Chapter 64

LINCOLN, SEWARD, AND THE UNION

1860-1861

As the day approached for the opening of Congress on Monday, December 3, 1860, William H. Seward left Auburn for Washington. At this time he possessed the most powerful influence of any one in the Republican party. While other leaders, his rivals in eloquence and his peers in ability, exercised great authority, the wisdom of no one was more widely appreciated, or more frequently drawn upon. "Sumner, Trumbull, and Wade," says McClure, speaking from personal acquaintance, "had intellectual force, but Trumbull was a judge rather than a politician, Wade was oppressively blunt, and Sumner cultivated an ideal statesmanship that placed him outside the line of practical politics. Fessenden was more nearly a copy of Seward in temperament and discretion, but readily conceded the masterly ability of his colleague. Seward was not magnetic like Clay or Blaine, but he knew how to make all welcome who came within range of his presence."[664]

[Footnote 664: Alex. K. McClure, _Recollections of Half a Century_, pp. 213, 214.]

Thus far, since the election, Seward had remained silent upon the issues that now began to disturb the nation. Writing to Thurlow Weed on November 18, 1860, he declared he was "without schemes or plans, hopes, desires, or fears for the future, that need trouble anybody so far as I am concerned."[665] Nevertheless, he had scarcely reached the capital before he discovered that he was charged with being the author of Weed's compromise policy. "Here's a muss," he wrote, on December 3. "Republican members stopped at the _Tribune_ office on their way, and when they all lamented your articles, Dana told them they were not yours but mine; that I 'wanted to make a great compromise like Clay and Webster.'"[666]

[Footnote 665: F.W. Seward, _Life of W.H. Seward_, Vol. 2, p. 478.]

[Footnote 666: Thurlow Weed Barnes, _Life of Thurlow Weed_, Vol. 2, p. 308.]

To Republicans it did not seem possible that Weed's plan of conciliation, so carefully and ably presented, could be published without the assistance, or, at least, the approval of his warm personal and political friend,--an impression that gained readier credence because of the prompt acquiescence of the New York _Times_ and the _Courier_. Seward, however, quickly punctured Charles A. Dana's misinformation, and continued to keep his own counsels. "I talk very little, and nothing in detail," he wrote his wife, on December 2; "but I am engaged busily in studying and gathering my thoughts for the Union."[667] To Weed, on the same day, he gave the political situation. "South Carolina is committed. Georgia will debate, but she probably follows South Carolina. Mississippi and Alabama likely to follow.... Members are coming in, all in confusion. Nothing can be agreed on in advance, but silence for the present, which I have insisted must not be _sullen_, as last year, but respectful and fraternal."[668]

[Footnote 667: F.W. Seward, _Life of W.H. Seward_, Vol. 2, p. 479.]

[Footnote 668: Thurlow Weed Barnes, _Life of Thurlow Weed_, Vol. 2, pp. 307, 308.]

Seward, who had now been in Washington several days, had not broken silence even to his Republican colleagues in the Senate, and "to smoke him out," as one of them expressed it, a caucus was called. But it failed of its purpose. "Its real object," he wrote Weed, "was to find out whether I authorised the _Evening Journal_, _Times_, and _Courier_ articles. I told them they would know what I think and what I propose when I do myself. The Republican party to-day is as uncompromising as the secessionists in South Carolina. A month hence each may come to think that moderation is wiser."[669]

[Footnote 669: _Ibid._, Vol. 2, p. 308.]

It is not easy to determine from his correspondence just what was in Seward's mind from the first to the thirteenth of December, but it is plain that he was greatly disturbed. Nothing seemed to please him. Weed's articles perplexed[670] him; his colleagues distrusted[671] him; the debates in the Senate were hasty and feeble;[672] few had any courage or confidence in the Union;[673] and the action of the Sumner radicals annoyed him.[674] Rhodes, the historian, says he was wavering.[675] He was certainly waiting,--probably to hear from Lincoln; but while he waited his epigrammatic criticism of Buchanan's message, which he wrote his wife on December 5, got into the newspapers and struck a popular note. "The message shows conclusively," he said, "that it is the duty of the President to execute the laws--unless somebody opposes him; and that no State has a right to go out of the Union--unless it wants to."[676]

[Footnote 670: "Weed's articles have brought perplexities about me which he, with all his astuteness, did not foresee."--F.W. Seward, _Life of W.H. Seward_, Vol. 2, p. 480.]

[Footnote 671: "Our senators agree with me to practise reticence and kindness. But others fear that I will figure, and so interfere and derange all."--_Ibid._, p. 480.]

[Footnote 672: "The debates in the Senate are hasty, feeble, inconclusive and unsatisfactory; presumptuous on the part of the ill-tempered South; feeble and frivolous on the part of the North."--_Ibid._, p. 481.]

