Once adopted,
debates on it must end, and all agree and abide.
"It is not in my especial province;
"But I neither seek to evade nor assume responsibility[202]."
Lincoln's reply of the same day, April 1, was characteristically gentle,
yet no less positive and definite to any save one obsessed with his own
superior wisdom. Lincoln merely noted that Seward's "domestic policy"
was exactly his own, except that he did not intend to abandon Fort
Sumter. As to the warlike foreign policy Lincoln pointed out that this
would be a sharp reversal of that already being prepared in circulars
and instructions to Ministers abroad. This was, indeed, the case, for
the first instructions, soon despatched, were drawn on lines of
recalling to foreign powers their established and long-continued
friendly relations with the United States. Finally, Lincoln stated as
to the required "guiding hand," "I remark that if this must be done, I
must do it.... I wish, and suppose I am entitled to have, the advice of
all the Cabinet[203]."
This should have been clear indication of Lincoln's will to direct
affairs, and even to Seward would have been sufficient had he not,
momentarily, been so disturbed by the wreck of his pacific policy toward
the South, and as yet so ignorant of the strength of Lincoln's quiet
persistence.
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