Circa1865

Sherman was unable to understand that the South was fighting a defensive war to maintain its independence, and had no desire to alter the governance of the Northern States. Sherman wrote the following in late 1863 to his superior, noting that he saw no need for civil compromises to soften the war against the women and children in his path, and that “the South has done her worst [in its struggle for independence], and now is the time for us to pile on blows thick and fast.” Sherman could not see the humanity suffering in his midst, only faceless enemies obstructing his employer’s will.

Bernhard Thuersam, www.Circa1865.com

Questions Only Solved by War

“For such a people, [Sherman wrote], “a civil government now . . . would be simply ridiculous.” The interests of the United States “demand the continuance of the simple military rule after all the organized armies of the South are dispersed, conquered and subjugated.” The only real issue, he wrote, was, “Can we whip the South?”

[Sherman continued] “Another great and important natural truth is still in contest, and can only be solved by war. Numerical majorities by vote have always been our great arbiter. The South, though numerically inferior, contend they can whip the Northern superiority of numbers, and therefore by natural law contend that they are not bound to submit.

This issue is the only real one . . . War alone can decide it.

I would banish all minor questions, assert the broad doctrine that a nation has the right, and also the physical power to penetrate every part of our national domain, and that we will do it – that we will do in our own time and in our own way . . . that we will remove and destroy every obstacle, if need be, take every life, every acre of land . . . that we will not cease till this end is attained . . . I would not coax them or even meet them halfway but make them so sick of war that generations would pass away before they would again appeal to it . . .”

(Sherman, Fighting Prophet, Lloyd Lewis, Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1932, excerpts pp. 307-308)

By 1850, the American South had had enough of Northern agitation regarding the slavery in their midst and saw abolitionists as unreasoned, ideological fanatics who could produce no practical or peaceful means to do away with that residue of British colonialism. The former slave States of New York, Massachusetts and Rhode Island emancipated their slaves earlier, and the South wished for time to do the same.  The passage below is excerpted from the Fall 2017 newsletter of the acclaimed Abbeville Institute, see: www.abbevilleinstitute.org.

Bernhard Thuersam, www.Circa1865.com

The Un-Progressive South

“The union of classical and Christian culture gave Southerners an immunity – even before the War – to the modern virus of progressive ideology which had seized the North by the 1830s.

Criticism of Northern society by the likes of Robert Dabney, William Gilmore Simms and Edgar Allen Poe brought into stark relief the difference between the classical Aristotelian understanding of rational criticism favored by the South and the hubristic ideological critiques of Henry Thoreau, Ralph Waldo Emerson and Walt Whitman.

Lincoln made the ideological style of politics popular with the Gettysburg Address, where he defines America not as a historic federation of States, each cultivating, in its own terms, political and legal institutions inherited from Europe (and especially from Britain), but as a polity with a mission to shape society in accord with an abstract “idea” of equality.

By the 1950s, the ideological style of politics had become so popular that Richard Hofstadter could say approvingly, “it has been our fate not to have an ideology, but to be one.” Rather than see as a pathological condition of the intellect, it is celebrated as a great achievement and as an instance of American “Exceptionalism.”

As Al Gore and countless other pundits have put it, America is a country that constantly “reinvents itself.” Arthur Schlesinger defined American identity in this way: “The American character is bottomed upon the profound conviction that nothing in the world is beyond its power to accomplish.” And the “conservative” Ronald Reagan was fond of repeating Thomas Paine’s remark that we have it in our power to begin the world anew.

Southerners know we have no such power, and should resist the temptation to use it if we had it. The Yankee critic responds that Southerners have an intolerably relaxed tolerance of evil. But Southerners do not have a high tolerance for evil. Rather, they recognize the reality of original sin. They know how hard it is to eradicate sin from their own conduct much less reconstruct society as a whole with all the unintended consequences that generates.

Balanced “reform” is one thing, but belief in “progress” whether of the liberal or Marxist kind, is not only the pursuit of an ever-receding goal of “equality,” it is also a self-imposed innocence that protects the progressive from having to recognize his failures and the destruction caused by beginning the world anew or event totally rebuilding a part of it. Anti-slavery agitation in the antebellum North was almost entirely ideological and sentimental.

Nowhere in this agitation do we find an acknowledgement that the slaves were brought over by the North and that Northern wealth as of 1860 was founded on the slave trade and on servicing slave economies for over two centuries.