[Footnote 673: "All is apprehension about the Southern demonstrations. No one has any system, few any courage, or confidence in the Union, in this emergency."--_Ibid._, p. 478.]

[Footnote 674: "Charles Sumner's lecture in New York brought a 'Barnburner' or Buffalo party around him. They gave nine cheers for the passage in which he describes Lafayette as rejecting all and every compromise, and the knowing ones told him those cheers laid out Thurlow Weed, and then he came and told me, of course."--Thurlow Weed Barnes, _Life of Thurlow Weed_, Vol. 2, p. 308.]

[Footnote 675: "While the evidence is not positive that Seward contemplated heading a movement of Republicans that would have resulted in the acceptance by them of a plan similar in essence to the Crittenden compromise, yet his private correspondence shows that he was wavering, and gives rise to the belief that the pressure of Weed, Raymond, and Webb would have outweighed that of his radical Republican colleagues if he had not been restrained by the unequivocal declarations of Lincoln."--James F. Rhodes, _History of the United States_, Vol. 3, p. 157.]

[Footnote 676: F.W. Seward, _Life of W.H. Seward_, Vol. 2, p. 480.]

On December 13 Seward received the desired letter from the President-elect, formally tendering him the office of secretary of state. The proffer was not unexpected. Press and politicians had predicted it and conceded its propriety. "From the day of my nomination at Chicago," Lincoln said, in an informal and confidential letter of the same day, "it has been my purpose to assign you, by your leave, this place in the Administration. I have delayed so long to communicate that purpose, in deference to what appeared to me a proper caution in the case. Nothing has been developed to change my view in the premises; and I now offer you the place in the hope that you will accept it, and with the belief that your position in the public eye, your integrity, ability, learning, and great experience all combine to render it an appointment pre-eminently fit to be made."[677]

[Footnote 677: Nicolay and Hay, _Abraham Lincoln_, Vol. 3, p. 349.]

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."[678] 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.[679] A month after the offer of the portfolio had been made, Lincoln wrote Seward that "your selection for the state department having become public, I am happy to find scarcely any objection to it. I shall have trouble with every other cabinet appointment--so much so, that I shall have to defer them as long as possible, to avoid being teased into insanity, to make changes."[680]

[Footnote 678: _Atlantic Monthly_, October, 1860; _Lowell's Political Essays_, p. 34.]

[Footnote 679: Thurlow Weed Barnes, _Life of Thurlow Weed_, Vol. 2, p. 301.]

[Footnote 680: F.W. Seward, _Life of W.H. Seward_, Vol. 2, p. 493.]

In 1849, Seward had thought the post of minister, or even secretary of state, without temptations for him, but, in 1860, amidst the gathering clouds of a grave crisis, the championship of the Union in a great political arena seemed to appeal, in an exceptional degree, to his desire to help guide the destinies of his country; and, after counselling with Weed at Albany, and with his wife at Auburn, he wrote the President-elect that he thought it his duty to accept the appointment.[681] Between the time of its tender and of its acceptance Seward had gained a clear understanding of Lincoln's views; for, after his conference with Weed, the latter visited Springfield and obtained a written statement from the President-elect. This statement has never appeared in print, but it practically embodied the sentiment written Kellogg and Washburn, and which was received by them after Seward left Washington for Auburn.

[Footnote 681: F.W. Seward, _Life of W.H. Seward_, Vol. 2, pp. 481, 487.]

With this information the Senator returned to the capital, stopping over night at the Astor House in New York, where he unexpectedly found the New England Society celebrating Forefathers' Day. The knowledge of his arrival quickly reached the banqueters. They knew that Weed had seen Lincoln, and that, to hear the tidings from Springfield, Seward had travelled with his friend from Syracuse to Albany. Eagerly, therefore, they pressed him for a speech, for words spoken by the man who would occupy the first place in Lincoln's Cabinet, meant to the business men of the great metropolis, distracted by the disturbed conditions growing out of the disunion movement, words of national salvation. Seward never spoke from impulse. He understood the value of silence and the necessity of thought before utterance. All of his many great speeches were prepared in a most painstaking manner. But, as many members of the society were personal or political friends, he consented to address them, talking briefly and with characteristic optimism, though without disclosing Lincoln's position or his own on the question of compromise. "I know that the necessities which created this Union," he said, in closing, "are stronger to-day than they were when the Union was cemented; and that these necessities are as enduring as the passions of men are short-lived and effervescent. I believe that the cause of secession was as strong, on the night of November 6, when the President and Vice President were elected, as it has been at any time. Some fifty days have now passed; and I believe that every day the sun has set since that time, it has set upon mollified passions and prejudices; and if you will only await the time, sixty more suns will shed a light and illuminate a more cheerful atmosphere."[682]

[Footnote 682: New York _Times_, December 24, 1860.]

