They had clamored for the annexation of new territory to the south of us.  Various attempts had been made to create an international crisis looking toward the seizure of Cuba.  Then, too, bold adventurers had staked their heads, seeking to found slave-holding communities in Central America.  Why might not such attempts succeed?  Why might not new Slave States be created outside the Union, eventually to be drawn in?  Why not? said the slave profiteer, and gave money and assistance to the filibusters in Nicaragua.  Why not? said Lincoln, also.  What protection against such an extension of boundaries?  Was the limitation of slave area to be on one side only, the Northern side?  And here at last, for Lincoln, was what appeared to be the true issue of the moment.  To dualize the Union, assuming its boundaries to be fixed, was one thing.  To dualize the Union in the face of a movement for extension of boundaries was another.  Hence it was now vital, as Lincoln reasoned, to give slavery a fixed boundary on all sides.  Silently, while others fulminated, or rhapsodized, or wailed, he had moved inexorably to a new position which was nothing but a logical development of the old.  The old position was—­no extension of slave territory; the new position was—­no more Slave States.(2) Because Crittenden’s Compromise left it possible to have a new Slave State in Cuba, a new Slave State in Nicaragua, perhaps a dozen such new States, Lincoln refused to compromise.(3)