Lincoln and the Civil War

2. From Election to Inauguration

22 c h a p t e r t w o from election to inaugur ation As President James Buchanan meekly allowed secessionists to seize federal facilities throughout the Lower South, Lincoln fumed. When told that the lame-duck chief executive might surrender Fort Moultrie at Charleston, South Carolina, Lincoln expostulated , “If that is true, they ought to hang him.”1 A visitor to Springfield thought that Lincoln’s “Kentucky blood is up, he means fight.”2 Many Northerners shared Lincoln’s indignation; they regarded the Southern takeover of federal facilities as “gigantic robbery.” Such action severely weakened Northern enthusiasm for any compromise.3 John A. Dix of New York, Buchanan’s secretary of the treasury during the winter of 1860–61, recalled that “the forcible seizure of arsenals, mints, revenue-cutters, and other property of the common government . . . aroused a feeling of exasperation which nothing but the arbitrament of arms could overcome.”4 As Lincoln started composing his inaugural address, his anger prompted him to state: “All the power at my disposal will be used to reclaim the public property and places which have fallen; to hold, occupy and possess these, and all other property and places belonging to the government.” But when friends warned that such a hard-line posture might impel the Upper South to join Confederacy, Lincoln toned down the sentence: “All the power at my disposal will be used to hold, occupy and possess the property and places belonging to the government.” But before he could deliver this more conciliatory version of his inaugural, Lincoln had to give many speeches on his twelve-day from election to inauguration | 23 train journey from Springfield, Illinois, to Washington, D.C. The nation watched anxiously as he ended his months-long silence on the secession crisis. People wondered if he would be a hawk or a dove. Alas, it was hard to tell, for Lincoln seemed to oscillate between firm insistence that he would retake federal property and conciliatory willingness to eschew aggressive action. At Indianapolis on February 11, Lincoln sounded hawkish as he parsed the words coercion and invasion. Rhetorically he asked a charged question: if the administration “simply insists upon holding its own forts, or retaking those forts which belong to it, or the enforcement of the laws of the United States in the collection of duties upon foreign importations, or even the withdrawal of the mails from those portions of the country where the mails themselves are habitually violated; would any or all of these things be coercion?”5 To many Southerners, his words constituted a declaration of war against their section. Evidently taken aback by that reaction, Lincoln thereafter softened his rhetoric, stressing that he would treat the South fairly and playing down the seriousness of the crisis. But at Trenton, New Jersey, he reverted to his earlier tough line: “The man does not live who is more devoted to peace than I am. None who would do more to preserve it. But it may be necessary to put the foot down firmly.”6 A journalist recalled that in “the shouts and cheers and yells and shrieks,” one “could hear not only the resolution of battle, but the belief that there was now going to be a fight. The South had bluffed so long” that the Republicans were finally “resolved on a war, and did not mean to waste any time about taking up the gage of battle.”7 The Lower South grew convinced that Lincoln’s policies would produce a war that they felt confident they could win. On February 23, Lincoln’s arrival cheered up Washingtonians, though many observers were nervous because nobody knew what kind of compromise, if any, he would support. Cautiously, he tried to allay Southern fears. When it seemed likely that a hastily assembled peace conference would fail to reach agreement on a compromise, he evidently persuaded the Illinois delegation to reverse its opposition to a plan resembling the Crittenden Compromise. The last-minute adoption of that proposal, which was to be submitted to Congress, 24 | from election to inauguration caused Southern Unionists to rejoice. If the conference had come up empty-handed, some Upper South states may have seceded forthwith. Lincoln took other steps to allay Southern fears. When Congress considered a “force bill” authorizing the president to take military measures to put down an insurrection, he worked behind the scenes to scuttle it. He...