This speech has been severely criticised for its unseemly jest, its exuberant optimism, and its lack of directness. It probably discloses, in the copy published the next morning, more levity than it seemed to possess when spoken, with its inflections and intonations, while its optimism, made up of hopeful generalities which were not true, and of rhetorical phrases that could easily be misapprehended, appeared to sustain the suggestion that he did not realise the critical juncture of affairs. But the assertion that he predicted the "war will be over in sixty days" was a ridiculous perversion of his words. No war existed at that time, and his "sixty suns" plainly referred to the sixty days that must elapse before Lincoln's inauguration. Nevertheless, the "sixty days prediction," as it was called, was repeated and believed for many years.

The feature of the speech that makes it peculiarly interesting, however, is its strength in the advocacy of the Union. Seward believed that he had a difficult role to play. Had he so desired he could not support the restoration of the Missouri Compromise line, for the President-elect had ruled inflexibly against it; neither could he openly oppose it, lest it hurry the South into some overt act of treason before Lincoln's inauguration. So he began exalting the Union, skilfully creating the impression, at least by inference, that he would not support the compromise, although his hearers and readers held to the belief that he would have favoured it had he not submitted to Lincoln's leadership by accepting the state department.

During Seward's absence from Washington he was placed upon the Senate committee of thirteen to consider the Crittenden compromise. It was admitted that the restoration of the Missouri line was the nub of the controversy; that, unless it could be accepted, compromise would fail; and that failure meant certain secession. "War of a most bitter and sanguinary character will be sure to follow," wrote Senator Grimes of Iowa.[683] "The heavens are, indeed, black," said Dawes of Massachusetts, "and an awful storm is gathering. I am well-nigh appalled at its awful and inevitable consequences."[684] Seward did not use words of such alarming significance, but he appreciated the likelihood of secession. On December 26 he wrote Lincoln that "sedition will be growing weaker and loyalty stronger every day from the acts of secession as they occur;" but, in the same letter, he added: "South Carolina has already taken the attitude of defiance. Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana have pushed on to the same attitude. I think that they could not be arrested, even if we should offer all you suggest, and with it the restoration of the Missouri Compromise line."[685] To his wife, also, to whom alone he confided his secret thoughts, he wrote, on the same day: "The South will force on the country the issue that the free States shall admit that slaves are property, and treat them as such, or else there will be a secession."[686]

[Footnote 683: William Salter, _Life of James W. Grimes_, p. 132. Letter of December 16, 1860.]

[Footnote 684: New York _Tribune_, December 24, 1860.]

[Footnote 685: F.W. Seward, _Life of W.H. Seward_, Vol. 2, p. 485.]

[Footnote 686: _Ibid._, p. 486.]

Nevertheless, the Republican senators of the committee of thirteen, inspired by the firm attitude of Lincoln, voted against the first resolution of the Crittenden compromise. They consented that Congress should have no power either to abolish slavery in the District of Columbia without compensation and the consent of its inhabitants, or to prohibit the transportation of slaves between slave-holding States and territories; but they refused to protect slavery south of the Missouri line, especially since such an amendment, by including future acquisitions of territory, would, as Lincoln declared, popularise filibustering for all south of us. "A year will not pass till we shall have to take Cuba as a condition upon which they will stay in the Union."[687]

[Footnote 687: Nicolay and Hay, _Abraham Lincoln_, Vol. 3, p. 288.]

Upon the failure of the Crittenden compromise, Seward, on the part of the Republicans, offered five propositions, declaring (1) that the Constitution should never be altered so as to authorise Congress to abolish or interfere with slavery in the States; (2) that the fugitive slave law should be amended by granting a jury trial to the fugitive; (3) that Congress recommend the repeal by the States of personal liberty acts which contravene the Constitution or the laws; (4) that Congress pass an efficient law for the punishment of all persons engaged in the armed invasion of any State from another; and (5) to admit into the Union the remaining territory belonging to the United States as two States, one north and one south of the parallel of 36° 30´, with the provision that these States might be subdivided and new ones erected therefrom whenever there should be sufficient population for one representative in Congress upon sixty thousand square miles.[688] Only the first of these articles was adopted. Southern Democrats objected to the second on principle, and to the third on the ground that it would affect their laws imprisoning coloured seamen, while they defeated the fourth by amending it into Douglas' suggestion for the revival of the sedition law of John Adams' administration.[689] This made it unacceptable to the Republicans. The fifth failed because it gave the South no opportunity of acquiring additional slave lands. On December 28, therefore, the committee, after adopting a resolution that it could not agree, closed its labours.

