The secretary of state, heretofore
the most distinguished leader in the great Republican movement, who
should by merit of actual achievement have been the Republican candidate
for the presidency, and who was expected by a large part of the country
to save an ignorant president from bad blunders, was advancing a
proposition to create pretexts whereby to force into existence a foreign
war upon a basis which was likely to set one half of the civilized world
against the other half. The purpose for which he was willing to do this
awful thing was: to paralyze for a while domestic discussions, and to
undo and leave to be done anew by the next generation all that vast work
which he himself, and the President whom he advised, and the leaders of
the great multitude whom they both represented, had for years been
engaged in prosecuting with all the might that was in them. But the
explanation is simple: like many another at that trying moment, the
secretary was smitten with sudden panic at the condition which had been
brought about so largely by his own efforts. It was strictly a panic,
for it passed away rapidly as panics do.
The biographer of Mr. Seward may fairly enough glide lightly over this
episode, since it was nothing more than an episode; but one who writes
of Mr. Lincoln must, in justice, call attention to this spectacle of the
sage statesman from whom, if from any one, this "green hand," this
inexperienced President, must seek guidance, thus in deliberate writing
pointing out a course which was ridiculous and impossible, and which, if
it had been possible, would have been an intolerably humiliating
retreat.
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