on his proclamation. All the laws necessary for the organization of an army were enacted. Full power was given him in his discretion to order and direct the army; and for four years, which I need not undertake to summarize to-night, he so administered the government as at every step to command the profound admiration, not only of the great men of this country, but of the great men of the world.

I did not want Mr. Lincoln to in

or Mr. Chase

I was anxious I was anxious

vite either Mr. Seward to seats in his cabinet. to have them both in the Senate, as I looked on them as great Senators. And then, I did not feel certain that Mr. Chase (who up to that time had given no evidence of financial ability) would make a successful Secretary of the Treasury; while as a Senator I was certain that he would stand with the foremost, as he had done during his first term in that body. The legislature of Ohio had just elected him for six years, and in view of the approaching storm I felt confident he would make no personal or party mistake in the Senate, while he might fail as Secretary of the Treasury. It was generally rumored, early in January, that Mr. Seward was to be Secretary of State, and when I met Mr. Lincoln soon after he reached Washington, and this announcement was confirmed by him, I simply said: "Mr. President, I cannot tell you how much I regret it." He expressed some surprise, and wanted to know

my objections. I answered that it was too late now to talk about it, but that my objections were the same as those I had against Mr. Seward's nomination at Chicago, and that the unsatisfactory speech which he had just made in the Senate was an additional objection.

I suggested but one name for his cabinet, and that was Edwin M. Stanton, of Ohio, for Secretary of War (then a member of Mr. Buchanan's cabinet). I had known Mr. Stanton quite intimately from my boyhood, and recognized his great ability and tireless energy. In addition to this, I had repeatedly called at Mr. Stanton's house to confer with him after he became a member of Mr. Buchanan's cabinet, and found him to be heart and soul against the conspirators, that he fully understood their movements, and was ready and anxious to defeat their plots.

One night, after a protracted interview, he walked to the door with me, and as he bade me good-night, grasped my hand and said: "Stand firm; you men have committed no blunder yet." When I repeated these words to Mr. Lincoln, and related in substance other interviews of a like character, and told him something of Mr. Stanton's early life in Ohio, I saw that I made an impression on Mr. Lincoln quite favorable to him.

But when the cabinet was announced I was about as disappointed as any man in Washington, because there was but one man in it for whom

I would have voted, as a first choice, and for him only because he was from a border slave State, and that man was Mr. Bates, of Missouri, for Attorney-General.

Of course, I was delighted when later on Mr. Lincoln made Mr. Stanton Secretary of War.

All the objections I then had to Mr. Seward as Secretary of State, and many more, soon became patent to the ordinary observer.

I had never regarded Mr. Seward as a practical man, nor a safe party leader, except for a party in the minority. His speech of January 12th, 1861, in the Senate, after it was known he had been selected by Mr. Lincoln for Secretary of State, and his official blunders after he became Secretary, tell the story of his utter inability to safely and successfully lead a great party charged with the administration of a government such as ours during the dark days from 1861 to 1865.

He who now reads that speech of Mr. Seward, in the light of history, will fully comprehend that his leadership was like the blind leading the blind.

That speech was prepared by Mr. Seward with more than his usual care, as it should have been, before its delivery in the Senate by the man soon to become Prime Minister.

After it had been written and put in type, it was reviewed, and recast, and conned over and over again, not only by Mr. Seward, but by more

than one friend of ability and position, and every word or line that made it mean anything was stricken out, and every word or suggestion was deliberately added that could. possibly make it more foggy or

nebulous.

The day of its delivery in the Senate was a solemn and memorable one, not only in Washington, but throughout the country. The great heart of the nation was still and heavy with apprehension. Every loyal citizen expected and longed to have pointed out to him the way to preserve the national unity and national life without dishonor. Never in our history has there been such an occasion for a statesman, and never before was there such a failure.

Mr. Stevens, of Pennsylvania, then an old man (and by far the ablest man with whom I served in Congress), walked over with me from the House to the Senate Chamber. We both had seats in the aisle, a little in front of Mr. Seward's desk, and could hear him distinctly. I need not say that we listened, as did every one in that vast audience and in the entire nation, for one word or thought that would stir our hearts or give us hope. But no such word or suggestion came in that speech from the man who was so soon to be charged with the most delicate and responsible office in Mr. Lincoln's cabinet.

I have more than once seen both the Senate and House in mourning, but never did I see so sad an audi

ence quit the Senate Chamber as on that day.

While walking back with Stevens towards the House I said: "Mr. Stevens, what do you say to all that?" His answer was short, sharp and characteristic. He said: "I have listened to every word, and by the living God, I have heard nothing." After going with Mr. Stevens to his committee room, I immediately returned to the Senate, to get the opinions of the Senators with whom I was intimate. Taking Mr. Wade by the hand, I said: "Well, Mr. Senator, what have you to say?" And he answered: "If we follow such leadership, we will be in the wilderness longer than the children of Israel under Moses." Mr. Sumner said: "I knew what was coming, but confess that I am sad." Zac. Chandler did not wait for my question, but as I approached him raised his hands and exclaimed:

Great God! how are the mighty fallen!"

And this was the judgment of a majority of our friends, in both the Senate and House, with whom at that time I exchanged opinions about the speech. It was reluctantly admitted that it meant a backdown to the conspirators.

