of theories and expedients, but he also had settled convictions and sound judgment. The foremost aim of his life was to be supremely great both in his generation and in history. It is now agreed that he was strongly individual, very influential, fascinating, able, and resourceful; but it was Lincoln that was thoroughly great.

Personally Seward was most amiable. Devoted and tender in all domestic relations, he was an appreciative and faithful friend, generous and interesting as a host, affable to strangers, considerate with inferiors and even with political bores-across hundreds of whose letters he wrote, for the direction of his secretary, "Acknowledge kindly," or something similar. As Lincoln said, he was "a man without gall." With but two or three exceptions, the public and private records of his halfcentury of political activity contain no trace of malice toward contemporaries; it was his life-long custom to avoid recording or even saying anything disparaging of either colleagues or opponents. How superior, in this respect, he was to Jefferson, Sumner, Chase, Stanton, and many others! Hence it is not strange that he often had warm friends among his political enemies. Although he joined the Episcopal Church at the age of thirty-six, he was not what would be called a religious man; he can best be described as a moral man of the world. The amusing story that Lincoln guessed a new acquaintance was an Episcopalian because he swore like Seward, is entirely plausible; yet Seward was not coarse, but quite the contrary. By education, association, and in the quality of his thoughts he was as conspicuously a gentleman as he was a man of brains. Although very calculating, he was also very human.

The reason Seward has not been fully appreciated is found in the fact that the average person more easily grasps and retains what is simple and direct: brilliancy and power may stir admiration, but not affection; an

intricate nature makes less appeal because less understood. Cromwell, Washington, Calhoun, and Grant hold their distinct places in popular regard; Voltaire, Napoleon, and Gladstone, on account of the complexities of their characters and their activities, have created much less than an adequate impression. Seward was an agitator, a politician, and a statesman, all in one. His irresistible impulse to pose and explain and appear allwise and all-important earned for him a reputation for insincerity and egotism. A perfectly fair-minded contemporary gave this answer to a question: "I did not regard Seward as exactly insincere; we generally knew at what hole he would go in, but we never felt quite sure as to where he would come out." It is a paradox that precisely explains the paradoxical Seward. The variety of his resources weakened the impression and quality of his moral and intellectual strength.

Notwithstanding his limitations, Seward stands in the front rank of political leaders, both on account of the talents he displayed and the services he rendered to his country. And he holds the first place among all our Secretaries of State. Sumner had a more thorough knowledge of international law; Adams was by birth and education equipped for diplomacy; Chase had a genius for managing national finances in a critical time. Stanton was the broad and tireless organizer of the physical forces that saved the nation. Seward had dash, a knowledge of political conditions, and a versatility such as none of these men possessed, while his perfect tact and vigor of intellect, his enthusiasm and inspiring hope, made him the almost perfect supplement to Lincoln, The Secretary grew in diplomacy as the President grew in statesmanship. Although large numbers of Seward's earlier admirers deserted him, and criticism succeeded adulation when his ambition ceased to be partisan and personal, his conduct of the work of his office was rarely

assailed, and never successfully. With few exceptions, the bitter attacks so frequently made during his secretaryship related to matters outside the sphere of the Department of State, and were largely inspired by resentment at his supposed influence over Lincoln or Johnson. While Secretary he negotiated more than forty treaties or conventions; and if the Johnson-Clarendon convention had been approved-and it was not his fault that it failed-he could have said that for eight years he had safely piloted the government past every great foreign danger, and had left the United States in a much better condition in regard to all other nations than when he came into office.

APPENDIX

A

GARRISON to Ross

"BOSTON, August 25, 1875. "DEAR SIR,-Your letter, in reply to mine, has just been received.

"I beg to be understood. In recording in your book what John Brown is said to have uttered concerning the Northern abolitionists, I did not suppose that you endorsed his sentiments, but published them rather to show how intensely concentrated was his mind upon his own method of operations. Still, their absurdity and injustice are none the less obvious, and quite derogatory to his moral discernment; and as, out of regard to his memory, it would have been a friendly act not to have printed them, so it will be none the less friendly and judicious on your part to suppress them in the new edition of your work, as you intend doing. He will be better appreciated by the omission.

"The truth is, John Brown was exactly fitted for the enterprise he undertook to achieve. He believed in the method of Joshua rather than that of Jesus-in the sword of Gideon rather than the sword of the Spirit-in powder and ball rather than any moral instrumentalities; and he acted accordingly, being as willing to be led to the stake or the gallows as any martyr or patriot of other days; acting all the while under the deepest religious convictions. While in prison, awaiting his execution, he evidently had his spiritual vision somewhat purged; for, writing to a Quaker lady in Rhode Island, he said: You know that Christ