hich Lincoln was not
asking advice. As to ways and means, he was pliable to a degree in the
hands of richer and wider experience; as to principles, he was a rock.
Seward's whole scheme of aggrandizement, his magnificent piracy,
was calmly waved aside as a thing of no concern. The most striking
characteristic of Lincoln's reply was its dignity. He did not,
indeed, lay bare his purposes. He was content to point out certain
inconsistencies in Seward's argument; to protest that whatever action
might be taken with regard to the single fortress, Sumter, the question
before the public could not be changed by that one event; and to say
that while he expected advice from all his Cabinet, he was none the less
President, and in last resort he would himself direct the policy of the
government.(21)

Only a strong man could have put up with the patronizing condescension
of the Thoughts and betrayed no irritation. Not a word in Lincoln's
reply gives the least hint that condescension had been displayed. He
is wholly unruffled, distant, objective. There is also a quiet tone of
finality, almost the tone one might use in gently but firmly correcting
a child. The Olympian impertinence of the Thoughts had struck out of
Lincoln the first flash of that approaching masterfulness by means of
which he was to ride out successfully such furious storms. Seward was
too much the man of the world not to see what had happened. He never
touched upon the Thoughts again. Nor did Lincoln. The incident was
secret until Lincoln's secretaries twenty-five years afterward published
it to the world.

But Lincoln's lofty dignity on the first of April was of a moment only.
When the Secretary of the Navy, Gideon Welles, that same day called on
him in his offices, he was the easy-going, jovial Lincoln who was always
ready half-humorously to take reproof from subordinates--as was evinced
by his greeting to the Secretary. Looking up from his writing, he said
cheerfully, "What have I done wrong?"(22) Gideon Welles was a pugnacious
man, and at that moment an angry man. There can be little doubt that his
lips were tightly shut, that a stern frown darkened his brows. Grimly
conscientious was Gideon Welles, likewise prosaic; a masterpiece of
literalness, the very opposite in almost every respect of the Secretary
of State whom he cordially detested. That he had already found occasion
to protest against the President's careless mode of conducting business
may be guessed--c