Seward

“ The stranger who enters the hall of the United States Senate and casts his eye over the array of senators, will be not a little surprised, possibly somewhat amused, when William H. Seward is pointed out to him. Accustomed to think of Mr. Seward as one of the greatest men in the country, a first-class statesman, as well as orator—for he has read, not heard, his numberless speeches upon the subjects of the day—he expected to find a gentleman of imposing aspect, to discover the impressive appearance which awes the stranger, or the audience. ”

“ F.W. Seward, Life of W.H. Seward, Vol. 1, p. 719.
"I think you cannot leave the Journal without giving up the whole army to dissension and overthrow. I agree that if, by remaining, you save it, you only draw down double denunciation upon yourself and me. Nor do I see the way through and beyond that. But there will be some way through. I grant, then, that, for yourself and me, it is wise and profitable that you leave. I must be left without the possibility of restoration, without a defender, without an organ. Nothing else will satisfy those who think they are shaded. ”

“ Dr. Seward had little difficulty in finding the reverend gentleman of his search, and as briefly as possible he explained his errand, then laying the water stained paper before him, he waited with almost bated breath for the proof of its validity. ”

“ Seward feared that the country was in danger of suffering very seriously from a possible, if not indeed probable, mistake of the Administration. In the creed of his own statesmanship, there was no article that comprehended revenge as a just motive for action. No man had suffered more of personal obloquy from the South than he, no one living had received deeper personal injury from the demoniac spirit, the wicked inspiration of the rebellion. ”

“ Seward's position throughout was pathetic. His apologies and commonplace appeals for his Chief contrasted strangely with the courageous, powerful, and steady fight against the domination of slavery which characterised his former visits to Cleveland, and the men who had accepted him as their ardent champion deprecated both his acts andiii. ”

“ CHAPTER X. A BIT OF STRATEGY. SOMETIMES a story of Seward of Sacatone which deals with a series of connected incidents will be broken into fragments, and each fragment will be told and retold as complete in itself and as having no bearing on other incidents that made it plausible or possible.
Perhaps this is not to be wondered at; for when a really remarkable figure, such as Seward, appears in a thinly settled, inhospitable country and plays daringly and successfully the rôle of a righter of wrongs, his deeds are sure to become a popular topic in camps or in the settlements. ”

“ Therefore, many men who accepted him as leader because, indeed, they could not do without him—because none other in their camp had his genius for management, for the glorification of political intrigue—these same men followed him doubtfully, with bad grace, willing to shift to some other leader whenever he might arise. The clue to their distrust was Seward's amusement at the furious. Could a man who laughed when you preached on the beauty of the hewing of Agag, could such a man be sincere? ”

“ Yet no man toiled more sedulously in this campaign than Seward. "Harrison had his admirers, Clay his lovers," is the old way of putting it. To elect him, Whigs were ready to make any sacrifice, to endure any hardship, and to yield every prejudice. Fillmore was ubiquitous, delivering tariff and anti-Texas speeches that filled all mouths with praise and all hearts with principle, as Seward expressed it. ”

“ Seward's policy and by McClellan's strategy and war-bulletins the bravest and the most intelligent people became the laughing-stock of Europe and of the world. And thus is witnessed the hitherto in history unexampled phenomenon of a devoted and brave people of twenty millions, mastering all the wealth and the resources of modern civilization, worsted and kept at bay by four to five million rebels, likewise brave, but almost beggared, and cut off from all external communications. ”

“ When, at last, DeWitt C. Littlejohn, vacating the speaker's chair, took the floor for the distinguished New Yorker, the excitement reached its climax. The speaker's bold and fearless defence met a storm of personal denunciation that broke from the ranks of the Know-Nothings; but his speech minimised their opposition and inspired Seward's forces to work out a magnificent victory. "Our friends are in good spirits and reasonably confident," wrote Seward. "Our adversaries are not confident, and are out of temper." ”

“ I believe this was the feeling, which, at that moment, was in the heart of Captain Winslow. It was reserved for William H. Seward to utter the atrocious sentiment which has been recorded against him, in these pages. Mr. Seward is now an old man, and he has the satisfaction of reflecting that he is responsible for more of the woes which have fallen upon the American people, than [Pg 774] any other citizen of the once proud republic. He has worked, from first to last, for self, and he has met with the usual reward of the selfish—the contempt and neglect of all parties. ”

“ It is a fortunate thing for us that Seward has regained so much of the public confidence. He will feel himself strong enough not to be passionate or violent.” [93]
The Cabinet met at ten o’clock on the morning of Christmas day; probably only two members of it, Seward and Blair, were at that hour in favor of the surrender. Seward submitted the draft of his answer to Lord Lyons, complying with the British demand. ”

“ Three days later, on joint ballot, Seward received one hundred and twenty-one out of one hundred and thirty Whig votes. "We were always confident that the caucus could have but one result," said the Tribune, "and the lofty anticipations which the prospect of Seward's election has excited will not be disappointed."
Successful as Seward had been in his profession since leaving the office of governor, he was not entirely happy. "I look upon my life, busy as it is, as a waste," he wrote, in 1847. "I live in a world that needs my sympathies, but I have not even time nor opportunity to do good." ”

“ Seward avowed his firm faith in trial by jury and his opposition to all "human bondage," but he declined making ante-election pledges. He preferred to wait, he said, until each case came before him for decision. Seward undoubtedly took the wise course; but he did not satisfy the extremists represented by Smith, and many of the Whig leaders became panic-stricken. "The Philistines are upon us," wrote Millard Fillmore, who was canvassing the State. "I now regard all as lost irrevocably. We shall never be able to burst the withes. ”