[Footnote 688: Journal of the Committee of Thirteen, pp. 10, 13.]

[Footnote 689: F.W. Seward, _Life of W.H. Seward_, Vol. 2, p. 484.]

This seemed to Jefferson Davis, who, in 1860, had assumed the leadership laid down by John C. Calhoun in 1850, to end all effort at compromise, and, on January 10, 1861, in a carefully prepared speech, he argued the right of secession. Finally, turning to the Republicans, he said: "Your platform on which you elected your candidate denies us equality. Your votes refuse to recognise our domestic institutions which pre-existed the formation of the Union, our property which was guarded by the Constitution. You refuse us that equality without which we should be degraded if we remained in the Union. You elect a candidate upon the basis of sectional hostility; one who, in his speeches, now thrown broadcast over the country, made a distinct declaration of war upon our institutions.... What boots it to tell me that no direct act of aggression will be made? I prefer direct to indirect hostile measures which will produce the same result. I prefer it, as I prefer an open to a secret foe. Is there a senator upon the other side who to-day will agree that we shall have equal enjoyment of the territories of the United States? Is there one who will deny that we have equally paid in their purchases, and equally bled in their acquisition in war? Then, is this the observance of your contract? Whose is the fault if the Union be dissolved?"[690]

[Footnote 690: _Congressional Globe_, pp. 308, 309.]

The country looked to Seward to make answer to these direct questions. Southern States were hurrying out of the Union. South Carolina had seceded on December 20, Mississippi on January 9, Florida on the 10th, and Alabama on the 11th. Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas were preparing to follow. The people felt that if a settlement was to come it must be made quickly. "Your propositions would have been most welcome if they had been made before any question of coercion, and before any vain boastings of powers," Davis had said. "But you did not make them when they would have been effective. I presume you will not make them now."[691]

[Footnote 691: _Ibid._, p. 307.]

If the position of the New York senator had been an embarrassing one at the Astor House on December 22, it was much more difficult on January 12. He had refused to vote for the Crittenden compromise. Moreover, the only proposition he had to make stood rejected by the South. What could he say, therefore, that would settle anything? Yet the desire to hear him was intense. An eye-witness described the scene as almost unparalleled in the Senate. "By ten o'clock," wrote this observer, "every seat in the gallery was filled, and by eleven the cloak-rooms and all the passages were choked up, and a thousand men and women stood outside the doors, although the speech was not to begin until one o'clock. Several hundred visitors came on from Baltimore. It was the fullest house of the session, and by far the most respectful one."[692] Such was the faith of the South in Seward's unbounded influence with Northern senators and Northern people that the Richmond _Whig_ asserted that his vote for the Crittenden compromise "would give peace at once to the country."[693]

[Footnote 692: F.W. Seward, _Life of W.H. Seward_, Vol. 2, p. 493.]

[Footnote 693: The Richmond _Whig_, January 17, 1861.]

Seward was not unmindful of this influence. "My own party trusts me," he wrote, "but not without reservation. All the other parties, North and South, cast themselves upon me."[694] Judged by his letters at this period, it is suggested that he had an overweening sense of his own importance; he thought that he held in his hands the destinies of his country.[695] However this may be, it is certain that he wanted to embarrass Lincoln by no obstacles of his making. "I must gain time," he said, "for the new Administration to organise and for the frenzy of passion to subside. I am doing this, without making any compromise whatever, by forbearance, conciliation, magnanimity. What I say and do is said and done, not in view of personal objects, and I am leaving to posterity to decide upon my action and conduct."[696]

[Footnote 694: F.W. Seward, _Life of W.H. Seward_, Vol. 2, p. 494.]

[Footnote 695: "I will try to save freedom and my country," Seward wrote his wife.--F.W. Seward, _Life of W.H. Seward_, Vol. 2, p. 487. "I have assumed a sort of dictatorship for defence, and am labouring night and day with the cities and States."--_Ibid._, 491. "I am the only hopeful, calm, conciliatory person."--_Ibid._, 497. "It seems to me that if I am absent only three days, this Administration, the Congress, and the district would fall into consternation and despair."--_Ibid._, 497. "The present Administration and the incoming one unite in devolving upon me the responsibility of averting civil war."--_Ibid._, 497.]

[Footnote 696: F.W. Seward, _Life of W.H. Seward_, Vol. 2, p. 497.]

In this spirit Seward made his speech of January 12. He discussed the fallacies of secession, showing that it had no grounds, or even excuse, and declaring that disunion must lead to civil war. Then he avowed his adherence to the Union in its integrity and in every event, "whether of peace or of war, with every consequence of honour or dishonour, of life or death." Referring to the disorder, he said: "I know not to what extent it may go. Still my faith in the Constitution and in the Union abides. Whatever dangers there shall be, there will be the determination to meet them. Whatever sacrifices, private or public, shall be needful for the Union, they will be made. I feel sure that the hour has not come for this great nation to fall."

