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For his Cabinet he chose William H. Seward, Secretary of State; Salmon P. Chase, Secretary of the Treasury; Simon Cameron, Secretary of War; Gideon Wells, Secretary of the Navy; Caleb B. Smith, Secretary of the Interior; Edward Bates, Attorney-General; Montgomery Blair, Postmaster-General.
The Countess then thanked her guests for the honor they had done her castle, and they retired with protestations of their distinguished consideration. There is a form of moral courage which bears most directly upon ourselves. It is seen in the career of William H. Seward, who was given a thousand dollars by his father to go to college with, and told that this was all he was to have.
The leading candidate was William H. Seward, of New York, the most conspicuous man of the country on the Republican side, but the convention, after a sharp struggle, selected Lincoln, and then the great political battle came at the polls. The Republicans were victorious, and, as soon as the result of the voting was known, the South set to work to dissolve the Union.
But there were others. There was Seward, of my own State, whom I had been brought up to revere, and who seemed to me, in the struggle then going on, the incarnation of righteousness; there was Charles Sumner of Massachusetts, just recovering from the murderous blows given him by Preston Brooks of South Carolina, a martyr, as I held, to his devotion to freedom; there was John Parker Hale of New Hampshire, who had been virtually threatened with murder, as a penalty for his opposition to slavery; and there was bluff Ben Wade of Ohio, whose courage strengthened the whole North.
We are of those who at first regretted that another candidate was not nominated at Chicago; but we confess that we have ceased to regret it, for the magnanimity of Mr. Seward since the result of the Convention was known has been a greater ornament to him and a greater honor to his party than his election to the Presidency would have been. We should have been pleased with Mr.
Grant, however, was deeply impressed with the sincerity of their desire for peace, and he entreated Lincoln to receive them. Lincoln therefore decided to overlook the false pretence under which they came. He gave Grant strict orders not to delay his operations on this account, but he came himself with Seward and met Davis' three commissioners on a ship at Hampton Roads on February 3.
On the contrary, it has been my purpose, from the day of the nomination at Chicago, to assign you, by your leave, this place in the administration." Seward asked a few days for reflection, and then cordially accepted. Bates was tendered the Attorney-Generalship on December 15, while making a personal visit to Springfield. Word had been meanwhile sent to Smith that he would probably be included.
Seward was making an effort to place a great State paper on record, but the ars celare artem was altogether wanting; and, if I am not mistaken, he was without the art itself. I think he left the matter very much where he found it. The men, however, were to be surrendered, and the good policy consisted in this, that no delay was sought, no diplomatic ambiguities were put into request.
Secretary Seward, in his communication to Lord Lyons, the British Minister, which the President revised before it was sent, said, in the most emphatic terms, that international law, particularly the American intent of it, as recorded in all our policy that has become historic, was against us. He said: "This Government could not deny the justice of the claim presented.
While the rest of the Cabinet pressed their ears to the ground, Seward thought out a policy, made a forecast of the future, and offered to stake his head on the correctness of his reasoning. This may have been rashness; it may have been folly; but, intellectually at least, it was valor. Among Lincoln's other advisers, valor at that moment was lacking.
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