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The Republicans had no division among themselves upon doctrine. Such division as existed was due to the ordinary rivalry of political leaders. In the opinion of all his enemies and of most Americans, Seward was the Republican man of the hour.
Charles A. Dana relates a circumstance which hints at the troubles encountered by Lincoln in this province of his Presidential duties. "The first time I saw Mr. Lincoln," says Mr. Dana, "was shortly after his inauguration. He had appointed Mr. Seward to be his Secretary of State; and some of the Republican leaders of New York, who had been instrumental in preventing Mr.
I guess that Seward carefully nurses the weed as the easiest way to dominate over and to handle a feeble mind. Since Mr. Mercier judges by his own eyes, and not by those of former various Washington associations, his inborn soundness and perspicacity have the upper hand.
In New York the influence of Greeley, Seward, and Weed prolonged the Whig organization as an anti-Nebraska party. The roster of the new Congress was a jumble of Democrats, Whigs, Republicans, Americans, and anti-Nebraskans.
Now he works to preserve as much as possible of the curse of slavery; he does it on the plea of Union and conservatism; but in truth he wishes to disorganize the pure Republican party, which he hates since the Chicago Convention and since the days of the formation of the Cabinet. Under the advice of Weed, Mr. Seward considers Weed his good genius; but in reality Weed has ruined Seward. Now Mr.
This uncle of mine was a thoughtful man of affairs; successful in business, excellent in judgment, not at all prone to sanguine or flighty views, and on our asking him how matters looked in Washington he said, ``Depend upon it, it is all right: Seward says that they have decided to end the trouble at once, even if it is necessary to raise an army of fifty thousand men; that they will send troops immediately to Richmond and finish the whole thing at once, so that the country can go on quietly about its business.
Seward, rubbing his hands, inquired, 'Well, general, then the troubles of the Federal Government will be at an end. To which General Scott replied, 'No, gentlemen, for a long time thereafter it will require the exercise of the full powers of the Federal Government to restrain the fury of the noncombatants."
As delegate, he had been the associate of John Quincy Adams, and as a Senator the contemporary of Benton, Wright, Douglas, Cass, Seward, Preston, Clay, Calhoun, and Webster. He had personally known some of the men whose public life reached back to the establishment of the Government. He had taken part in the discussion of great questions that have left a deep impress upon history.
And though Mr. Seward has carried the country successfully through the difficulty of the Trent, we ought to expect the presentation of demands which we can not so readily and justly meet. Indeed, enough is known of the Mexican question to suggest the most serious apprehensions of foreign war on that account.
Seward, April 9, 1861, they speak of our Government as being "persistently wedded to those fatal theories of construction of the Federal Constitution always rejected by the statesmen of the South, and adhered to by those of the Administration school, until they have produced their natural and often-predicted result of the destruction of the Union, under which we might have continued to live happily and gloriously together, had the spirit of the ancestry who framed the common Constitution animated the hearts of all their sons."
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