Lincoln’s inauguration, Bvt. Lt. Gen. Winfield Scott, still general-in-chief of the U.S. Army, had written
a note to New York politician William H. Seward, declaring that one of the options available to Lincoln was simply, “Say to
the seceded States, Wayward Sisters, depart in peace!” 4 But Lincoln was unlikely to entertain such an idea. He seemed firmly to believe the motto of the United States,
e pluribus unum
—“one out of many”— embodied all that America stood for. As Lincoln rode from the Executive Mansion to the Capitol beside
James Buchanan, a military guard stretched throughout the town, boarding and blocking entrance areas, nervously watching windows
along the route of travel. It was hardly a confidence builder. 5
“It is safe to assert that no government proper, ever had a provision in its organic law for its own termination,” bellowed
Lincoln, when he arose to deliver his inaugural address. After a tedious exploration of the standoff of North versus South,
he spoke to the secessionists: “We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained,
it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battle-field, and patriot grave,
to every living heart and hearthstone, all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched,
as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.” 6
But the angels would offer no solutions on that day. Rather, the Yankees faced a growing set of problems, and one in particular
that seemed promising to the South was a possible power struggle between Lincoln and Seward. An experienced New York politician
who had been chosen by Lincoln as secretary of state, the wily Seward exceeded his authority right away under the guise of
helping the lesser Lincoln with valuable advice and counsel. In a memo titled “Some thoughts for the President’s consideration,”
Seward suggested Lincoln alter the platform of opposition to the Confederacy, changing the prime question from the allowance
of slavery to one of Union or disunion. He also asked if he could effectively act as a prime minister in approaching the Confederacy
and carrying out Lincoln’s orders. This might have opened up an avenue of negotiation with the South, but it would also have
granted Seward an inordinate amount of power. Lincoln would have no part of it. He, not Seward, would direct the nation, the
president informed his startled secretary of state.
As Lincoln and Seward parried, the Virginia State Convention met in Richmond. If Virginia would enter the Confederacy, all
knew it would become the largest and most important state in the compact because of its location. In Montgomery, as everywhere
else in the South, hopes were high. As they waited for word from Richmond, Varina Davis set about to create a new social Confederacy.
She held a levee at the Exchange Hotel and established a regular schedule of receptions that would be attended by the social
elite of Montgomery as well as Confederate officials and their wives. Bonding among the new South came easily, and Jefferson
Davis himself found time to attend most of the parties. “Playing Mrs. President of this small Confederacy [was] slow work
after leaving Washington,” Varina’s friend and confidant Mary Boykin Chesnut wrote of the First Lady’s attitude toward her
new role. 7 (Chesnut, wife of South Carolina congressman James Chesnut Jr., was a native Charlestonian who started keeping what would
become the most celebrated diary of the Confederacy.)
It was inevitable that discussions at these social gatherings eventually became political. To almost everyone the reason for
war seemed to come down to “preserving our way of life.” But state rights philosophy often seemed a veneer that covered local
conceptions of what “our way of life” actually meant. Money, politics, and control seethed