Morality demanded a national program to emancipate slaves, compensate slave holders and integrate slaves into American (including Northern) society. Northern anti-slavery agitators were not within a million miles of supporting such a proposal. What they demanded was immediate and uncompensated emancipation.”

(Abbeville, the Newsletter of the Abbeville Institute, Fall 2017, excerpt pp. 4-6)

The Confederate Constitution eliminated protective tariffs for industry altogether. The Boston Transcript observed on March 18, 1861 that “the principal seceding States are now for commercial independence” from the North, and it warned its readers that if free trade were permitted to exist in the Southern States, then the Southern ports would take away most of the trade from Boston, New York and other Northern ports. There is no doubt that a free-trade South could not be tolerated by protectionist Northern merchants who supported Lincoln’s party.

Bernhard Thuersam, www.Circa1865.com

Tariffs and the South

“In a November 1860 speech before the Georgia legislature, US Senator Robert Toombs explained why Southerners were complaining of unconstitutional fiscal plunder by the federal government and why they believed it was about to get much, much worse with the election of Lincoln.

In recent years, Toombs explained, the Northern States had succeeded in having Congress give them a legal monopoly in the shipbuilding business, prohibiting the sale of foreign-made ships in the United State. This increased the cost of shipping to the trade-dependent South.

Other laws prohibited foreign shippers from offering lower prices than American shippers. Special taxes were assessed on the citizens of Southern coastal areas to pay for lighthouses and harbors that primarily benefited the Northern shipping industry. “Even the fishermen of Massachusetts and New England,” Toombs complained, “demand and receive from the public treasury about half a million dollars per annum as a pure bounty on their business of catching codfish.”

Northern manufacturers also enjoyed trade protection with tariffs and import quotas “for every trade, craft, and calling which they pursue,” with tariffs ranging “from fifteen to two hundred percent,” most of which end up being paid by Southerners. No wonder they cry out for glorious Union,” Toombs said sarcastically, for “by it they got their wealth.”

On the eve of the South’s secession, Toombs then railed against the proposed Morrill Tariff, which proposed raising the tariff rate by as much as 250 percent on some items. With this tariff bill, Northerners were “united in a joint raid against the South.”

Because of the federal government, largely under the influence of Northern politicians, had overridden its bounds of constitutionality with regard to public spending, the Treasury had become a “perpetual fertilizing stream to [Northern businesses and laborers] and a suction-pump to drain away our substance and parch up our lands.”

(The Real Lincoln, A New Look at Abraham Lincoln, His Agenda, and an Unnecessary War; Thomas J. DiLorenzo, Forum, 2002, excerpts pp. 126-127)

The fundamental reason for the 1860-1861 withdrawal of Southern States from the 1787 Union was to achieve political independence, and distance themselves from the changed and radicalizing Northern States which had become increasingly populated by immigrants fully unfamiliar with the United States Constitution. That North was seen as a threat to the safety and liberty of the Southern people and therefore a separation was inevitable. The following piece on “Southern Identity” is an excerpt from the Fall 2017 newsletter of the Abbeville Institute — the only pro-Southern “think-tank” and an invaluable online educational resource.

Please consider a generous contribution to this organization, which is tax-deductible and can be made through PayPal at the www.abbevilleinstitute.org website.

Bernhard Thuersam, www.Circa1865.com

The Dimensions of Southern Identity

“Southern identity is not a mere regional identity such as being a Midwesterner or a New Englander. The South was an independent country, and fought one of the bloodiest wars of the nineteenth century to maintain its independence. No group of Americans in any war have fought so hard and suffered so much for a cause.

That historic memory as well, as resistance to the unfounded charge of “treason,” is built into the Southern identity. The South seceded to continue enjoying the founding decentralized America that had dominated from 1776 to 1861. We may call it “Jeffersonian America” because it sprang from both the Declaration of Independence and Jefferson’s election which was called “the Revolution of 1800.”

This founding “Jeffersonian America” was largely created and sustained by Southern leadership. In the first 67 years only 16 saw the election of Northern presidents. In the first 72 years, five Southern presidents served two terms. No Northern president served two terms.

The Republican Party was a revolutionary “sectional party” determined to purge America of Southern leadership and transform America into a centralized regime under Northern control.

When Southerners seceded, they took the founding “Jeffersonian America” with them. The Confederate Constitution is merely the original U.S. instrument except for a few changes to block crony capitalism and prevent runaway centralization.

