Lincoln lacked here, it would seem, not by any means the qualities of the trained administrator, but just that rough perception and vigour which untaught genius might be supposed to possess.  The passionate Jackson (who, by the way, was a far more educated man in the respects which count) would not have acted so.  Lincoln, it is true, had declared that he would take no provocative step—­“In your hands, my dissatisfied fellow-countrymen, and not in mine, is the momentous issue of civil war,” and the risk which he would have taken by over-ruling that day the opinion of the bulk of his Cabinet based on that of his chief military adviser is obvious, but it seems to have been a lesser risk than he did take in delaying so long to overrule his Cabinet.  It is precisely characteristic of his strength and of his weakness that he did not at once yield to his advisers; that he long continued weighing the matter undisturbed by the danger of delay; that he decided as soon as and no sooner than he felt sure as to the political results, which alone here mattered, for the military consequences amounted to nothing.

This story was entangled from the first with another difficult story.  Commissioners from the Southern Confederacy came to Washington and sought interviews with Seward; they came to treat for the recognition of the Confederacy and the peaceful surrender of forts and the like within its borders.  Meanwhile the action of Virginia was in the balance, and the “Peace Convention,” summoned by Virginia, still “threshing again,” as Lowell said, “the already twice-threshed straw of debate.”  The action of Virginia and of other border States, about which Lincoln was intensely solicitous, would certainly depend upon the action of the Government towards the States that had already seceded.  Might it not be well that the Government should avoid immediate conflict with South Carolina about Fort Sumter, though conflict with the Confederacy about Fort Pickens and the rest would still impend?  Was it not possible that conflict could be staved off till an agreement could be reached with Virginia and the border States, which would induce the seceded States to return?  These questions were clearly absurd, but they were as clearly natural, and they greatly exercised Seward.  Disappointed at not being President and equally disturbed at the prospect of civil war, but still inclined to large and sanguine hopes, he was rather anxious to take things out of Lincoln’s hands and very anxious to serve his country as the great peacemaker.  Indirect negotiations now took place between him and the Southern Commissioners, who of course could not be officially recognised, through the medium of two Supreme Court Judges, especially one Campbell, who was then in Washington.  Seward was quite loyal to Lincoln and told him in a general way what he was doing; he was also candid with Campbell and his friends, and explained to them his lack of authority, but he talked freely and rashly of what he hoped to bring