544 The Fall of the Confederacy. 
this apprehension about European intervention more and 
more intense, and any and every show of aggression on the 
part of Mr. Lincoln would have been denounced as a fatal 
blunder by which the South might be thrown into the arms 
of England and France, and the integrity of the Union put 
in great jeopardy. Why, if the South had remained pacific 
for a few weeks, and if, when Fort Sumter was reinforced or 
some other aggression had been effected or attempted, the 
Confederate Government had protested energetically, and 
had besought the North not to force the South to look to 
foreign alliances for the defence of her rights, the protest 
would have been a terrible, almost a death blow, to the 
Lincoln Government. 
Very critical was the position of Mr. Lincoln, and ap- 
parently very forlorn the hope of saving the Union in 
March, 1861. Secession was formally accomplished. Con- 
federate commissioners were in Washington and were being 
received with cordiality by leading Northerners. An idea, 
probably delusive, and certainly embarrassing, was pre- 
valent that a separation would not be final, that it 
would be merely domestic, and that there would be, pvo 
tem, in lieu of a Union of States a Union of Federations. 
If the Union was not to be broken up slavery must be 
maintained and the abolitionists were in tones of thunder 
declaring that there should be no more slavery within the 
borders of the Union, and that it was far better for the South 
to depart in peace. All parties were anxious about Europe, 
and for fear of the intervention of England and France there 
was a disposition to let the South secede in amity. If seces- 
sion was treason Mr. Lincoln was forced to wink at it. The 
Envoys of the Confederate government were in Washington 
and yet Mr. Lincoln could not venture to arrest them. News- 
papers were defending secession but they were not prose- 
cuted. Mr. Lincoln did not intimate in his memorable 
Inaugural that the leaders of secession, and the members 
of the Confederate Government were to be punished for 
their proceedings. Nay, Mr. Lincoln did not intimate 
that secession was to be put down. All he intended to do 
was to collect the customs at the ports of entry and to 
hold the Federal property in the Southern States. He 
would not enforce Federal officers on the South, he would 
not even enforce the Federal postal system. It was certainly 
a weak policy; but what could Mr. Lincoln do? The 
effect of a strong policy would have caused such dis- 
sension in the North that the Union would have been 