In blazing the new line of thought which characterised his speech at the Astor House, Seward rose to the plane of higher patriotism, and he now broadened and enlarged the idea. During the presidential campaign, he said, the struggle had been for and against slavery. That contest having ended by the success of the Republicans in the election, the struggle was now for and against the Union. "Union is not more the body than liberty is the soul of the nation. Freedom can be saved with the Union, and cannot be saved without it." He deprecated mutual criminations and recriminations, a continuance of the debate over slavery in the territories, the effort to prove secession illegal, and the right of the federal government to coerce seceding States. He wanted the Union glorified, its blessings exploited, the necessity of its existence made manifest, and the love of country substituted for the prejudice of faction and the pride of party. When this millennial day had come, when secession movements had ended and the public mind had resumed its wonted calm, then a national convention might be called--say, in one, two, or three years hence, to consider the matter of amending the Constitution.[697]

[Footnote 697: New York _Tribune_, January 14, 1861. _Seward's Works_, Vol. 4, p. 651.]

This speech was listened to with deep attention. "During the delivery of portions of it," said one correspondent, "senators were in tears. When the sad picture of the country, divided into confederacies, was given, Mr. Crittenden, who sat immediately before the orator, was completely overcome by his emotions, and bowed his white head to weep."[698] The _Tribune_ considered it "rhetorically and as a literary performance unsurpassed by any words of Seward's earlier productions,"[699] and Whittier, charmed with its conciliatory tone, paid its author a noble tribute in one of his choicest poems.[700] But the country was disappointed. The Richmond _Enquirer_, representing the Virginia secessionists, maintained that it destroyed the last hope of compromise, because he gave up nothing, not even prejudices, to save peace in the Union. For the same reason, Union men of Kentucky and other border States turned from it with profound grief. On the other hand, the radical Republicans, disappointed that it did not contain more powder and shot, charged him with surrendering his principles and those of his party, to avert civil war and dissolution of the Union. But the later-day historian, however, readily admits that the rhetorical words of this admirable speech had an effectual influence in making fidelity to the Union, irrespective of previous party affiliations, a rallying point for Northern men.

[Footnote 698: F.W. Seward, _Life of W.H. Seward_, Vol. 2, p. 494.]

[Footnote 699: New York _Tribune_ (editorial), January 14, 1861.]

[Footnote 700: TO WILLIAM H. SEWARD.

"Statesman, I thank thee!--and if yet dissent Mingles, reluctant, with my large content, I can not censure what was nobly meant. But while constrained to hold even Union less Than Liberty, and Truth, and Righteousness, I thank thee, in the sweet and holy name Of Peace, for wise, calm words, that put to shame Passion and party. Courage may be shown Not in defiance of the wrong alone; He may be bravest, who, unweaponed, bears The olive branch, and strong in justice spares The rash wrong-doer, giving widest scope To Christian charity, and generous hope. If without damage to the sacred cause Of Freedom, and the safeguard of its laws-- If, without yielding that for which alone We prize the Union, thou canst save it now, From a baptism of blood, upon thy brow A wreath whose flowers no earthly soil has known Woven of the beatitudes, shall rest; And the peacemaker be forever blest!"]

As the recognised representative of the President-elect, Seward now came into frequent conference with loyal men of both sections and of all parties, including General Scott and the new members of Buchanan's Cabinet. John A. Dix had become secretary of the treasury, Edwin Stanton attorney-general, and Jeremiah S. Black secretary of state. Seward knew them intimately, and with Black he conferred publicly. With Stanton, however, it seemed advisable to select midnight as the hour and a basement as the place of conference. "At length," he wrote Lincoln, "I have gotten a position in which I can see what is going on in the councils of the President."[701] To his wife, he adds: "The revolution gathers apace. It has its abettors in the White House, the treasury, the interior. I have assumed a sort of dictatorship for defence."[702] He advised the President-elect to reach Washington somewhat earlier than usual, and suggested having his secretaries of war and navy designated that they might co-operate in measures for the public safety. Under his advice, on the theory that the national emblem would strengthen wavering minds and develop Union sentiment, flags began to appear on stores and private residences. Seward was ablaze with zeal. "Before I spoke," he wrote Weed, "not one utterance made for the Union elicited a response. Since I spoke, every word for the Union brings forth a cheering response."[703]

[Footnote 701: F.W. Seward, _Life of W.H. Seward_, Vol. 2, p. 488.]

[Footnote 702: _Ibid._, p. 490.]

[Footnote 703: F.W. Seward, _Life of W.H. Seward_, Vol. 2, p. 497.