Part of Southern identity is its persistent loyalty to the image of decentralized Jeffersonian America. To be sure, libertarians and others outside the South have a theoretical commitment to decentralization, but none have the historical experience of suffering to preserve the founding Jeffersonian America.

But the deepest dimension of Southern identity is found in Flannery O’Conner’s statement that Southern identity in its full extent is a “mystery known only to God,” and is best approached through poetry and fiction. The humiliation of defeat and the rape of the region by its conquerors have given Southerners a clarity about the limits of political action, the reality of sin, and the need of God’s grace.”

(Abbeville: The Newsletter of the Abbeville Institute, Fall 2017, excerpts pp. 1-3)

The political conservatism of the American South was an enduring threat to the new, sectional, Republican Party of the North. Lincoln’s ruling party quickly convinced several States to desire no further political union with them – and more withdrew voluntarily after he lit the fuse at Fort Sumter. Under cover of war and with powers unimagined by the Founders, Lincoln replaced the Union with a consolidated group of Northern States under a centralized, dictatorial government. The defeated South was annexed and ruled from Washington.

Bernhard Thuersam, www.Circa1865.com

Victories, Occupations and Annexations

“Victory over an enemy can take many forms. At the lowest level, the repulse of an invader – by force of arms or by bribes – is a victory. But, if the enemy is an enduring threat, something more than a mere defeat in the field might be required.

Some enemies have to be thrashed so vigorously they will forego aggression for at least a generation. For tougher customers – or more attractive targets – nothing less than occupation and annexation will do. Taking a page out of Roman history, it is easy to see why the Romans decided to finish off Carthage and why they annexed the Macedonian kingdoms.

In her wars, the United States has a mixed record. It is easy to justify our entrance into World War II as a necessity: No matter how culpable FDR might have been, we were, after all, attacked. In Korea we were trying to contain the spread of an enemy ideology.

The Mexican War is more complex: Both sides were provocative, and Mexico’s corrupt political system made the American land grab almost inevitable. The acquisition of so much territory, whether as the fruits of victory or the big steal, was an unquestionable advantage to the American people.

Other wars are murkier. We had no business in the Philippines, where we slaughtered hundreds of thousands of civilians and gained little advantage. The Vietnam War, if we had fought to win, might have been a success, but we had no taken the trouble to define victory. [Instead of] pounding North Vietnam into submission, we allowed Robert McNamara to play war games that cost us the lives of 58,000 men and damaged our prestige for over a decade.

The only lesson Donald Rumsfeld learned from Vietnam was that McNamara had been insufficiently ruthless. Rumsfeld’s obsession with military technology and his consequent neglect of the house to house fighting in Iraq doomed our campaign to failure.

The last time we had a president from Texas, he lost a war and spent the nation close to bankruptcy, but Lyndon Baines Johnson was a frugal pacifist compared with his spiritual descendant, Lyndon Baines Bush, thanks to whom Americans can look forward to another decade of national humiliation and diminishing economic expectations.”

(If Pigs Could Fly, Thomas Fleming, Chronicles, A Magazine of American Culture, March 2007, excerpts pp. 11-12)

The early United States was an agricultural country with import tariffs at a low 5%. As Northern industrialism grew by 1808, the next 24 years saw the protective tariff as the most contentious debate in Congress. Anti-tariff leaders argued that protective duties were ultimately paid by consumers in the form of higher prices for manufactured products, and thus more oppressive for Southern consumers, who received no compensating benefits, than for northern consumers, who enjoyed higher incomes.

Bernhard Thuersam, www.Circa1865.com

No Treason in Resisting Oppression

“Jackson and Calhoun differed almost as much on governmental policies as on constitutional principles. In 1828 the Vice-President was vehemently against the protective tariff and mildly in favor of the national bank. The President, as did [Martin] Van Buren, mildly approved of the tariff and detested the bank.

Calhoun considered the tariff a crucial issue because he regarded the conflict between North and South as the overriding national problem. But Jackson was more disturbed by the monster bank because he was distressed about the capitalists and stock jobbers who supposedly made profits by spewing forth paper money instead of producing a material product. The President was determined to stop rich, moneyed interests from using government funds to secure paper profits at the expense of the people.

