By February 1861 the Republican Party was on the verge of taking complete control of the federal government. But internally, the party was split in two by the secession crisis and how to respond: the first, by far the majority, believed that concessions to Southern demands would simply produce more threats and demands down the line; the minority, on the other hand, believed that such an uncompromising stance risked a suicidal civil war.
The latter group may have been smaller in number, but it was led by Senator William Henry Seward, one of the party’s most adept politicians and the man some still felt deserved to be president. Under his leadership the conciliationist wing of the Republican Party punched far above its weight—indeed, Seward’s efforts at compromise, or at least the appearance of a compromise, managed to convince Southern unionists, Northern Democrats, Republican hardliners and the national press that his party was on the verge of announcing a Union-saving compromise, even when nothing of the kind was likely to happen.
The Republicans weren’t always dominated by hardliners; compromise was very much in the air during the first weeks of the crisis. But Southern secession and the seizure of federal property had pushed the majority of the party into a hardline stance—even as the growing risk of war pushed northern Democrats and border-state politicians of both parties pushed for compromise.
The result was a tumultuous debate among Republicans. A deeply demoralized minority, with Seward at its head, saw in the hardliners’ attitude the seed of national dissolution. He wasn’t wrong: through his close contact with a large network of allies in the border slave states, Seward understood that unionists there were desperate for a goodwill gesture from the Republicans, something that would take the wind out of secessionist sails and help them preserve their states’ loyalty.
But Seward knew that the only point of view that really mattered was Lincoln’s – the dramatic impact ofLincoln’s carefully placed anticompromise letters a few weeks earlier proved that congressional Republicans would follow his lead. And so he turned his attention to manipulating the president-elect’s position. Time was wasting: Virginia was about to elect its state-convention delegates. So Seward quietly, desperately began to spread false rumors that a compromise was imminent.
Beginning on Jan. 18, he arranged a series of private meetings with Stephen Douglas, John J. Crittenden and a few other conservative senators. He then leaked to Upper South leaders like Rep. John Gilmer of North Carolina that they had reached a “definite arrangement on our present national difficulties,” though nothing of the kind had occurred, let alone with Lincoln’s blessing.
Gilmer took the bait, wiring home to his district, “We will pass in substance Mr. Crittenden’s plans. Give no ear to alarms.” So did Douglas and Crittenden, who drafted several joint messages to the people of the border slave states expressing hope of an imminent settlement. Douglas assured Virginia unionist James Barbour in a public letter, “I can say with confidence that there is hope of adjustment, and the prospect has never before been better.” In the Senate he declared cryptically, “I have reasons satisfactory to myself upon which to predicate that firm hope that the Union will be preserved.”
Rumors of an agreement soon reached the national press, which helped make them news across the country. Washington correspondents for the major New York papers reported with assurance that congressional Republicans were nearly ready to accept a territorial compromise, possibly even Crittenden’s. “The next few days will develop a complete change of policy on the part of the Republican Party,” the Herald’s Washington reporter affirmed on Jan. 25. By Jan. 28 the story had grown to include Lincoln himself: “It is now certain,” wrote one paper, “that all the influence of incoming Republican administration will be thrown in favor of a speedy settlement of our national difficulties.” One correspondent claimed to have it “on good authority” that Lincoln himself had written “one of his cabinet ministers” in support of the border-state plan.
The rumors disturbed hardliners enough that Rep. Owen Lovejoy of Illinois was “open in his declaration that the party is sold out.” Wisconsin radical Carl Schurz warned Lincoln, “The moment seems to have arrived which will put manhood to a final test. Next week a desperate effort will be made to crowd the Crittenden – or the border state – resolutions through Congress, and many Republicans have already signified their willingness to yield.”
Apparently only Seward knew that the impending compromise was merely smoke; but he could do no more without securing Lincoln’s blessing. To manage that, he had dispatched a Republican ally, Rep. William Kellogg, to Springfield to lobby Lincoln, hoping even to bring him to Washington early. Lincoln’s response confirmed Seward’s worst fears. According to Kellogg, he declared firmly, “I will suffer death before I will consent or will advise my friends to consent to any concession or compromise which looks like buying the privilege of taking possession of this government to which we have a constitutional right; because, whatever I might think of the merit of the various propositions before Congress, I should regard any concession in the face of menace the destruction of the government itself.”
At news of Kellogg’s failure, Seward realized he would have to deal with Lincoln himself. On Jan. 27, just eight days before the Virginia election, he penned a lengthy letter that at last lay his conciliatory views fully before the president-elect. He opened by describing the “very painful” appeals of Southern unionists, who warned that without “something of concession or compromise” their states would secede before Lincoln was inaugurated. Yet whether the Upper South seceded or not, Seward pointed out, Lincoln would face “a hostile armed confederacy” in the Deep South; the only question was whether to subdue it through force or conciliation. Although “much the largest portion of the Republican party are reckless now of the crisis before us,” he argued, the North would not support a protracted civil war. Therefore, “every thought that we think ought to be conciliatory forbearing and patient, and so open the way for the rising of a Union Party in the seceding states which will bring them back into the Union.” After months of intrigue and cloakroom maneuvering, here at last was Seward’s position, out in the open and committed to writing: Republicans must make sufficient concessions to keep alive the latent Southern unionism that he still insisted would rise to the fore.
Sending the letter was a dangerous gamble, because if Lincoln replied directly to Seward with the sentiment he had communicated to Kellogg, the New Yorker would have no choice but to back away from compromise entirely or, by openly defying Lincoln, split his party irreparably.
One year earlier, William Henry Seward had been one of the most powerful men in the Senate, the presumed presidential nominee of his party, and the odds-on favorite to capture the White House. Now, in the face of his country’s greatest national crisis, he had been reduced to underhanded schemes, back-channel assurances and helplessly awaiting the next move of the Western country lawyer who, it was increasingly clear, held all the cards. Yet Seward believed, not unreasonably, that he still had a few tricks to play to save the country from civil war. Whether they would work would be answered over the following weeks.
