His purpose, he said, was to change the question before the public, from one upon slavery, or about slavery, for a question upon Union or Disunion.  Sumter was to be evacuated “as a safe means for changing the issue,” but at the same time, preparations were to be made for a blockade of the Southern coast.(20) This extraordinary document administered mild but firm correction to the President.  He was told that he had no policy, although under the circumstances, this was “not culpable”; that there must be a single head to the government; that the President, if not equal to the task, should devolve it upon some member of the Cabinet.  The Thoughts closed with these words, “I neither seek to evade nor assume responsibility.”

Like Seward’s previous move, when he sent Weed to Springfield, this other brought Lincoln to a point of crisis.  For the second time he must render a decision that would turn the scale, that would have for his country the force of destiny.  In one respect he did not hesitate.  The most essential part of the Thoughts was the predatory spirit.  This clashed with Lincoln’s character.  Serene unscrupulousness met unwavering integrity.  Here was one of those subjects on which Lincoln was not asking advice.  As to ways and means, he was pliable to a degree in the hands of richer and wider experience; as to principles, he was a rock.  Seward’s whole scheme of aggrandizement, his magnificent piracy, was calmly waved aside as a thing of no concern.  The most striking characteristic of Lincoln’s reply was its dignity.  He did not, indeed, lay bare his purposes.  He was content to point out certain inconsistencies in Seward’s argument; to protest that whatever action might be taken with regard to the single fortress, Sumter, the question before the public could not be changed by that one event; and to say that while he expected advice from all his Cabinet, he was none the less President, and in last resort he would himself direct the policy of the government.(21)

Only a strong man could have put up with the patronizing condescension of the Thoughts and betrayed no irritation.  Not a word in Lincoln’s reply gives the least hint that condescension had been displayed.  He is wholly unruffled, distant, objective.  There is also a quiet tone of finality, almost the tone one might use in gently but firmly correcting a child.  The Olympian impertinence of the Thoughts had struck out of Lincoln the first flash of that approaching masterfulness by means of which he was to ride out successfully such furious storms.  Seward was too much the man of the world not to see what had happened.  He never touched upon the Thoughts again.  Nor did Lincoln.  The incident was secret until Lincoln’s secretaries twenty-five years afterward published it to the world.