The early ideological differences between Calhoun and Jackson became particularly evident on the question of distributing the federal surplus to the States after the national debt was paid. Jackson vigorously favored distribution; Calhoun adamantly opposed it.

For Jackson, retiring the debt, and thereby stopping the moneyed interests from employing the peoples’ funds, was an important end in itself. For Calhoun, on the other hand, retiring the debt was only a means of lowering the tariff. Once the debt was repaid, expanding federal surpluses would force the government to cut taxes. But if the surplus was distributed, the federal government would retain an excuse for high tariffs. Distribution would destroy the reason for repayment.

To Jackson, equal division [of the surplus] meant division according to population. But Calhoun considered distribution according to population completely unequal. The majority North would continue to drain away the wealth of the minority South. Jackson’s distribution would institutionalize the worst evils of Adams’ nationalism.

The increasing tension between Calhoun and Jackson became blatantly public at the April 13, 1830, Jefferson Day dinner. Glaring at Calhoun, signaling the boisterous crowd to rise, the President toasted “Our Federal Union – It must be preserved!” [Calhoun’s] reply, when it came, was an anticlimax: “The Union – Next to our liberties most dear.”

Moments later, George McDuffie was more blunt: “The memory of Patrick Henry: the first American statesman who had the soul to feel, and the courage to declare, in the face of armed tyranny, that there is no treason in resisting oppression.”

(Prelude to War, the Nullification Controversy in South Carolina, 1816-1836; William W. Freehling, Harper & Row, 1965, excerpts pp. 190-192)

Samuel Cutler Ward (1814-1884), known as the “King of the Lobby” due to his exemplary success at high-level political persuasion, was the brother of abolitionist Julia Ward, and served as an intermediary between William Seward and Confederate leaders before the war. Ward told Seward in 1862 that the Confederate leaders would not rejoin the Union as he saw in the South “a malignant hatred of the North which rendered” the destruction of the South necessary. Ward understood that “within two years they would have formed entangling free trade and free navigation treaties with Europe and a military power hostile to us.” Seward may have believed that peace might prevail, but Lincoln and his party’s extremists led the way to war.

Bernhard Thuersam, www.Circa1865.com

Seward’s Hot Potato

“Seward, who was to be Secretary of State, it had become definite, was in a quandary. As he saw the situation, he faced two necessities: one was to guide the inexperienced Lincoln in shaping the policies of the Administration; and the other was to convince his former associates in the Senate, who now headed the insurrectionary Confederacy in Montgomery, that Washington would initiate no hostilities against them, but would follow a policy of conciliation and friendship.

Seward wanted Jefferson Davis, Judah P. Benjamin, and the others to understand clearly that he would be the chief architect of Administration policy; and further, that they could rely on his assurance that this policy would be one of peace, not provocation. In this, of course, he spoke only for himself, but he was convinced that he would be able to shape Lincoln’s view of the situation; Lincoln, he reasoned, was unversed in statecraft, and would be grateful for expert leading by a thoroughly practiced Secretary of State.

Seward’s sincere conviction was that the problem of secession, like all other human disagreements, could be resolved by reasonable discussion among reasonable men. One wing of the Republican party was howling for the forcible suppression of “treason” in the South; this wing was led by Salmon P. Chase of Ohio, and to them Seward’s conciliatory views were themselves barely removed from Treason, — if removed at all. For him to communicate directly with the men in Montgomery might be construed as “communicating with the enemy.”

If he were to communicate with them at all, he would have to work through an intermediary whom both he and Southern leaders could trust . . . [poet, politician and gourmet] Sam Ward.

When Lincoln slunk into Washington in a distressing pusillanimous manner (or so it seemed), supposedly to foil an assassination plot, Sam was disgusted.

Seward was juggling a hot potato tossed to him by three commissioners whom the Confederacy had sent to Washington to treat for the peaceable surrender of United States forts in Southern territory, principally Fort Sumter at Charleston, and Fort Pickens near Pensacola, Florida. The commissioners . . . were well-known to Sam . . . If [they] go back unacknowledged as [commissioners], President Davis cannot hold back the people from attacking the forts.

[Seward] kept stalling the Southern commissioners with excuses – pressure of patronage demands, the delays attendant [to] departmental routine, and such pretexts. He could not receive the commissioners without recognizing the government behind them; yet he did not wish to send them back to Montgomery in anger.”

