as did others; but the Senate produced no commanding mind, with "clarion voice" and magnetic power, to rally and lead. Mr. Seward had adventitious advantages above others which his associates felt and conceded. He had been Governor of the largest State in the Union, was its representative in Congress, and stood the peer of any of his associates on the floor of the Senate, but only the peer. Neither in Congress nor subsequently in the Cabinet did he display the administrative or executive talent that was anticipated, or which partisan admirers claim for him at the expense of Mr. Lincoln.

In closing his "Memorial Address" Mr. Adams alludes to the friends of Mr. Seward, and particularly one who survives, "whose singularly disinterested labor has been to effect the elevation of others to power, and never his own; and to whose remarkable address I strongly suspect Mr. Seward owed many obligations of that kind." No person in the least conversant with the two men could have heard or read the address without a conviction, even if no acknowledgment had been made, that the spirit of the friend inspired and imbued the orator with the partialities, prejudices, misconceptions, and errors which pervade the address and are manifest on almost every page.

Mr. Thurlow Weed, who for forty years was the ruling mind of the party with which he was associated in New York, possessed remarkable qualities as a party manager. The character and services of Mr. Seward can never be delineated or understood without mention of this alter ego, who was not only his fidus Achates, but it may without disparagement be said was also,

with some radical failings, his Mentor. Mr. Weed, a man of strong, rough native intellect, without much early culture, was a few years the senior of Mr. Seward, whose more polished and facile mind adapted itself to the other clung to it as the ivy to the oak-and the two became inseparable in politics. When Mr. Seward was about to "choose his side," Weed was the editor of a paper in western New York, which fomented the wild, fanatical, and proscriptive antimasonic excitement that for a brief period swept with uncontrollable and unreasoning fury that section of country. An organized party was formed on the narrow basis of hate, intolerance, and proscription of every man who belonged to the Masonic fraternity, every one of whom was to be excluded from office, from the jurybox and all places of trust. Under this anti-masonic banner, of which Weed was a champion leader, Mr. Seward enlisted and commenced his public official career, was its candidate in that district, and elected by that party to the Senate of New York. Many will believe that he did not manifest great "breadth of view," nor prove himself a profound "philosopher studying politics," nor display the "capacity to play a noble part on the more spacious theatre of State affairs," when he entered the Senate of New York an anti-masonic partisan under the guidance of Thurlow Weed. But the friendship commenced under those auspices continued unabated to the death of the junior, and evinces itself in the "Memorial Address" which attempts to place Mr. Seward above the President to whom he was subordinate, and "award to him honors. that clearly belong to another."

Mr. Weed possessed capacity which rightly directed might have been of service to the country and to mankind. He was not without good qualities when party and personal favorites or opponents were not concerned; but he was wanting in political morality, and was unscrupulous in his party intrigues—often and without hesitation resorting to schemes to carry a measure in the Legislature, or to secure an election, which scarcely savored of political or moral honesty.

The

When the anti-masonic fervor subsided and the organization died out, Messrs. Seward and Weed became identified with the opponents of the Jackson administration and the supporters of "the American system" a centralizing policy. The address represents that "the political unity of the country under its present form of government naturally divides itself into two periods of nearly equal length." One, which commenced with Washington and closed with Monroe, related chiefly to questions of foreign policy. other was on the subject of slavery. There is no such natural division. The statement is neither politically nor historically correct, but an arbitrary assumption, warranted by neither history nor facts. The slavery question in no form or shape entered into the election or administration of General Jackson or the great parties of that period. Other absorbing subjects, relating to the bank, to finance, to the tariff and internal improvements, combined under what in the party nomenclature of the day was styled the "American system," were the political and party issues for a quarter of a century succeeding the Monroe administration. It was then, "at the outset of Mr. Seward's career,'

when there was no controversy or difference in State or national parties or politics on the subject of slavery that Weed and "the philosopher studying politics," chose their side, opposed Jackson, supported Clay, advocated a national bank, a protective tariff, internal improvements by the federal government, and the whole centralizing "American system." There was no identification of either of the great opposing parties of that day with slavery or anti-slavery. From 1828, when Jackson was elected, to the election of Taylor in 1848, neither party made the subject of slavery a test question, or part of its political creed. Opposition to General Jackson and his administration, and to the policy initiated under him, to state rights and constitutional limitations, combined the adverse elements and was the ground-work of the Whig party, to which in all its phases Mr. Seward was a devoted adherent. A coalition was formed by the Whigs with the nullifiers, who were slave-holders, and at a later day secessionists, against the patriotic old chieftain who put forth the executive power for the maintenance of the federal union. But the tariff, not slavery, was the pretext for nullification, and opposition to the administration was the apology for a compromise in which both the protectionists and nullifiers surrendered each their principles.

Then, and until some time past the meridian of his life-a period of more than twenty years-Mr. Seward was, for reasons doubtless satisfactory to himself, one of the most zealous and active party men in the country. With him every side-issue, every controverted question, every element of discontent against the gov

ernment, was courted, fanned, favored, and made subservient to party. This embraces the period when, according to the address, Mr. Seward chose his side adversely to the organization of the Jefferson school, was "too democratic for the Democrats," was "far more practical than anything ever taught by Jefferson." This peculiar democracy and anti-masonry constitute what the address describes as "the various phenomena of Mr. Seward's public life," but which his contemporaries understood to be political partnership of a very active and decided character. In New York and throughout the country Mr. Seward was known and recognized as a busy and efficient party man in the Whig organization, and one of the leaders to whom the party in that state was under obligation for partisan services. His sphere of influence was limited to his state, for beyond its borders the corrupt Albany lobby led and managed by Weed was detested by the Democrats and distrusted by the Whigs themselves. Whatever abilities or qualities of mind he possessed-and they were in some respects remarkable-were given earnestly and cheerfully to that party and its centralizing " American system" policy. In their party councils in New York, Thurlow Weed became the supreme manager, and guiding, controlling spirit, always declining office. Mr. Seward was the orator or oracle, and received the official honors. When anti-masonry was on the wane, and after Mr. Seward entered the New York Senate, Weed removed to Albany, where he established a paper and exercised with skill and effect his love of intrigue. He soon organized and became chief of a lobby which had an odious notoriety, and which, while

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