Volume II Part 29 (2/2)
[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 a.s.sail 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 p.r.o.nounced. ”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 pa.s.sages 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.”--Was.h.i.+ngton 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 Const.i.tutional 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 Was.h.i.+ngton, 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 ma.n.u.script, ”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 _pa.s.sion_ 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 pa.s.sion 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, pa.s.s 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 pa.s.sion 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 Was.h.i.+ngton 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 att.i.tude, was given the treasury. The shock of this defeat led the New York Senator to decline entering the Cabinet. ”Circ.u.mstances 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 a.s.sistance 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 s.h.i.+ver 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.]
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