WASHINGTON

The Premier’s Advice

FEBRUARY 24–27

LINCOLN AGAIN TURNED HIS ATTENTION TO HIS INAUGURAL SPEECH. He asked two more men to review it and give him their thoughts. One was Francis P. Blair, Sr., father of Lincoln’s proposed postmaster general, Montgomery. The elder Blair gave the address his wholehearted approval.

Lincoln also gave a copy to William Seward, and Seward, imbued still with his belief in himself as the true power behind the government, gave the draft the closest possible reading, to the point of numbering each line of the speech in order to isolate his proposed changes as precisely as possible. Seward sent his recommendations, six pages in all, to Lincoln on the evening of Sunday, February 24, Lincoln’s second day in Washington.

In his letter, Seward proclaimed himself the one man who truly understood the situation. “I, my dear sir, have devoted myself singly to the study of the case—here, with advantages of access and free communication with all parties of all sections … You must, therefore, allow me to speak frankly and candidly.” Others in the Republican Party, he wrote, “know nothing of the real peril of the crisis. It has not been their duty to study it, as it has been mine. Only the soothing words which I have spoken have saved us and carried us along thus far. Every loyal man, and, indeed, every disloyal man in the South, will tell you thus.”

Like Orville Browning before him, Seward found particular danger in two paragraphs in Lincoln’s draft, where Lincoln vowed fealty to the Republican platform and declared his intention to reclaim federal property in places where it had “fallen.” These passages, Seward warned, would antagonize the secessionists to the point where even Virginia and Maryland would secede, and, he feared, “we shall within ninety, perhaps within sixty, days be obliged to fight the South for this capital, with a divided North for our reliance, and we shall not have one loyal magistrate or ministerial officer south of the Potomac.” Merely editing the two paragraphs would not suffice, Seward warned; they had to be excised entirely, otherwise “the dismemberment of the republic would date from the inauguration of a Republican Administration.” He urged, too, that Lincoln inject a little warmth into the speech, “some words of affection. Some of calm and cheerful confidence.”

Seward suggested forty-nine changes ranging from altering a single punctuation mark to deleting whole sentences and paragraphs. Lincoln accepted twenty-seven of these. He cut the second and third paragraphs, per Seward’s admonition, and eliminated the notion of reclaiming fallen properties, but at a point roughly halfway through the speech, as eventually delivered, he did insert the following: “The power confided to me, will be used to hold, occupy, and possess the property, and places belonging to the government, and to collect the duties and imposts; but beyond what may be necessary for these objects, there will be no invasion—no using of force against, or among the people anywhere.”

Seward felt strongly that Lincoln also needed a better ending. Lincoln’s draft had closed on a belligerent note, with Lincoln asserting that he was obligated to “preserve, protect and defend” the government: “You can forbear, the assault upon it, I can not shrink from the defense of it. With you, and not with me, is the solemn question of ‘Shall it be peace, or a sword?’”

Seward sent along a paragraph of his own as a possible ending that emphasized Lincoln’s intent to serve the entire country, “east, west, north and south.” Lengthy and convoluted, it was utterly unlike anything Lincoln himself would ever have written. One sentence was 139 words long.

Lincoln suggested that he try again.

Seward’s second attempt at least offered a few phrases that flickered with stylistic promise. Alluding to the bonds that tied Americans to their shared past, Seward wrote of “mystic chords” and “patriot graves.” These Lincoln liked. Seward’s proposed ending also made reference to “the guardian angel of the nation,” though Seward toyed with changing this to “better angels” of our nation before crossing it out. But that phrase, too, caught Lincoln’s eye.

The final ending, though heavily influenced by Seward’s changes, was very much Lincoln’s own, laden with reverence and barely suppressed emotion. “I am loth to close,” he wrote. “We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battle-field, and patriot grave, to every living heart and hearthstone, all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels in our nature.”

Seward, however, had no idea as yet whether Lincoln had incorporated any of his suggested changes into his final draft. For all he knew, Lincoln was still planning to announce his intention to reclaim fallen properties.

THE PEACE CONVENTION ENDED on Wednesday, February 27. Outside Willard’s Dancing Hall the city shuddered with the celebratory firing of one hundred cannon, an ironic form of salute given the pacific mission of the conference.

William Rives, feeling the first symptoms of what would become a ferocious cold, went home to his Castle Hill plantation in Albemarle County, Virginia, and promptly took a “nap”—for twenty hours.

Two fellow Virginians, John Tyler and former congressman James Seddon, returned as well and condemned the amendment approved by the conference. Seddon called it “a delusion, a sham, an insult, an offense to the South.” He and Tyler both now publicly endorsed secession. Hard-line Lincoln Republicans also dismissed the result, denouncing it as just another accommodation to Southern grievance. “Away with such compromise!” wrote Horace Greeley—the government, he said, should “not concede an inch.”

From Lincoln’s home state of Illinois, however, came renewed confidence that time would heal all, with the Vermilion County Press projecting that “secession will play itself out in less than six months if left to itself.” In a breezy aside the paper added: “There may be some bloodshed but it will not be much.”

IN MONTGOMERY THAT WEDNESDAY, the provisional Confederate government took another step toward war—a small one, but one that revealed the depth of detail its military planners were contemplating.

A military engineer named Pierre Gustave Toutant Beauregard—P.G.T. Beauregard for short—sent a secret telegram to a friend in New York City, Capt. G. W. Smith, who served as the city’s street commissioner. Both men were veterans of the Mexican War, as was Confederate President Davis.

Beauregard directed Smith to buy sixteen “Drummond lights” that burned calcium oxide—quicklime—to produce intense light capable of illuminating harbors at night. This “limelight” was commonly used in theaters to light stages. Beauregard wanted ten lights shipped to New Orleans, six to Charleston.

“Let the whole matter be as secret as practicable,” Beauregard wrote.

Captain Smith did as requested. The lights, he promised, would be shipped in about ten days.