372 Chapter 14 The War to Save the Union
of the times, but would he act decisively in this cri-
sis? His behavior as president-elect was not reassur-
ing. He spent much time closeted with politicians.
Was he too obtuse to understand the grave threat to
the Union posed by secession? People remembered
uneasily that he had never held executive office,
that his congressional career had been short and
undistinguished. When he finally uprooted himself
from Springfield in February 1861, his occasional
speeches en route to Washington were vague,
almost flippant. He kissed babies, shook hands,
mouthed platitudes. Some people thought it down-
right cowardly that he let himself be spirited in the
dead of night through Baltimore, where feeling
against him ran high.
Everyone waited tensely to see whether Lincoln
would oppose secession with force, but Lincoln
seemed concerned only with organizing his Cabinet.
The final slate was not ready until the morning of
inauguration day, March 4, and shrewd observers
found it alarming, for the new president had chosen
to construct a “balanced” Cabinet representing a
wide range of opinion instead of putting together a
group of harmonious advisers who could help him
face the crisis.
William H. Seward, the secretary of state, was the
ablest and best known of the appointees. Despite his
reputation for radicalism, the hawk-nosed, chinless,
tousle-haired Seward hoped to conciliate the South
and was thus in bad odor with the radical wing of the
Republican party. In time Seward proved himself
Lincoln’s strong right arm, but at the start he under-
estimated the president and expected to dominate
him. Senator Salmon P. Chase, a bald, square-jawed,
antislavery leader from Ohio, whom Lincoln named
secretary of the treasury, represented the radicals.
Chase was humorless and vain but able; he detested
Seward. Many of the president’s other selections wor-
ried thoughtful people.
Lincoln’s inaugural address was conciliatory but
firm. Southern institutions were in no danger from
his administration. Secession, however, was illegal,
and the Union “perpetual.” “A husband and wife
may be divorced,” Lincoln said, employing one of his
homely and unconsciously risqué metaphors, “but the
different parts of our country cannot.” His tone was
calm and warm. His concluding words catch the spirit
of the inaugural perfectly:I am loath to close. 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 battlefield and patriot grave to every liv-
ing heart... will yet swell the chorus of the Union
when again touched, as surely they will be, by the
better angels of our nature.Lincoln,First Inaugural Addressat
http://www.myhistorylab.comFort Sumter: The First Shot
While denying the legality of secession, Lincoln had
not decided what to do next. The Confederates had
seized most federal property in the Deep South.
Lincoln admitted frankly that he would not attempt
to reclaim this property. However, two strongholds,
Fort Sumter, on an island in Charleston harbor, and
Fort Pickens, at Pensacola, Florida, were still in loyal
Union hands. Most Republicans did not want to sur-
render them without a show of
resistance. To do so, one wrote,
would be to convert the American
eagle into a “debilitated chicken.”
Yet to reinforce the forts might
mean bloodshed that would make
reconciliation impossible. After
weeks of indecision, Lincoln took
the moderate step of sending a
naval expedition to supply the
beleaguered Sumter garrison with
food. Unwilling to permit this, the
Confederates opened fire on the
fort on April 12 before the supply
ships arrived. After holding out for
thirty-four hours, Major Robert
Anderson and his men surrendered.
The attack precipitated an out-
burst of patriotic indignation in the
North. Lincoln issued a call forReadtheDocumentA cartoonist in Richmond, Virginia in April 1861 depicts Lincoln as a cat attempting to catch
fleeing mice—the seceding states of the South. The biggest mouse, though, is dead: the Union.