"In regard to February, 1861, I need only say that I desired to avoid giving the secession leaders the excuse and opportunity to open the civil war before the new Administration and new Congress could be in authority to subdue it. I conferred throughout with General Scott, and Mr. Stanton, then in Mr. Buchanan's Cabinet. I presume I conversed with others in a way that seemed to me best calculated to leave the inauguration of a war to the secessionists, and to delay it, in any case, until the new Administration should be in possession of the Government. On the 22d of February, in concert with Mr. Stanton, I caused the United States flag to be displayed throughout all the northern and western portions of the United States." Letters of W.H. Seward, June 13, 1867.--William Schouler, _Massachusetts in the Civil War_, Vol. 1, pp. 41, 42.]

But, amidst it all, Seward's enemies persistently charged him with inclining to the support of the Crittenden compromise. "We have positive information from Washington," declared the _Tribune_, "that a compromise on the basis of Mr. Crittenden's is sure to be carried through Congress either this week or the next, provided a very few more Republicans can be got to enlist in the enterprise.... Weed goes with the Breckenridge Democrats.... The same is true, though less decidedly, of Seward."[704] It is probable that in the good-fellowship of after-dinner conversations Seward's optimistic words and "mysterious allusions,"[705] implied more than he intended them to convey, but there is not a private letter or public utterance on which to base the _Tribune's_ statements. Greeley's attacks, however, became frequent now. Having at last swung round to the "no compromise" policy of the radical wing of his party, he found it easy to condemn the attitude of Weed and the Unionism of Seward, against whom his lieutenants at Albany were waging a fierce battle for his election as United States senator.

[Footnote 704: New York _Tribune_, January 29 and February 6, 1861.]

[Footnote 705: A writer in the _North American Review_ (August, 1879, p. 135) speaks of the singular confidence of Siddon of Virginia (afterwards secretary of war of the Southern Confederacy) in Mr. Seward, and the mysterious allusions to the skilful plans maturing for an adjustment of sectional difficulties.]

On January 31, Seward had occasion to present a petition, with thirty-eight thousand signatures, which William E. Dodge and other business men of New York had brought to Washington, praying for "the exercise of the best wisdom of Congress in finding some plan for the adjustment of the troubles which endanger the safety of the nation," and in laying it before the Senate he took occasion to make another plea for the Union. "I have asked them," he said, "that at home they act in the same spirit, and manifest their devotion to the Union, above all other interests, by speaking for the Union, by voting for the Union, by lending and giving their money for the Union, and, in the last resort, fighting for the Union--taking care, always, that speaking goes before voting, voting goes before giving money, and all go before a battle. This is the spirit in which I have determined for myself to come up to this great question, and to pass through it."

Senator Mason of Virginia, declaring that "a maze of generalities masked the speech," pressed Seward as to what he meant by "contributing money for the Union." Seward replied: "I have recommended to them in this crisis, that they sustain the government of this country with the credit to which it is entitled at their hands." To this Mason said: "I took it for granted that the money was to sustain the army which was to conduct the fight that he recommends to his people." Seward responded: "If, then, this Union is to stand or fall by the force of arms, I have advised my people to do, as I shall be ready to do myself--stand with it or perish with it." To which the Virginia Senator retorted: "The honourable senator proposes but one remedy to restore this Union, and that is the _ultima ratio regna_." Seward answered quickly, "Not to restore--preserve!"

Mason then referred to Seward's position as one of battle and bloodshed, to be fought on Southern soil, for the purpose of reducing the South to colonies. To Seward, who was still cultivating the attitude of "forbearance, conciliation, and magnanimity," this sounded like a harsh conclusion of the position he had sought to sugar-coat with much rhetoric, and, in reply, he pushed bloodshed into the far-off future by restating what he had already declared in fine phrases, closing as follows: "Does not the honourable senator know that when all these [suggestions for compromise] have failed, then the States of this Union, according to the forms of the Constitution, shall take up this controversy about twenty-four negro slaves scattered over a territory of one million and fifty thousand square miles, and say whether they are willing to sacrifice all this liberty, all this greatness, and all this hope, because they have not intelligence, wisdom, and virtue enough to adjust a controversy so frivolous and contemptible."[706]

[Footnote 706: W.H. Seward, _Works of_, Vol. 4, p. 670. _Congressional Globe_, 1861, p. 657.]

