of vox populi.  For his own part, Lincoln began with two resolves:  to go very cautiously,—­and not give something for nothing.  Far from him, as yet, was that plunging mood which in Seward pushed audacity to the verge of a gamble.  However, just previous to the inauguration, he took a cautious step in Seward’s direction.  Virginia, like all the other States of the upper South, was torn by the question which side to take.  There was a “Union” party in Virginia, and a “Secession” party.  A committee of leading Unionists conferred with Lincoln.  They saw the immediate problem very much as Seward did.  They believed that if time were allowed, the crisis could be tided over and the Union restored; but the first breath of war would wreck their hopes.  The condition of bringing about an adjustment was the evacuation of Sumter.  Lincoln told them that if Virginia could be kept in the Union by the evacuation of Sumter, he would not hesitate to recall the garrison.(8) A few days later, despite what he had said in the inaugural, he repeated this offer.  A convention was then sitting at Richmond in debate upon the relations of Virginia to the Union.  If it would drop the matter and dissolve—­so Lincoln told another committee—­he would evacuate Sumter and trust the recovery of the lower South to negotiation.(9) No results, so far as is known, came of either of those offers.

During the first half of March, the Washington government marked time.  The office-seekers continued to besiege the President.  South Carolina continued to clamor for possession of Sumter.  The Confederacy sent commissioners to Washington whom Lincoln refused to recognize.  The Virginia Convention swayed this way and that.

Seward went serenely about his business, confident that everything was certain to come his way soon or late.  He went so far as to advise an intermediary to tell the Confederate Commissioners that all they had to do to get possession of Sumter was to wait.  The rest of the Cabinet pressed their ears more tightly than ever to the ground.  The rumblings of vox populi were hard to interpret.  The North appeared to be in two minds.  This was revealed the day following the inauguration, when a Republican Club in New York held a high debate upon the condition of the country.  One faction wanted Lincoln to declare for a war-policy; another wished the Club to content itself with a vote of confidence in the Administration.  Each faction put its views into a resolution and as a happy device for maintaining harmony, both resolutions were passed.(10) The fragmentary, miscellaneous evidence of newspapers, political meetings, the talk of leaders, local elections, formed a confused clamor which each listener interpreted according to his predisposition.  The members of the Cabinet in their relative isolation at Washington found it exceedingly difficult to make up their minds what the people were really saying.  Of but one thing they were certain, and that was that they represented a minority party.  Before committing themselves any way, it was life and death to know what portion of the North would stand by them.(11)