LINCOLN AND FORT SUMTER.

John Archibald Campbell, Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court, 1853-1861. By Henry G. Connor, LL. D., Judge of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of North Carolina. Boston and New York. Houghton, Mifflin Company. The Riverside Press, Cambridge, 1920.

In this small book Judge Connor gives a very interesting account of this very eminent judge, John A. Campbell. Interest centres on probably the most important incident of his career-his negotiations with Wm. H. Seward, Secretary of State under Lincoln, in regard to Fort Sumter. The evidence against Seward himself of his desire and intention to surrender the Fort to the Confederates is so overwhelming that no denial of it has been attempted. But the effort has been made by many Northern writers, and still is made, that Lincoln himself was altogether ignorant of Seward's conversations with Judge Campbell. Mr. Seward has been made the scapegoat, and it is pretended that not only did Lincoln not know of Seward's assurances, but that he never swerved from the language of his inaugural that he intended to hold the forts and other public property of the United States.

When one views the situation in the light of the evidence now available, there is no good reason to impeach the sincerity of Mr. Seward to carry out his assurances, and if he finally submitted to be overruled by the President, that was in the nature of his position as a subordinate officer. A man of higher spirit, like John Quincy Adams or John C. Calhoun, for instance, would have resigned, and would certainly not have endorsed Lincoln's procedure as Seward appears to have done, when he wrote "Faith as to Fort Sumter fully kept."

But how was it with Lincoln? He had the real responsibility of acting. Is it true that he acted consistently throughout? Is it true that he did not know of the assurances to Judge Campbell? Is it true that he was free from any just suspicion of deceit? To these questions the evidence seems, in each instance, to give an answer in the negative.

It is notorious that throughout the closing weeks of Buchanan's administration the Republican party in Congress avoided all positive action on the subject of coercing South Carolina. Mr. Buchanan had asked Congress for powers to meet the unprecedented condition of things, and to all his appeals Congress had showed the most complete indifference. Lincoln was a Republican, and his speeches on his journey to the Capital bore a similar stamp. He made light of the troubles in the country, and we are told that his remarks had a most

depressing effect upon Major Anderson and his men at Fort Sumter. That this attitude of mind harmonized with any serious resolve to meet the crisis by bold measures is not apparent, and that he was from the very first, in favor of abandoning the fort is proved by several witnesses, including John Hay, his private secretary, reporting Lincoln's own language, save that he had not till after his inauguration contemplated an evacuation without some condition.

Governor C. S. Morehead, of Kentucky, says* that on Mr. Lincoln's arrival in Washington he waited upon him in company with Mr. Rives, of Virginia, Mr. Doniphan, of Missouri, and Guthrie, of Kentucky, members of the Peace Conference, and that in answer to the earnest solicitations of these gentlemen he promised to withdraw the troops from Fort Sumter "if Virginia would stay in the Union." This is undoubtedly the interview to which Lincoln alluded, as reported by John Hay in his Diary under date or October 22, 1861, as taking place between himself and certain "Southern pseudo Unionists" before the inauguration at which time, as he said, he promised to evacuate Sumter, "if they would break up their convention (the Virginia Convention) without any row or nonsense. They demurred."

In these reports there is an agreement on the main point of evacuating the fort, but a discrepancy on the condition, as to which Morehead's statement is entitled to the greater credit, since he reduced the "entire conversation to writing soon after it occurred," whereas Lincoln's statement was made about eight months after the interview. When in London a year or two later, Morehead reiterated his statement which was published in the London Times. Schleiden, the German minister resident at Washington, reported that Lincoln had said to the Peace Commissioners of Virginia, "If you will guarantee me the State of Virginia I will remove the troops. A state for a fort is not a bad business." Schleiden doubtless referred to this interview, as there is no positive record of any other.

After the inauguration Lincoln's mind tended more and more to evacuating the fort. There is strong evidence, indirect and direct, that during the greater part of March he had concluded to withdraw the troops without any condition whatever. There is the fact that the administration was notified on March 5th by Major Anderson that he had provisions only for a month and that if his relief was intended a large armed force was required. There is the opinion of

*Coleman, Life of Crittenden, II, 338.

Letters and Diary of John Hay, I, 47, quoted in White, Life of Lyman Trumbull, p. 158.

+Connor, John A. Campbell, 146, 147.

General Scott, head of the army, that relief of the fort was impracticable, and there was the rumor heard everywhere that the fort was to be surrendered. There was the information imparted by Seward to J. C. Welling, editor of the National Intelligencer, with the full knowledge and consent of Lincoln, as claimed by him, that the fort was to be evacuated, which information Welling communicated to Summers in order to hearten the Unionists in the Virginia Convention. There is the "Diary of a Public Man," which says under date of March 11, 1861, that Douglas informed the writer that Lincoln told him the troops would be withdrawn. There is the statement of Thomas L. Clingman that a member of the Cabinet (evidently Mr. Blair) told him in 1866 that Lincoln and every member of his Cabinet except himself was in favor of letting Anderson retire from Fort Sumter. Then there is the action of the Cabinet itself, all of whom but one expressed to Lincoln, on March 15, their opposition to reinforcing Fort Sumter.*

Fitting in with all these bits of evidence the positive statement of Judge Campbell, as given in Judge Connor's book, leaves it hardly possible that Lincoln was averse to surrendering the fort. According to Judge Campbell, Seward was so confident of the withdrawal of the troops that on March 15 he gave five days as the extreme limit within which the withdrawal would take place. When six days passed and the withdrawal did not take place, Seward himself expressed much wonder, saying that "the resolution had been passed and its execution committed to the President." In strong corroboration is a paper published by Governor Francis Pickens, of South Carolina, in August, 1861, which contains the information that Lincoln at one time signed an order for the evacuation. Pickens says that he had the intelligence from "one very near the most intimate councils of the President" that this paper was submitted as a proof sheet to Mr. Lincoln and his Cabinet, and that a proclamation in conformity with its general views was to be issued. The paper is in the nature of a defense of Lincoln's imputed action and puts the blame on the treasonable conduct of Mr. Buchanan, which rendered the surrender necessary.