Seward's speech plainly indicated a purpose to fight for the preservation of the Union, and his talk of first exhausting conciliatory methods was accepted in the South simply as a "resort to the gentle powers of seduction,"[707] but his argument of the few slaves in the great expanse of territory sounded so much like Weed, who was advocating with renewed strength the Crittenden plan along similar lines of devotion to the Union, that it kept alive in the North the impression that the Senator would yet favour compromise, and gave Greeley further opportunity to assail him. "Seward, in his speech on Thursday last," says the _Tribune_, "declares his readiness to renounce Republican principles for the sake of the Union."[708] The next day his strictures were more pronounced. "The Republican party ... is to be divided and sacrificed if the thing can be done. We are boldly told it must be suppressed, and a Union party rise upon its ruins."[709] Yet, in spite of such criticism, Seward bore himself with indomitable courage and with unfailing skill. Never during his whole career did he prove more brilliant and resourceful as a leader in what might be called an utterly hopeless parliamentary struggle for the preservation of the Union, and the highest tributes[710] paid to his never-failing tact and temper during some of the most vivid and fascinating passages of congressional history, attest his success. It was easy to say, with Senator Chandler of Michigan, that "without a little blood-letting this Union will not be worth a rush,"[711] but it required great skill to speak for the preservation of the Union and the retention of the cornerstone of the Republican party, without grieving the Unionists of the border States, or painfully affecting the radical Republicans of the Northern States. Seward knew that the latter censured him, and in a letter to the _Independent_ he explains the cause of it. "Twelve years ago," he wrote, "freedom was in danger and the Union was not. I spoke then so singly for freedom that short-sighted men inferred that I was disloyal to the Union. To-day, practically, freedom is not in danger, and Union is. With the attempt to maintain Union by civil war, _wantonly_ brought on, there would be danger of reaction against the Administration charged with the preservation of both freedom and Union. Now, therefore, I speak singly for Union, striving, if possible, to save it peaceably; if not possible, then to cast the responsibility upon the party of slavery. For this singleness of speech I am now suspected of infidelity to freedom."[712]

[Footnote 707: "Oily Gammon Seward, aware that intimidation will not do, is going to resort to the gentle powers of seduction."--Washington correspondent of Charleston _Mercury_, February 19, 1861.]

[Footnote 708: New York _Tribune_, February 4, 1861.]

[Footnote 709: New York _Tribune_, February 5, 1861.]

[Footnote 710: "I have rejoiced, as you of New York must certainly have done, in the spirit of conciliation which has repeatedly been manifested, during the present session of Congress, by your distinguished senator, Governor Seward." Robert C. Winthrop to the Constitutional Union Committee of Troy, February 17.--_Winthrop's Addresses and Speeches_, Vol. 2, p. 701. "If Mr. Seward moves in favour of compromise, the whole Republican party sways like a field of grain before his breath." Letter of Oliver Wendell Holmes, February 16, 1861.--_Motley's Correspondence_, Vol. 1, p. 360.]

[Footnote 711: Detroit _Post and Tribune_; _Life of Zachariah Chandler_, p. 189.]

[Footnote 712: Letter to Dr. Thompson of the New York _Independent_. F.W. Seward, _Life of W.H. Seward_, Vol. 2, p. 507.]

Lincoln, after his arrival in Washington, asked Seward to suggest such changes in his inaugural address as he thought advisable, and in the performance of this delicate duty the New York Senator continued his policy of conciliation. "I have suggested," he wrote, in returning the manuscript, "many changes of little importance, severally, but in their general effect, tending to soothe the public mind. Of course the concessions are, as they ought to be, if they are to be of avail, at the cost of the winning, the triumphant party. I do not fear their displeasure. They will be loyal whatever is said. Not so the defeated, irritated, angered, frenzied party.... Your case is quite like that of Jefferson. He brought the first Republican party into power against and over a party ready to resist and dismember the government. Partisan as he was, he sank the partisan in the patriot, in his inaugural address; and propitiated his adversaries by declaring, 'We are all Federalists; all Republicans.' I could wish that you would think it wise to follow this example, in this crisis. Be sure that while all your administrative conduct will be in harmony with Republican principles and policy, you cannot lose the Republican party by practising, in your advent to office, the magnanimity of a victor."[713]

[Footnote 713: F.W. Seward, _Life of W.H. Seward_, Vol. 2, p. 512.]

Of thirty-four changes suggested by Seward, the President-elect adopted twenty-three outright, and based modifications on eight others. Three were ignored. Upon only one change did the Senator really insist. He thought the two paragraphs relating to the Republican platform adopted at Chicago should be omitted, and, in obedience to his judgment, Lincoln left them out. Seward declared the argument of the address strong and conclusive, and ought not in any way be changed or modified, "but something besides, or in addition to argument, is needful," he wrote in a postscript, "to meet and remove _prejudice_ and _passion_ in the South, and _despondency_ and _fear_ in the East. Some words of affection. Some of calm and cheerful confidence."[714] In line with this suggestion, he submitted the draft of two concluding paragraphs. The first, "made up of phrases which had become extremely commonplace by iteration in the six years' slavery discussion," was clearly inadmissible.[715] The second was as follows: "I close. We are not, we must not be, aliens or enemies, but fellow countrymen and brethren. Although passion has strained our bonds of affection too hardly, they must not, I am sure they will not, be broken. The mystic chords which, proceeding from so many battlefields and so many patriot graves, pass through all the hearts and all the hearths in this broad continent of ours, will yet again harmonise in their ancient music when breathed upon by the guardian angel of the nation."