And this, alas! was the best, and all, the new prime minister had to offer us. Instead of pointing out the path of duty and safety as a statesman should have done, he led us into the wilderness, enveloped in a cloud

of words and metaphors, and there left us.

I was anxious from the day of the delivery of that speech until the Republican Senators, with but one dissenting vote, requested Mr. Lincoln to dismiss Mr. Seward from his cabinet. And though the President did not comply with that request of the Republican Republican Senators, as I then thought and now think he should have done, I felt confident that we should from that time on have less of Mr. Seward's amazing assumption, that (when in his, hand) "the pen was mightier than the sword." Mr. Lincoln's position and leadership was unquestioned from this date.

SEWARD.

Immediately after entering upon. his duties as Secretary of State, Mr. Seward assumed to direct all departments of the government, substantially as if he were a British prime minister and Mr. Lincoln but the nominal executive.

Without consulting either the President, the Secretary of War, or the Secretary of the Navy, Mr. Seward undertook, secretly and on his own responsibility, to direct the movements of military and naval officers as if he were, in fact, President. He caused the rebel authorities in Charleston to be notified by telegraph that the "administration had given a confidential order to reinforce Fort Sumter," to which Mr. Seward

was opposed, as a matter of policy, and therefore secretly resolved to defeat it. The next day he notified Judge Campbell, a notorious secessionist, then on the Supreme Bench, that "faith as to Fort Sumter has been kept; wait and see." No one claims that Mr. Seward did this as a disloyal man, but as a theorist who honestly believed that in his hand "the pen was mightier than the sword." Mr. Seward was, in theory, a centralist, rather than a disunionist, and yet he was absolutely without any fixed or clearly defined policy when the rebellion broke out. He simply drifted on an unknown sea. His efforts at delay resulted in desperate expedients, and led him to send ont secret agents to obstruct, mislead and delay all military and naval movements, for fear that actual war would falsify his prophetic utterances and defeat his negotiations.

Over and over again he had declared that "within ninety days there would be peace," that "harmony and reconciliation would come within ninety days."

How peace and harmony were to be secured he never clearly made known. He simply predicted it.

In his speech of January 12th in the Senate he proposed to meet "exaction with concession," and "violence with peaceably submitting to the doctrine of coercion, and quietly evacuating all the forts, and abandoning all the public property in the

rebel States, except where authority could be exercised without waging war."

He and General Scott had made up their minds "to let the wayward sisters depart in peace."

By pursuing this policy he hoped in some mysterious way ultimately to bring each seceded State back into the Union.

In that speech he said: "I am willing to vote for an amendment to the Constitution declaring that it shall not, by any future amendment, be so altered as to confer on Congress power to abolish or interfere with slavery in any State."

I say nothing of Mr. Seward's damaging dispatches to Mr. Adams, our Minister to Great Britain, nor of his blunders with other powers; I simply state that it was among our great misfortunes that he was called into the cabinet. In the Senate he would have been both useful and harmless.

I saw Mr. Lincoln early the next morning after the Senatorial Committee called on him to ask for Mr. Seward's removal.

It was a characteristic interview. The President asked me "what I would do if I were in his place." This was a way in which he often put questions to men. I answered him "that what he would do or what I would do was not a fair way to put it, but that if I was in his place and held his opinions, I would accept the resignations of Mr. Seward and Mr. Chase instanter; and at once appoint Mr.

Collamer, of Vermont, Secretary of State, and Mr. Fessenden, of Maine, Secretary of the Treasury."

The suggestion pleased Mr. Lincoln very much, especially the naming Mr. Collamer for Secretary of State.

Mr. Collamer had been in General Harrison's cabinet in 1841, and was recognized as an able lawyer, as well as the most conservative Republican Senator in the Senate. Mr. Collamer had acted as Chairman of the Senatorial Committee which had called on the President to demand Mr. Seward's dismissal from the cabinet, and Mr. Lincoln saw at once that such an appointment would strike the extreme conservative wing of the Republican party very favorably, and he was all the more pleased with the suggestion because it came from so pronounced a radical as I was, and a recognized friend of Chase. He said two or three times: "Why, Ashley, Collamer would make a first-class Secretary," and added, "and how it would surprise the Senate !"

GENERAL SCOTT.

The day the first advance of our army marched across the long bridge at Washington will always be a memorable one to me. I had never before seen such a military display. I went directly to the White House to see the President, but found that he had gone over to General Scott's office. I followed, and described with enthusiasm the marching of our soldiers, singing "Old John Brown," and said:

"Mr. President, if our armies fight under the inspiration of that song, the gates of hell cannot prevail against us." General Scott (who was a Virginian) astonished me by saying "that he regretted to strike his mother." I replied with much warmth " that he who struck that flag [pointing to it] struck my mother and deserved death," and unceremoniously walked out, indignant at such an utterance from the commanding general of our armies. This incident tells the story of our national demoralization. General Scott, the commander of our armies, had, at that time, unknown to Mr. Lincoln or the public, reached the amazing conclusion that it was best to "let the wayward sisters depart in peace."

General Scott soon afterwards (under the manipulation of Seward) recommended the surrender of Fort Sumter and Fort Pickens. As the President, with the approval of the cabinet, had before this ordered reinforcements and provisions to Fort Sumter, this sudden and unlooked for change on the part of General Scott shook the faith of the President in him, and he immediately began the search for a younger and more reliable commander.