For the difference between Seward's past opportunities and
experience and his own was appreciated by him as fully as by any one. He
knew perfectly well that what seemed the less was controlling what
seemed the greater when he overruled his secretary. It took courage on
the part of a thoughtful man to put himself in such a position. Other
solemn reflections also could not be avoided. Not less interested than
any other citizen in the fate of the nation, he had also a personal
relation to the ultimate event which was exclusively his own. For he
himself might be called, in a certain sense, the very cause of
rebellion; of course the people who had elected him carried the real
responsibility; but he stood as the token of the difference, the
concrete provocation to the fight. The South had said: _Abraham Lincoln_
brings secession. It was frightful to think that, as he was in fact the
signal, so posterity might mistake him for the very cause of the rending
of a great nation, the failure of a grand experiment. It might be that
this destiny was before him, for the outcome of this struggle no one
could foretell; it might be his sad lot to mark the end of the line of
Presidents of the United States. Lincoln was not a man who could escape
the full weight of these reflections, and it is to be remembered that
all actions were taken beneath that weight. It was a strong man, then,
who stood up and said, This is my load and I will carry it; and who did
carry it, when others offered to shift much of it upon their own
shoulders; also who would not give an hour's thought to a scheme which
promised to lift it away entirely, and to leave it for some other who by
and by should come after him.
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