[Footnote 714: F.W. Seward, _Life of W.H. Seward_, Vol. 3, p. 513.]

[Footnote 715: Nicolay and Hay, _Abraham Lincoln_, Vol. 3, p. 343, _note_.]

This was the germ of a fine poetic thought, says John Hay, that "Mr. Lincoln took, and, in a new development and perfect form, gave to it the life and spirit and beauty which have made it celebrated." As it appears in the President-elect's clear, firm handwriting, it reads as follows: "I am loth to close. 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 battlefield, 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."[716]

[Footnote 716: _Ibid._, pp. 343, 344, and _note_.

For fac-simile of the paragraph as written by Seward and rewritten by Lincoln, see _Ibid._, Vol. 3, p. 336. For the entire address, with all suggested and adopted changes, see _Ibid._, Vol. 3, pp. 327 to 344.

At Seward's dinner table on the evening of March 4, the peroration of the inaugural address was especially commended by A. Oakey Hall, afterward mayor of New York, who quickly put it into rhyme:

"The mystic chords of Memory That stretch from patriot graves; From battlefields to living hearts, Or hearth-stones freed from slaves, An Union chorus shall prolong, And grandly, proudly swell, When by those better angels touched Who in all natures dwell."]

The spirit that softened Lincoln's inaugural into an appeal that touched every heart, had breathed into the debates of Congress the conciliation and forbearance that marked the divide between the conservative and radical Republican. This difference, at the last moment, occasioned Lincoln much solicitude. He had come to Washington with his Cabinet completed except as to a secretary of the treasury and a secretary of war. For the latter place Seward preferred Simon Cameron, and, in forcing the appointment by his powerful advocacy, he dealt a retributive blow to Governor Curtin of Pennsylvania, who had vigorously opposed him at Chicago and was now the most conspicuous of Cameron's foes.[717] But Senator Chase of Ohio, to whom Seward strenuously objected because of his uncompromising attitude, was given the treasury. The shock of this defeat led the New York Senator to decline entering the Cabinet. "Circumstances which have occurred since I expressed my willingness to accept the office of secretary of state," he wrote, on March 2, "seem to me to render it my duty to ask leave to withdraw that consent."[718]

[Footnote 717: "Seward and his friends were greatly offended at the action of Curtin at Chicago. I was chairman of the Lincoln state committee and fighting the pivotal struggle of the national battle, but not one dollar of assistance came from New York, and my letters to Thurlow Weed and to Governor Morgan, chairman of the national committee, were unanswered. Seward largely aided the appointment of a Cabinet officer in Pennsylvania, who was the most conspicuous of Curtin's foes, and on Curtin's visit to Seward as secretary of state, he gave him such a frigid reception that he never thereafter called at that department."--Alex. K. McClure, _Recollections of Half a Century_, p. 220.]

[Footnote 718: Nicolay and Hay, _Abraham Lincoln_, Vol. 3, p. 370.]

The reception of the unexpected note sent a shiver through Lincoln's stalwart form. This was the man of men with whom for weeks he had confidentially conferred, and upon whose judgment and information he had absolutely relied and acted, "I cannot afford to let Seward take the first trick," he said to his secretary,[719] after pondering the matter during Sunday, and on Monday morning, while the inauguration procession was forming, he penned a reply. "Your note," he said, "is the subject of the most painful solicitude with me; and I feel constrained to beg that you will countermand the withdrawal. The public interest, I think, demands that you should; and my personal feelings are deeply enlisted in the same direction. Please consider and answer by nine o'clock a.m. to-morrow." That night, after the day's pageant and the evening's reception had ended, the President and Seward talked long and confidentially, resulting in the latter's withdrawal of his letter and his nomination and confirmation as secretary of state. "The President is determined that he will have a compound Cabinet," Seward wrote his wife, a few days after the unhappy incident; "and that it shall be peaceful, and even permanent. I was at one time on the point of refusing--nay, I did refuse, for a time, to hazard myself in the experiment. But a distracted country appeared before me, and I withdrew from that position. I believe I can endure as much as any one; and may be that I can endure enough to make the experiment successful."[720]

[Footnote 719: _Ibid._, Vol. 3, p. 371.]

[Footnote 720: F.W. Seward, _Life of W.H. Seward_, Vol. 2, p. 518.]