this assumption it is hardly
conceivable that he offered to evacuate Sumter as late as the fourth of
April. The significance therefore of the Baldwin interview would consist
in finally convincing Lincoln that he could not effect any compromise
without conceding the principle of state sovereignty. As this was the
one thing he was resolved never to concede there was nothing left
him but to consider what course would most strategically renounce
compromise. Therefore, when it was known at Washington a day or two
later that Port Pickens was in imminent danger of being taken by the
Confederates (see note 24), Lincoln instantly concentrated all his
energies on the relief of Sumter. All along he had believed that one
of the forts must be held for the purpose of "a clear indication of
policy," even if the other should be given up "as a military
necessity." Lincoln, VI, 301. His purpose, therefore, in deciding on the
ostentatious demonstration toward Sumter was to give notice to the whole
country that he made no concessions on the matter of sovereignty. In a
way it was his answer to the Virginia compromise.

At last the Union party in Virginia sent a delegation to confer with
Lincoln. It did not arrive until Sumter had been fired upon. Lincoln
read to them a prepared statement of policy which announced his
resolution to make war, if necessary, to assert the national
sovereignty. Lincoln, VI, 243-245.

The part of Montgomery in this tangled episode is least understood of
the three. With Washington Montgomery had no official communication.
Both Lincoln and Seward refused to recognize commissioners of the
Confederate government Whether Seward as an individual went behind the
back of himself as an official and personally deceived the commissioners
is a problem of his personal biography and his private morals that has
no place in this discussion. Between Montgomery and Richmond there was
intimate and cordial communication from the start. At first Montgomery
appears to have taken for granted that the Secessionist party at
Richmond was so powerful that there was little need for the new
government to do anything but wait But a surprise was in store for it
During February and March its agents reported a wide-spread desire
in the South to compromise on pretty nearly any terms that would not
surrender the central Southern idea of state sovereignty. Thus
an illusion of that day--as of this--was exploded, namely the
irresistibility of econ