It was a terrible decision, carrying within it the possibility of civil war.  But Lincoln could not be moved.  This was the first acquaintance of the established political leaders with his inflexible side.  In the recesses of his own thoughts the decision had been reached.  It was useless to argue with him.  Weed carried back his ultimatum.  Seward abandoned Crittenden’s scheme.  The only chance for compromise passed away.  The Southern leaders set about their plans for organizing a Southern Confederacy.

XIII.  ECLIPSE

Lincoln’s ultimatum of December twentieth contained three proposals that might be made to the Southern leaders: 

That the enforcement of the Fugitive Slave Law which hitherto had been left to State authorities should be taken over by Congress and supported by the Republicans.

That the Republicans to the extent of their power should work for the repeal of all those “Personal Liberty Laws” which had been established in certain Northern States to defeat the operation of the Fugitive Slave Law.

That the Federal Union must be preserved.(1)

In presenting these proposals along with a refusal to consider the Crittenden Compromise, Seward tampered with their clear-cut form.  Fearful of the effect on the extremists of the Republican group, he withheld Lincoln’s unconditional promise to maintain the Fugitive Slave Law and instead of pledging his party to the repeal of Personal Liberty Laws he promised only to have Congress request the States to repeal them.  He suppressed altogether the assertion that the Union must be preserved.(2) About the same time, in a public speech, he said he was not going to be “humbugged” by the bogy of secession, and gave his fatuous promise that all the trouble would be ended inside ninety days.  For all his brilliancy of a sort, he was spiritually obtuse.  On him, as on Douglas, Fate had lavished opportunities to see life as it is, to understand the motives of men; but it could not make him use them.  He was incorrigibly cynical.  He could not divest himself of the idea that all this confusion was hubbub, was but an ordinary political game, that his only cue was to assist his adversaries in saving their faces.  In spite of his rich experience,—­in spite of being an accomplished man of the world,—­at least in his own estimation—­he was as blind to the real motives of that Southern majority which had rejected Breckinridge as was the inexperienced Lincoln.  The coolness with which he modified Lincoln’s proposals was evidence that he considered himself the great Republican and Lincoln an accident.  He was to do the same again—­to his own regret.

When Lincoln issued his ultimatum, he was approaching the summit, if not at the very summit, of another of his successive waves of vitality, of self-confidence.  That depression which came upon him about the end of 1858, which kept him undecided, in a mood of excessive caution during most of 1859, had passed away.  The presidential campaign with its thrilling tension, its excitement, had charged him anew with confidence.  Although one more eclipse was in store for him—­the darkest eclipse of all—­he was very nearly the definitive Lincoln of history.  At least, he had the courage which that Lincoln was to show.