tions of the Navy Department he had no part; not a single naval expedition was undertaken on his recommendation, and the most important ones were in progress without his knowledge and far advanced before he was informed of them. In the affairs and management of the other three departments he participated no more than in those mentioned, or than did other members of the Cabinet. The conduct of foreign affairs was of course, intrusted to him under the supervision and control of the President, who 'directed the governmental policy, and sometimes overruled, modified, and improved the dispatches which the Secretary had with great industry prepared. Mr. Seward held a ready and prolific pen, and had a mind` fertile in expedients, but his judgment and conclusions were not always so sound and reliable as to pass without revision and Executive emendations and approval. Measures and important movements of each of the departments were generally, but not always, submitted to the Cabinet. The President was invariably consulted, but the Secretary of State stood in this respect like his colleagues, and his opinion and judgment, like theirs, was taken as were the others for what, in the estimation of Mr. Lincoln, they were worth. The policy of the President and the course of administration were based on substantial principles and convictions to which he firmly adhered. Mr. Seward relied less on fixed principle than expedients, and trusted to dexterity and skill rather than the rightfulness of a cause to carry him through emergencies.

THE Construction of Mr. Lincoln's Cabinet was, with perhaps one exception, his own work. He would have been glad to call into his council a statesman from the South of marked ability and influence, but there were difficulties which prevented. The gentlemen whom he finally selected had no previous intimacy, personal or political, nor were there antagonisms to prevent harmony and concerted action. Between Seward and Chase there was imputed rivalry, and until within two days of the inauguration the opposition of the friends of the former to placing Mr. Chase in the Treasury was active and persistent. Each of these gentlemen had high aspirations. Each had been the chief Executive of his State. Each had represented his State in the Senate, and each had a distinct party position, and, to some extent, a personal following, which made the competition interesting. Mr. Seward was a Republican with centralizing tendencies, and had been prominent in the once powerful Whig organization which had fallen into decay. Mr. Chase was a federal Republican, favorable to State rights, not attached to, nor strictly identified with, either of the old party organizations, but had been for years a conspicuous leader in the anti-slavery movement which was rising on the ruins of the Whig party. Their colleagues, aware of these differences and rivalries, were indifferent to them, and arrayed themselves under the banners of neither. It would be invidious to attempt to institute a comparison between these two gentlemen thus situated and associated; but the "Memorial Address" of Mr. Adams places Mr. Seward in the front rank of

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the anti-slavery movement- -a veteran reformer when, in fact, he had been one of the prominent members of a very different party, which, like the Democratic organization, carefully abstained from connection with that movement, while Mr. Chase was for years a prominent anti-slavery champion-openly, boldly, and irrespective of all other parties or organizations, its active and efficient advocate. In the appointment of these two men, Mr. Lincoln, who adopted the policy of Washington in bringing men of opposing principles into his Cabinet, provided they harmonized in measures of administration, reversed the original arrangement by giving to Seward, a Republican centralist, the post of Jefferson, a State rights federal Republican, and to Chase, a federal Republican, the post which Washington assigned to Hamilton, a centralist.

Mr. Seward entered upon his duties with the impression, undoubtedly, which Mr. Adams seems to have imbibed, that he was to be de facto President, and, as the premier in the British Government, to "direct the affairs of the nation in the name of another." The consequences were that confusion and derangement prevailed to some extent at the commencement by reason of the mental activity, assumptions, and meddlesome intrusions of the Secretary of State in the duties and affairs of others, which were, if not disorganizing, certainly not good administration Contidence and mutual frankness on public affairs and matters pertaining to the Government, particularly on what related to present and threatened disturbances, existed among all the members, with the exception of

Mr. Seward, who had, or affected, a certain mysterious knowledge which he was not prepared to impart. This was accepted as a probable necessity by his associates, for he had been in a position to ascertain facts which it was intimated he could not perhaps well disclose. It early became apparent, however, that the Secretary of State had ideas and notions of his own position and that of his colleagues, as well as of the character and attitude of the President, that others could not admit or recognize. Secretiveness, subtle expedients, and mysterious management, which limited the knowledge of certain important transactions to the State Department, but of which the President was in some degree and from time to time partially informed, were the initiative Albany methods of executive government. This reserve it appeared from subsequent disclosures consisted of an understanding between himself and certain leading opponents with whom he had held private conference during the winter, the main purpose of which was to prevent any collision or decisive movement during the remnant of Mr. Buchanan's administration. The motives of Mr. Seward in promoting delay, were undoubtedly well-intentioned, founded on faith that he, if in power, could in some way, by some expedient reconcile differences. The secessionists had other objects. They knew it would be more difficult to unite the southern people in a war against the Buchanan administration than against Lincoln, the "black republican" whose election they had opposed and whom they declared and caused those who confided in them to believe to be an enemy to the South. The politicians, in Congress and out of it, who gathered in

and about Washington that winter were willing to postpone action during the few remaining days of the expiring adininistration, and none more so than the feeble and irresolute, but not unintelligent or unpatriotic President who felt himself incapable of firmly holding the reins and successfully guiding the government in that crisis. Ill-advised, bewildered, paralyzed and betrayed, he readily caught at any plan which would give him quiet, and enable him to tide over the short remnant of his official life. The private conference of the leaders during this winter led to temporary arrangements, armistices and humiliating terms with avowed disunionists, acquiescence in the seizure of forts, arsenals and other public property. The government was to do nothing to preserve the union while the rebels were active and permitted to organize and do everything to resist the national authority after the 4th of March, should the secession demands not be complied with, and exaction not be met by concession.

The failures to take prompt, energetic, and decisive measures against the secession movements at the commencement, and thus, like Andrew Jackson in 1832, to "resist the beginning of evil," displayed on the part of Mr. Buchanan great want of executive ability. The indecision of the president, and the efforts of others to put off for a few weeks the evil day, was, from whatever motive, unfortunate for the reputation of President Buchanan, but more unfortunate for the country. In every point of view the temporizing policy of the winter of 1861 may be considered a mistake, a national misfortune. Not that a war could have been prevented. The conflict which had been