you will go back to Richmond and get that Union
majority to adjourn and go home without passing the ordinance of
secession, so anxious am I for the preservation of the peace of this
country and to save Virginia and the other States from going out, that
I will take the responsibility of evacuating Fort Sumter, and take the
chance of negotiating with the cotton States, which have already gone
out."

This quotation is from the testimony of Mr. Botts and there cannot be
better evidence of the facts existing in the first days of April, nor
a more trustworthy statement of the position of Mr. Lincoln in regard
to the secession movement. At that time the Virginia Convention had
rejected a proposed ordinance of secession by a vote of ninety to
forty-five, and there can be no doubt that Mr. Lincoln had hopes that
his proposition might calm the temper and change the purposes of the
secessionists in that State if he did not change the schemes of
Governor Pickens, of which, indeed, the prospect was only slight.

In his Inaugural Address, and in all his other public utterances, Mr.
Lincoln sought to place the responsibility of war upon the seceding
States. At a later day Mr. Lincoln, in a conversation with Senator
Sumner and myself, expressed regret that he had neglected to station
troops in Virginia in advance of the occupation of the vicinity of
Alexandria by the Confederates, a course of action to which he had
been urged by Mr. Chase and others.

Mr. Lincoln's proposition for the relief of Fort Sumter was rejected
by Mr. Baldwin, as was the proposition for the adjournment of the
convention, _sine die_.

When Mr. Botts appeared the time had passed when arrangements could
have been made for the relief of Sumter and the adjournment of the
convention. Although the situation may not have been realized at the
time it was not the less true that Mr. Botts and the small number
of Union men in Virginia were powerless in presence of the movement
in favor of secession under the lead of Tyler, Seddon and others.

The political side of Mr. Lincoln's character is seen in the fact that
he enjoined secrecy upon Mr. Botts. He may have been unwilling to
allow his supporters in the North to know how far he had gone in the
line of conciliation. In the conversation with Mr. Baldwin, Mr.
Lincoln had given an assurance that upon the acceptance of his two
propositions he would evacuate Fort Sumter. When Mr. Lincoln made
these facts known to M