Inauguration and the Secession Crisis

I. Presidential authority

President-elect Lincoln--until Lincoln was sworn into office, he had no legal authority to take any action to prevent or react against what was then occurring in the country.

1. Power vacuum--the five months between the time of the election and the time that Lincoln took office

2. Sidestepping responsibility--by avoiding making any statements with reference to policies of the lame duck Buchanan administration carried out (or not), Lincoln was also sidestepping any responsibilities for these policies

B.President Buchanan

1. Has gone down in history as one of the most spectacularly inept Presidents in history.

2. Blamed Republican Party--and their "extremism" for the predicament the country was in, and was unlikely to consult with Lincoln over the course of action to take, even if Lincoln had expressed the willingness to do so.

3. Legality of secession--while Buchanan insisted--as did Lincoln--that states did not have the right to leave the Union without the consent of all of the other states, he also held that the President lacked the authority to prevent their leaving and their seizure of federal property--like military forts and customs houses.

C. Coercion of the States--Southern secessionists insisted that any move on the part of the federal government to take back--or even to resist the attempt to seize--federal government property would indict the government on a charge of coercion.

1. "States rights"--secessionists insisted--as their apologists do to this day--that the war was fought not over whether slavery would continue to expand or not, but over whether a state's right to set its own laws or the federal government's right to decide the issue would be supreme.

2. Secessionist pre-condition--to remain in the Union, however, secessionists insisted that the Federal government coerce the northern states to rescind the personal freedom laws they had passed to contravene the 1850 Fugitive Slave Act.

II. The Inauguration Trip

Farewell to Springfield

1. Seeing office seekers--besides attempting to fill his cabinet positions,Lincoln spent much of his time in Springfield after the election seeing hundreds of people who descended upon the town seeking government jobs--something he could not escape even in Washington, D.C.


2. Farewell address--Lincoln initially wanted to avoid giving a farewell address, but the crush of people in the town who came to the railroad station to see him off compelled him to speak. He gave one of his few effective extemporaneous speeches (most were long thought out, and extensively reivised), which he then extensively revised for publication.

B. Journey to D.C.--the trip to Washington, D.C. took several weeks to complete as it meandered across the midwest and into the east. In part this was because there was no direct link from points west to the east; railroads instead moved from city to city, and passengers had to change trains at frequent intervals. But the purpose of the trip was also to foster an allegiance to both Lincolnc and the Union cause

C. Death threats--were made against Lincoln, and taken seriously enough thatguards were posted at half-mile intervals along the entire 1,000+ miles of the trip--although Lincoln himself had to rely upon a recruited body of friends to ensure his personal safety.

1. Philadelphia to D.C.--the final leg of the journey required the Lincoln party to pass through and change trains in Baltimore, a hotbed of secessionist sentiment in Maryland. Allan Pinkerton had gathered intelligence that an assassination attempt would be made against Lincoln there. Lincoln was disguised, and then secreted away on a separate train--for which he was belittled, and came quickly to regret agreeing to.

III. And Finally the War Came

A. First Inaugural Address--Lincoln's own inclination was to be much more blunt in regard to his intention to defend the union over secession, but he was prevailed upon by others to scale back his rhetoric--particularly his Secretary of State designate, William Seward

1. Seward's First Threat to Resign--after finding out that Lincoln planned to nominate Chase, Seward submitted his resignation in the expectation that Lincoln would rescind that nomination; instead, Lincoln demonstrated that he was willing to get along without Seward, and Seward was forced to instead rescind his resignation.

2. The Address--while maintaining his determination to uphold the Constitution, as his duties and oath of office, and placing the onus for starting the hostilities on the secessionists--Lincoln appealed to "the better angels of our nature" to work to prevent war from breaking out.

B. Fort Sumter--when Lincoln went to the White House after his inauguration, the first thing on his desk was a report from Maj. Robert Anderson stating that his garrison could only hold out another 6 weeks without being resupplied and/or reinforced.

1. New from Sumter--arrived before the Cabinet was in place--even before Lincoln's personal secretary was approved by the Senate.

2. Lincoln saw withdrawing troops from Sumter as politically ruinous, but at the same time was loath to precipitate war over the issue.

3. Gustavas Vasa Fox plan--to resupply Sumter was undermined (and ultimately sabotaged) by Seward, who promoted a rival plan to resupply Fort Pickens, which he though would be less provoking toward the secessionists. Seward's plan failed, but he still prevailed upon Lincoln to warn the governor of South Carolina that an attempt was being made to resupply Fort Sumter. To prevent the fort from being resupplied, that bombardment of Fort Sumter was begun at 2:00am on April 12, 1861. And so the war began.