Free Lincoln by Gore Vidal Page A

its author.
    “It is no more than a legal case?” Lincoln showed an author’s dejection, which amused Seward.
    “Of course it is more. You have made the point, once and for all, that you were not elected president in order to abolish slavery in the South …”
    “I cannot say that enough, can I? But the more I do say it, the more violent the Southerners become.”
    “They think, in time, we intend to do away with slavery and so they mean to do away with us first—by leaving the Union.”
    “Which they cannot do. I am clear on that, am I not?” Seward nodded; and removed from his tailcoat pocket the notes he had made on the inaugural address. “I take this passage to be the centerpiece of your … brief.” Seward smiled; Lincoln did not.
    Seward read, “ ‘I hold, that in contemplation of universal law, and of the Constitution, the Union of these States is perpetual. Perpetuity is implied, if not expressed, in the fundamental law of all national governments. It is safe to assert that no government proper, ever had a provision in its organic law for its own termination.’ ”
    “Yes, that is at the heart of my ‘brief.’ ”
    “But the Southern states regard the organization of the Union as a more casual affair. As they entered it of their own free will, so they can leave it.”
    “But no provision was ever made in the Constitution for their leaving it.”
    “They say that this right is implicit.”
    “Nothing so astounding and fundamental would
not
be spelled out in the Constitution.” Lincoln’s voice grew slightly higher. Seward had read somewhere that when Lincoln made a speech his voice was like a tenor trumpet—a tenor trumpet of war, Seward thought, suddenly aware, for the first time, that war had now become a possibility and that the traditional uses to which his sort of man was put—in particular, the task of conciliation and accommodation—would be of no avail. So many people had spoken for so long of the irrepressibility of conflict, to use his own phrase, that the fact that conflict might now be at hand made the cigar clenched between his teeth lose its savor. Worse, the whole matter mightwell be decided by the tall, thin figure sitting opposite him, profile silhouetted by winter light. At all costs, the Albany Plan must succeed.
    Seward was beginning to get Lincoln’s gauge; and he was afraid. He looked back down at his notes. “Your reasoning is good.” Then he read, “ ‘If a minority … will secede rather than submit, they make a precedent which, in turn, will divide and ruin them; for a minority of their own number will secede from them whenever a majority refuses to be controlled by such minority.’ That is plain.”
    “It is
all
so plain, Mr. Seward. That is the hard part. But I do my best to spell it out when I say, physically speaking, we cannot separate. It’s not like a husband and wife getting a divorce and dividing up the property.”
    Seward nodded; and read, “ ‘Suppose you go to war, you cannot fight always; and when, after much loss on both sides, and no gain on either, you cease fighting, the identical old questions as to terms of intercourse are again upon you.’ That says it all, I guess.”
    “But to say is not to do.”
    “To say what is true is to do a lot in politics.” Seward laughed; for some reason, the mood of panic had gone. “Not that I’ve had much experience along those lines.”
    Lincoln, to his relief, laughed too. “Who has?”
    “I am afraid of your ending,” said Seward, coming to the point.
    “Too harsh?”
    Seward nodded, and read, “ ‘In your hands, my dissatisfied fellow-countrymen, and not in mine, is the momentous issue of civil war. The government will not assail you.’ ” Seward looked up. “Let them fire the first shot, if shots are to be fired, which I pray not.” Seward continued to read. “ ‘You can have no conflict, without being yourselves the aggressors.
You
have no oath registered in heaven to