“ Although the private secretary saw in this delay,—which he attributed to Mr. Seward's good sense,—no reason for changing his opinion about the views of the British government, he had no choice but to sit down again at his table, and go on copying papers, filing letters and reading newspaper accounts of the incapacity of Mr. Lincoln and the brutality of Mr. Seward,—or vice versa. The heavy months dragged on and winter slowly turned to spring without improving his position or spirits. Socially he had but one relief ”

“ I am not familiar with this cross trail.”
He helped her up, then lifted her bodily into the saddle; but he kept the reins in his own hands as he walked beside the horse.
“You remember what you told me at the spring by the hogback?” Seward asked as they plodded along.
“No; I forget; what happened seems more like a dream than anything else.”
“Perhaps,” said Seward, “I can refresh your memory. The bandidos, now; as I understand it, they were your friends and not your enemies. You were merely pretending.” ”

“ Their lives tell their stories. Taken together, these biographies contain the history, upon the civil side, of the war period. Seward represents the policy of the administration as a whole, for all civil business centred in the office of the secretary of state. He was a man of extraordinary ability. It is true that he made a strange blunder or two, at the outset, odd episodes in his intelligent, clear-sighted, cool-headed career,—psychologically interesting, as has been suggested ”

“ Such a candidate was found in Abraham Lincoln, upon whom all the elements of the opposition to Seward's nomination could, without much difficulty, be united. In the second place, not a few of those who had been among Seward's warmest supporters, were somewhat disenchanted—mortified might not be too strong a word—by the conspicuous appearance on the scene of the promiscuous crowd of New York politicians of the lower sort, who did but too much of the shouting for Seward, and thus forced themselves, in a somewhat repulsive manner, upon people's attention. ”

“ Seward and his colleagues,—and not they only but the whole nation,—have so thoroughly deceived themselves on this subject, have so talked and speechified themselves into a misunderstanding of the matter, that they have taught themselves to think that the men of the South could be entitled to no consideration from any quarter. ”

“ Our relations with these four powers were entirely peaceful; to use Seward’s own words less than three months before, “there is not a nation on earth that is not an interested, admiring friend.” [23] Seward had got it into his head that, if our nation should provoke a foreign war, the cotton States would unite in amity with the North and like brothers fight the common foe under the old flag. Lincoln of course saw that the foreign policy proposed was wild and foolish but ignored it in his considerate reply to “Some Thoughts for the President’s Consideration” ”

“ I learned from one of Lincoln's Illinois friends, whom I later saw in Rome, that the appointment in Crete was intended by the President as the recognition of the injustice with which Seward had treated my case. My experience of Seward's way of looking at public appointments and public interests, when crossed by his personal relations, certainly went to confirm the apprehensions of Mr. Fogg and his friends that Seward's personal following would stand between him and the best interests of the state. As Fogg used to put it, "He won't steal, himself, but he don't care how much his friends steal." ”

“ In the recent campaign Seward had attracted such attention and aroused such enthusiasm, that James Russell Lowell thought his magnanimity, since the result of the convention was known, "a greater ornament to him and a greater honour to his party than his election to the Presidency would have been." [396] Seward's friends had followed his example. "We all feel that New York and the friends of Seward have acted nobly," wrote Leonard Swett to Weed. ”

“ Seward's calm temper and of his attractive and forcible statement of the proper argument. Few among the public men of the United States have rivaled Mr. Seward in the dignity, felicity, and vigor which he imparted to an official paper. No one ever surpassed him. In the veto message under consideration his hand was evident in every paragraph; and if it had been President Johnson's good fortune to go down to posterity on this single issue with Congress, he might confidently have anticipated the verdict of history in his favor. ”

“ While in this careless order, Seward's vanguard found themselves suddenly within reach of a small but chosen body of troops, amounting to eight thousand men, commanded by Sir John Comyn, the guardian, and a gallant Scottish knight, Sir Simon Fraser. Seward was defeated, but the battle was scarce over when his second division came up. The Scots, flushed with victory, reestablished their ranks, and having cruelly put to death their prisoners, attacked and defeated the second body also. ”

“ Seward, with his thorough knowledge of international law rendered difficult the position of the captors; he equally increased the difficulty for the judge to administer justice. By this proclamation and the commentaries put on it, Mr. Seward curtailed the rights of the government of which he is a part, conceded undue conditions to the rebels, and facilitated to the neutrals the means of violating his blockade. (p. 149) So much is clear and palpable to-day, and I am sure more complications and imbecilities are in store. ”

“ I shall not be able to give you any information to-day as to the effect produced upon the public. Mr. Seward has begged me to keep the answer a secret until to-morrow. He intends to publish it in the newspapers here to-morrow, and has sent a copy to New York to be published simultaneously there. In the latter case it will be conveyed to the public in Europe, as well as to you, by the same packet which takes this letter. Mr. Seward told me he 'had been through the fires of Tophet' in order to get the prisoners surrendered. ”

“ But opponents had been industriously at work. They found that Republicans of Know-Nothing antecedents, especially in Pennsylvania, still disliked Seward's opposition to their Order, and that conservative Republicans recoiled from his doctrine of the higher law and the irrepressible conflict. Upon this broad foundation of unrest, the opposition adroitly builded, poisoning the minds of unsettled delegates with stories of his political methods and too close association with Thurlow Weed. No one questioned Seward's personal integrity ”

“ We know that Canon Seward wrote an elegiac poem on a young nobleman who was held to be dying, but who—perversely enough—recovered; whereupon the reverend eulogist changed the name, and transferred his heartfelt lamentations to another [241] youth whose death was fully assured. In the same business-like spirit Miss Seward paid back Mr. Hayley flattery for flattery, until even the slow-witted satirists of the period made merry over this commerce of applause. ”