(Sam Ward, “King of the Lobby,” Lately Thomas, Houghton Mifflin Company, 1965, excerpts pp. 251-253)

The following are excerpts from a letter sent to Lincoln’s Secretary of State William Seward by Associate Chief Justice John A. Campbell on April 13, 1861. Seward repeatedly led Campbell and the Confederate commissioners to believe his government would peacefully resolve the issue at Fort Sumter. One concludes from the letter that Lincoln deceived his own Secretary as to his intentions at Fort Sumter and setting the war in motion – as well as sending Ward Lamon to Charleston to ascertain South Carolina’s defenses. Many Southern Unionists pleaded with Lincoln’s to disarm the crisis by simply removing federal troops from Sumter, and letting time heal the breach.

Bernhard Thuersam, www.Circa1865.com

The Cause of the Great Calamity

“On the 15^th of March [1861] I left with Judge Crawford, one of the [peace] commissioners of the Confederate States, a note in writing to the effect:

“I feel entire confidence that Fort Sumter will be evacuated in the next five days. This measure is felt as imposing great responsibility on the Administration. The substance of this statement I communicated to you the same evening by letter. Five days elapsed, and I called with a telegram from General [Pierre] Beauregard to the effect that Sumter was not evacuated, but that Major [Robert] Anderson was at work making repairs.

The 30^th of March [1861] arrived, and at that time a telegram came from Governor [Francis] Pickens, inquiring concerning Colonel Lamon, whose visit to Charleston he supposed had a connection with the proposed evacuation of Fort Sumter . . .

On the first of April, I received from you the statement in writing: “I am satisfied the government will not undertake to supply For Sumter without giving notice to Governor Pickens.”

On April 7, I addressed to you a letter on the subject of alarm that the preparations by the government had created, and asked you if the assurances I had given were well-founded. In respect to Sumter your reply was: “Faith as to Sumter fully kept – wait and see.”

In this morning’s paper I read “an authorized messenger from President Lincoln informed Governor Pickens and General Beauregard that provisions will be sent to Fort Sumter peaceably, or otherwise by force.”

This was on [April 8^th], at Charleston, the day following your last assurance, and this is the last evidence of the full faith I was to “wait for and see!” . . .

The commissioners who received those communications conclude they have been abused . . . I think no candid man who will read over what I have written, and consider for a moment what is going on at Fort Sumter, but will agree that the equivocating conduct of the administration . . . is the proximate cause of the great calamity.

On April 4, 1861, President [Jefferson] Davis authorized General Beauregard to take any action he deemed necessary about Fort Sumter. Beauregard opened negotiations for the surrender of the Fort, and Major Anderson promised to evacuate within a few days.

Under the pretense of relieving a starving garrison, [Lincoln] sent an expedition . . . “of eleven vessels, with two-hundred and eighty-five guns, and twenty-five hundred men. They were scheduled to arrive at Charleston on the ninth of April, but did not arrive until several days later. The reason Lincoln’s [war initiation] scheme did not work was a tempest, which delayed his fleet.”

Jefferson Davis did everything in his power to prevent civil strife, and the South cannot be blamed for the most terrible Civil War the world has ever witnessed. It is true they did fire the first shot, but the question is, which party first indicated the purpose of hostility? Which made the fatal menace; or which drew, rather than which delivered, the fire at Fort Sumter?

If Jefferson Davis signed the order for the reduction of the Fort, Abraham Lincoln had, before, signed the order to reinforce it.”

(Jefferson Davis, Patriot, a Biography, 1808-1865, Eric Langhein, Vantage Press, 1962, excerpts pp. 54-57)

The term “Copperhead” is commonly used to describe a pro-South Northerner during the War Between the States, though it is more accurately defined as Northern critics of Lincoln who opposed his unwarranted seizure of power and war against Americans in the South. In early May, 1863, Ohio politician Clement Vallandigham was arrested for referring to the president as “King Lincoln” and criticizing his policies. As he was deported to the South by Lincoln, Vallandigham declared himself loyal to the United States and encouraged Southern authorities to return to Union with the Northern States. In his “Limits of Dissent, Clement Vallandigham and the Civil War,” historian Frank L. Klement wrote then of “nationalist historians” who resist criticism of Lincoln and avoid critical analysis of Lincoln’s administration.

Bernhard Thuersam, www.Circa1865.com

“A Republican Smear Campaign”

“Klement saw it as no laughing matter the way Vallandigham and other outspoken northern critics of the Lincoln administration were treated by the Northern government during the conflict, and by historians afterward.

To the very end of his career, Klement remained firmly entrenched in his belief that the alleged Copperhead threat in the North during the Civil War was little more than a Republican smear campaign, a smoke screen that the Northern government used to discredit harmless civilians who strongly opposed the Lincoln administration’s seemingly blatant disregard for civil liberties.

He took aim at those historians who for years had spat venom at any critic of the Lincoln administration . . . [and stated that] the academic world clung too tightly to the work of scholars who chose to further inflate the Lincoln legend. In 1952 Klement told the historical community that “nationalism as a force and apotheosis as a process have tempted writers to laud Abraham Lincoln and to denounce his enemies.”

In a reflective mood forty-two years later, his message remained unchanged . . . “Nationalist historians really praise that which has happened and glorify that which has happened. When you deal with Lincoln’s critics and the Copperheads and Democratic politicians, you’re going down a road that is not appreciated by nationalist historians.”

Rather than that of a Northerner who sympathized with the South during the Civil War, the definition of a Copperhead should, he believed, be changed to simply “a Democratic critic of the Lincoln administration,” which supported his contention that Copperheads were sectionalists by nature, not necessarily pro-Southern.

Mark E. Neely, Jr . . . recently prophesied that the reigning interpretations of the Civil War years are on the verge of breaking down “or at least of very considerable revision . . .” The new wave of revisionism . . . also extends into the areas relating to Lincoln’s Democratic critics. Klement anticipated this trend in 1984 when he alluded to himself in the third person by writing that “revisionists have challenged the contentions of earlier historians who believed the Civil War to be ordained, inevitable, and irrepressible.”

(The Limits of Dissent, Clement L. Vallandigham & the Civil War, Frank L. Klement, Fordham University Press, 1998, excerpt from preface)

Lincoln’s only attempt at including a Southerner in his cabinet was sounding out North Carolinian and Congressman John Gilmer, who was “wary, mistrustful of Lincoln and reluctant to ally himself with an administration” opposed to the interests of his State and section. Conservatives feared that should Gilmer not accept, Lincoln would select radical hard-liner Montgomery Blair and add fuel to the sectional fire.

Bernhard Thuersam, www.Circa1865.com

Convincing Southerners of Republican Hostility

“[Far from Fort Sumter] the president-elect was still at work composing his cabinet . . . [and] the impossibly tangled party considerations that continued to vex him. As [President James] Buchanan’s advisors planned their reinforcement expedition . . . Lincoln was committing the first major blunder of his administration. It began on Sunday, December 30 . . . when he met with that “greatest of Pennsylvania wirepullers,” Simon Cameron, about a place in the cabinet.

[Lincoln] knew it would be a controversial appointment. For one thing, Cameron’s easy movements from the [Democrats] to the Know Nothings to the Republicans had gained him a reputation as an unprincipled opportunist.

More damaging was the taint of corruption that surrounded him. Known to his critics as “the Great Winnebago Chief” for his mishandling of Indian funds in the 1830s, Cameron was also charged with manipulation elections and legislatures through bribery. Yet so many recommendations poured into Springfield that Lincoln could hardly see how not to appoint him.

It was one of the first important choices Lincoln had made for himself since the election, and he immediately had cause to regret foregoing his usual process of passing his decisions by [Lyman] Trumbull and [Hannibal] Hamlin . . . word of the selection [of Cameron] provoked a flood of outraged letters and visits from Republican leaders.

Displaying an indecision that was characteristic in those early months, Lincoln immediately reversed himself . . . [and] addressed a short, private note to Cameron rescinding his offer . . . [but] the imbroglio . . . exploded into what one historian has called “a mighty battle of Republican factions.” For the next several weeks Republican managers throughout the North appeared considerably more concerned with the patronage than with secession.

Placing [Salmon P.] Chase at the head of the Treasury Department [would reconcile] the powerful New York radicals to [William] Seward’s appointment [as Secretary of State].

[But] Lincoln was aware of the predicament of Southern unionists and the damage Republican rigidity [against compromise] might do to their cause. Nominating Chase, a long-acknowledged leader of the radicals, would give secessionists a powerful weapon in their fight to convince Southerners of Republican hostility.”

(Lincoln and the Decision for War, the Northern Response to Secession, Russell McClintock, UNC Press, 2008, excerpts pp. 123-125)