As a solution of the sectional quarrel, to the extent that it had been definitely put into words, what could have been more astute?  Lincoln himself had said in the inaugural, “One section of our country believes slavery is right and ought to be extended; while the other believes it is wrong and ought not to be extended.  That is the only substantial dispute.”  In the same inaugural, he had pledged himself not to “interfere with the institution of slavery in the States where it now exists;” and also had urged a vigorous enforcement of the Fugitive Slave Law.  He never had approved of any sort of emancipation other than purchase or the gradual operation of economic conditions.  It was well known that slavery could flourish only on fresh land amid prodigal agricultural methods suited to the most ignorant labor.  The Virginia Compromise, by giving to slavery a fixed area and abolishing its hopes of continual extensions into fresh land, was the virtual fulfillment of Lincoln’s demand.

The failure of the Virginia Compromise is one more proof that a great deal of vital history never gets into words until after it is over.  During the second half of March, Unionists and Secessionists in the Virginia Convention debated with deep emotion this searching new proposal.  The Unionists had a fatal weakness in their position.  This was the feature of the situation that had not hitherto been put into words.  Lincoln had not been accurate when he said that the slavery question was “the only substantial dispute.”  He had taken for granted that the Southern opposition to nationalism was not a real thing,—­a mere device of the politicians to work up excitement.  All the compromises he was ready to offer were addressed to that part of the South which was seeking to make an issue on slavery.  They had little meaning for that other and more numerous part in whose thinking slavery was an incident.  For this other South, the ideas which Lincoln as late as the middle of March did not bring into play were the whole story.  Lincoln, willing to give all sorts of guarantees for the noninterference with slavery, would not give a single guarantee supporting the idea of State sovereignty against the idea of the sovereign power of the national Union.  The Virginians, willing to go great lengths in making concessions with regard to slavery, would not go one inch in the way of admitting that their State was not a sovereign power included in the American Union of its own free will, and not the legitimate subject of any sort of coercion.

The Virginia Compromise was really a profound new complication.  The very care with which it divided the issue of nationality from the issue of slavery was a storm signal.  For a thoroughgoing nationalist like Lincoln, deep perplexities lay hidden in this full disclosure of the issue that was vital to the moderate South.  Lincoln’s shifting of his mental ground, his perception that hitherto he had been oblivious of his most formidable opponent, the one with whom compromise was impossible, occurred in the second half of the month.