Lincoln's ultimatum of December twentieth contained three proposals that might be made to the Southern leaders:
That the enforcement of the Fugitive Slave Law which hitherto had been left to State authorities should be taken over by Congress and supported by the Republicans.
That the Republicans to the extent of their power should work for the repeal of all those "Personal Liberty Laws"which had been established in certain Northern States to defeat the operation of the Fugitive Slave Law.
That the Federal Union must be preserved.[1]
In presenting these proposals along with a refusal to consider the Crittenden Compromise,Seward tampered with their clear-cut form.Fearful of the effect on the extremists of the Republican group,he withheld Lincoln's unconditional promise to maintain the Fugitive Slave Law and instead of pledging his party to the repeal of Personal Liberty Laws he promised only to have Congress request the States to repeal them.He suppressed altogether the assertion that the Union must be preserved.[2]About the same time,in a public speech,he said he was not going to be "humbugged"by the bogy of secession,and gave his fatuous promise that all the trouble would be ended inside ninety days.For all his brilliancy of a sort,he was spiritually obtuse.On him,as on Douglas,Fate had lavished opportunities to see life as it is,to understand the motives of men;but it could not make him use them.He was incorrigibly cynical.He could not divest himself of the idea that all this confusion was hubbub,was but an ordinary political game,that his only cue was to assist his adversaries in saving their faces.In spite of his rich experience,--in spite of being an accomplished man of the world,--at least in his own estimation--he was as blind to the real motives of that Southern majority which had rejected Breckinridge as was the inexperienced Lincoln.The coolness with which he modified Lincoln's proposals was evidence that he considered himself the great Republican and Lincoln an accident.He was to do the same again--to his own regret.
When Lincoln issued his ultimatum,he was approaching the summit,if not at the very summit,of another of his successive waves of vitality,of self-confidence.That depression which came upon him about the end of 1858,which kept him undecided,in a mood of excessive caution during most of 1859,had passed away.The presidential campaign with its thrilling tension,its excitement,had charged him anew with confidence.Although one more eclipse was in store for him--the darkest eclipse of all--he was very nearly the definitive Lincoln of history.At least,he had the courage which that Lincoln was to show.
He was now the target for a besieging army of politicians clamoring for "spoils"in the shape of promises of preferment.
It was a miserable and disgraceful assault which profoundly offended him.[3]To his mind this was not the same thing as the simple-hearted personal politics of his younger days--friends standing together and helping one another along--but a gross and monstrous rapacity.It was the first chill shadow that followed the election day.
There were difficult intrigues over the Cabinet.Promises made by his managers at Chicago were presented for redemption.
Rival candidates bidding for his favor,tried to cut each other's throats.For example,there was the intrigue of the War Department.The Lincoln managers had promised a Cabinet appointment to Pennsylvania;the followers of Simon Cameron were a power;it had been necessary to win them over in order to nominate Lincoln;they insisted that their leader was now entitled to the Pennsylvania seat in the Cabinet;but there was an anti-Cameron faction almost as potent in Pennsylvania as the Cameron faction.Both sent their agents to Springfield to lay siege to Lincoln.In this duel,the Cameron forces won the first round.Lincoln offered him the Secretaryship.
Subsequently,his enemies made so good a case that Lincoln was convinced of the unwisdom of his decision and withdrew the offer.But Cameron had not kept the offer confidential.The withdrawal would discredit him politically and put a trump card into the hands of his enemies.A long dispute followed.Not until Lincoln had reached Washington,immediately before the inauguration,was the dispute ended,the withdrawal withdrawn,and Cameron appointed.[4]
It was a dreary winter for the President-elect.It was also a brand-new experience.For the first time he was a dispenser of favor on a grand scale.Innumerable men showed their meanest side,either to advance themselves or to injure others.
As the weeks passed and the spectacle grew in shamelessness,his friends became more and more conscious of his peculiar melancholy.The elation of the campaign subsided into a deep unhappiness over the vanity of this world.Other phases of the shadowy side of his character also asserted themselves.