What is the meaning of all these indications? Mr. James Schouler is an example of an extreme partisan, having little sympathy with any Southern man, but even he is bothered with a conscience. And in his History of the United States he has the manhood to say that in his opinion Lincoln was privy to all the assurances of Seward. Were it otherwise, why should the President on April 1, he pertinently

*See on all these points, with the authorities given, the excellent article contributed by Wilmer L. Hall to the Southwestern Quarterly Review, July, 1914, entitled "Lincoln's Interview with John B. Baldwin."

asks, have instructed Seward to inform Campbell that he would not provision Sumter without notice. That Lincoln allowed this to be communicated to Campbell is admitted by his private secretaries, Nicholay and Hay, who cite Lincoln's own language to that effect* And here comes in the question of deceit. How far is deceit to be attributed to Lincoln? Jefferson Davis and other Confederates professed in their letters during these days distrust of any assurances on the part of Seward or Lincoln, and continued their defensive preparations, but they did not attack Fort Sumter, as they probably would otherwise have done. This possession of the fort was deemed a matter of much importance, and they showed the reserve which any man would feel in dealing with an enemy. But this did The President had an not lessen the moral obligations of Lincoln.

undoubted right to change his attitude, if he cared to do so, but he was in honor bound to give notice of it. This he recognized himself, according to his private secretaries, who quote his own words, and the deceit practiced by him lies in the insufficiency of the notice. The notice should have been sent in a reasonable time before the order for the sailing of the relief squadron, but the two went simultaneously and the notice reached Pickens on April 8, when the first part of the squadron was leaving New York for Charleston harbor. For all practical purposes the notice might as well have not been given. The real valuable notice Pickens received from other sources, which enabled the Confederate authorities to defeat the purposes of the government.

The change from peace to war began about the 29th of March, when certain radical influences got to work and made themselves felt, first on the Cabinet and then on Lincoln himself. On March 15 only one man in the Cabinet was absolutely in favor of reinforcing Fort Sumter, and on March 29 the Cabinet was nearly evenly divided. The determining influence appears to have been the tariff question. On March 16, 1861, Stanton, who had been a member of Buchanan's Cabinet, and had not yet taken sides with the Republicans, wrote to the ex-President that "the Republicans are beginning to think that a monstrous blunder was made in the tariff bill (the Morrill tariff, passed after the Senators from the cotton States had left their seats, with rates from 50 to 80 per cent.), that it will cut off the trade of New York, build up New Orleans and the Southern ports and leave the government no revenue." There was a Confederate tariff from ten to twenty per cent., and Lincoln's fears of it were ultimately excited. So it was this that caused the President to take a more guarded stand, and caused him on April 1, 1861, to require Seward to place

*Nicholay and Hay, IV., p. 33.

a written memorandum in Judge Campbell's hands to the effect that the President might desire to supply Fort Sumter, but would not do so without giving notice.

Still the President had not entirely abandoned his old policy of peace, but absolute surrender now gave place to one conditionally stated, as before his inauguration, only the condition was more drastic. It was that the Virginia Convention should break up. He set on foot new negotiations with the Virginia Convention, which are referred to by John Hay in the latter part of the paragraph reporting Mr. Lincoln at Seward's house on October 22, 1861:

"Subsequently (i. e. subsequent to the interview with Morehead and others of the Peace Conference before the inauguration) he renewed the proposition to Summers, but without any result. The President was most anxious to prevent bloodshed."

The true story seems to be that Lincoln intended to make the proposal and took steps accordingly. But when the moment came he changed his mind and never actually made it. The facts appear to be as follows. He sent Allen B. Magruder, a Virginia lawyer residing in Washington, to have George W. Summers, a leading Unionist in the State Convention, to come to see him. Magruder reached Richmond April 2nd. Mr. Summers could not come and John B. Baldwin came in his stead. He arrived in Washington on April 4, and immediately went to see Lincoln. But Lincoln told him that "he had come too late," and when Baldwin earnestly pleaded with him in favor of letting the South alone, Lincoln vehemently asked "what would become of his revenue?"

There was at that time in Washington the governors of many of the Northern States, which were especially under the control of the tariff interests, and these men brought all their pressure to bear upon Lincoln to coerce South Carolina, offering him men and money for the purpose.* Considering the enormous interests centering around the tariff, the pertinency of Lincoln's question to Baldwin on that subject, and the menace in 1833 when the tariff actually pushed the country to the verge of war, it is not surprising that the final determination turned upon it. Between April 2 and April 4 Lincoln changed and decided on war. Two days after Baldwin's interview Lincoln ordered his armed squadron of relief to Fort Sumter, and began the war as his Cabinet on March 15 had warned him would be the consequence of any such action.

*For the presence of these governors, see the New York World and New York Herald of April 5, the Richmond Examiner for April 10, containing a Washington news letter dated April 7, Baldwin's pamphlet in reply to Botts, 1866, Staunton, Va.