Two major wars, two presidents, one faithful decision

Opinion: April 12, 2011 at 12:00a.m.

By Maury Klein

Free Lance-Star (Fredericksburg, Va.)

KINGSTON, R.I.

The sesquicentennial of the firing on Fort Sumter reminds us of the enormity of the decision facing Abraham Lincoln and his opposite number, Jefferson Davis, that fateful April in 1861. Going to war is the gravest choice a president can make, and doubly so when the conflict is civil war.

In that confrontation it was Davis and not Lincoln who made the decision to fire the first shots of what proved to be the bloodiest war in American history. But many of Lincoln’s critics, then and later, argued that he had led the country into war, which was not true. What he had done, as more astute observers recognized, was maneuver Davis into firing the first shot.

The same charge of deliberately leading the nation into war while claiming otherwise has been hurled at another president, Franklin D. Roosevelt, both at the time and by some historians. Here the setting was not a civil war but a global conflict on the most colossal scale yet witnessed.

It is ironic that this same accusation has been attached to two men who are widely considered to be not only two of the best presidents the country has ever had but also the most politically savvy leaders ever to hold the office. Their reputations rest in large part on their handling of the crises that confronted them, and on the leadership they displayed both before and after the first shots were fired.

Political geniuses

They shared a genius for politics and may well have been the two greatest politicians in presidential history. Lincoln came from humble origins and pulled himself up by his own bootstraps; Roosevelt was the product of old-line American aristocracy. Lincoln spoke with the twang of the prairie, Roosevelt with the cultured accent of an upstate New York aristocrat. Yet both men possessed an uncanny ability to connect with that most familiar yet elusive American, the common man.

Conservative by nature, the two men relished the simple truths of eternal verities. They believed in the Almighty but did not attend church except on rare occasions. One had to overcome a physical handicap, the other the more subtle but no less real disadvantage of being a nobody with no formal education. Roosevelt was a Harvard man who had held a variety of offices at the state and national levels; Lincoln came to the presidency with an absurdly thin resume that included only one lone term in the House of Representatives and time in the Illinois state legislature. Both men aroused deep emotions in others ranging from undying devotion to blind hatred. They shared a gift for language and metaphor as a way to get their message understood.

Most pertinent of all, both men came to office at a pivotal moment in the nation’s history. Lincoln triumphed over his crisis, the gravest in American history, but did not survive it. Roosevelt failed to solve the Great Depression, then had to faced yet another, potentially greater threat. Like Lincoln, he did not live long enough to see the final victory.

Both men had hoped fervently to keep the nation out of war. Lincoln failed in this task for reasons that went beyond his ability to control. So did Roosevelt, though his path to war was much longer and more convoluted than Lincoln’s. Where Lincoln had barely six weeks as president to deal with a dividing nation, Roosevelt endured 27 months of an already existing war in Europe before Pearl Harbor.

Harsh truth

What the two men shared above all else was their understanding of a harsh truth that could not be spoken and was almost impossible for lesser men to confront. Far from wanting to lead the nation into war, they came increasingly to realize that entry into conflict could not be avoided. If that were so, the single most important factor became how the country went into the fight.

In particular, it was crucial that the other side fire the first shots. Only in that way would the nation enter the war united and determined to see it through. Both succeeded in this goal and endured the setbacks that followed as the necessary price to ensure later victory.

Lincoln inherited the situation at Fort Sumter with its unexpectedly tight timetable. The garrison under Maj. Robert Anderson was far more short of supplies than the new administration had been led to believe. The dilemma facing Lincoln was as stark as it was dangerous. If the garrison did not receive supplies, it would soon be starved out and the last remaining federal presence in South Carolina would be lost. If that happened without a shot being fired, it would enhance the prestige of the new Confederacy and bolster its chances for foreign recognition. It would also deal northern morale a severe blow and boost the influence of those willing to let the South depart in peace.

The alternative was to send supplies and/or more troops to reinforce the garrison, thereby signaling Washington’s determination not to yield the fort. If this was done, the supply flotilla might well have to fight its way into Charleston harbor. Lincoln’s brilliantly elegant solution to the dilemma was to send Davis a message informing him that relief ships would be sent to resupply the garrison only with necessities; no attempt would be made to put more troops into the fort, and the supply units would fire no shots unless attacked.

Davis’ burden

A messenger carried this note to Davis well before the relief ships approached Charleston harbor. It cleverly transferred the burden of decision from Lincoln to Davis. If the ships were allowed to resupply the fort, the Confederacy would appear weak and indecisive, and the crisis would continue indefinitely. If the ships were fired on, or the fort attacked before they arrived, Davis would have started a war on Lincoln’s terms.

In deciding to attack the fort, Davis chose the lesser of two evils facing him. The South took its stand, and the North, as Lincoln had hoped, rallied to the union cause. Eighty years later, the attack on Pearl Harbor also united a deeply divided people as nothing else could have done.

Maury Klein is professor emeritus of history at the University of Rhode Island and the author of 15 books, including “Days of Defiance: Sumter, Secession, and the Coming of the Civil War.” She wrote this for The Free Lance-Star in Fredericksburg, Va. Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune.