1

made such a declaration because Texas was not to be free territory. As to the incident in Virginia, a letter of the time makes it plain that Seward's aim was to avoid discussing sectional questions on social occasions."

During the twelve years of his senatorship Seward was a stanch partisan. More than once he refused to stand with the majority, but it was always because he believed that his ideas were wiser politically. In his first speech in the Senate he tried to persuade his Whig colleagues of the South that he had "the right to entertain and debate extreme opinions, without proscription and with fidelity to the Union." This was the shrewdest sort of partisanship. Just after the "higher-law speech, Dawson asked him if he still claimed to be a Whig. Seward answered thus:

"My duty is to promote the welfare, interest, and happiness of the people of the United States; and I hold that I can do so in no effectual way by going alone and independent. That is always the error of schismatics. Therefore, in the discharge of my duty, I ally myself to such a party as I find most approximate to the principles and sentiments that I entertain. I will do the Whig party the justice, or injustice, to say that I have been a member of it all my active life; and I will do it the great disservice to say that, no matter what may happen, and who may put me under the ban, I shall be the last to leave it, however individuals may disown me or the principles I maintain. I shall adhere to it, because I think of the two great parties it is the most devoted to the cause of freedom and emancipation."

Early in 1858 there was an angry debate in the Senate on the proposition to increase the army for the avowed purpose of putting down the insurrection of the Mor

17 Southern Historical Society Papers, 354. Don Piatt's Memories, etc., 136 ff., and 129 North American Review, 135, give other illustrations. 21 Seward, 777, 778.

3 2 Seward, 106.

4

Globe, 1849-50, 518.

mons, who had expelled all evidence of Federal authority from their would-be independent "State of Deseret." Hale, Fessenden, and other Republicans feared lest Buchanan might employ the additional forces against the free-state men in Kansas. With Seward it was an axiom that it was unsafe for any public man to withhold means desired for defence of the government. In different ways he tried to prevent the use of the proposed regiment for any except the specified purpose, but he would not oppose the administration's request. Hale unjustly likened Seward's attitude to that of Webster on March 7, 1850; and he cut Seward to the quick by referring to him as the man "upon whom the eyes and the hearts of the friends of liberty have centred and clustered," and by adding that he himself had expected that Seward "might lead great hosts to the consummation of their hopes and their wishes." "I think I may claim," Seward replied, indirectly, "that, when ten years shall have passed over the debates of to-day, when ten years of rest shall have been allowed to me after my service here shall have been completed, there will be no man living who, with the records all before him, will be able to tell whether I belonged to one party or another. No, sir; I know nothing, I care nothing-I never did, I never shall, for party." However, he wrote a few days later: "Mormonism belongs to the brood of 'Popular Sovereignty.' Connection with it does not seemingly harm the Democratic party. But how long could the Republican party survive the clear or imputed responsibility for any disaster on the Plains? I have studied the matter deeply, and conversed with officers and others."

2

Seward continued to hear the two voices-in fact, he continued to act two distinct rôles. It was John Quincy

1 Globe, 1857-58, 520.

2 Globe, 1857-58, 521.

3 2 Seward, 335. Not italicized in the original.

Adams Seward that uttered the telling phrases and made the severe arraignments and was the hope of the radicals like Gerrit Smith, Theodore Parker, and, at times, of the Garrisonians.' He usually favored what was boldest and most extreme if it stopped short of violence. On the other hand, Thurlow Weed Seward kept in close relations with the party organization; he watched the plans of the politicians, changed the programme to suit conditions, and tried to win all classes of men. Adams Seward was ardently antislavery and expected to live in history as a great philanthropist. Weed Seward was determined to control the patronage and to live in the White House. The one regarded himself as a martyr to a sacred cause, and wrote: "I am alone, in the Senate and in Congress, and about in the United States, alone. While adhering faithfully to the Whigs, I dare to hold on the disallowed right of disenfranchised men and classes. I must stand in that solitude and maintain it, or fall altogether." The other was alone in deciding which principles and theories should be given prominence and which should be ignored or explained away. The result was that Seward continued to be the political favorite of a large proportion of the champions of freedom and of ardent youthful voters of the best impulses, as well as of the practical men and hard-headed politicians, calculating on tendencies and eager for office.

2

1 To Gerrit Smith be wrote, March 31, 1858: Accept my thanks for your approval [probably of the speech of March 3, 1858]. I hope you may live to number many more years and to witness the decline of that monstrous evil which we have resisted together so long.

'I begin to have faith in the uprising of the masses. I have never before seen such indications of anxiety and desire to hear in the slave states. When we shall have trained the whole generation of the free states to principles of freedom will they not carry those principles into their new homes, and where under the flag will they not make those homes ?"-MS. His correspondence with Parker was equally friendly. 2 2 Seward, 116.

When, in 1850, Seward thought that courage and dash and the "higher law" would win, he rushed ahead fearlessly. In 1851-52 he submitted to the conditions of compromise and would take no risks with the antislavery agitators. But he was ready to go with the jingoes "as far as he who goes farthest" in reckless intermeddling with foreign affairs when it would serve as a profitable digression, or as a means of benefiting his party or of injuring the Democrats. At times, during the Kansas excitement, he was one of the most successful, and almost revolutionary, agitators. After the John Brown invasion, when passions needed cooling and calming influences, he undertook to demonstrate that the impending dangers were not due to a real conflict of interests and principles, as he had repeatedly said, but were largely imaginary. In the campaign of 1860 he once more gallantly led the charge. But in December, when the storm-cloud appeared, he again became very conservative and cautious. Watching the changing circumstances, his first aim, as leader of the opposition, was not so much to advance principles as to use them as a means to party victories. His great successes were the result of keen perceptions, quick sympathies, and close association with men of different types and tendencies. He rarely failed where success was possible, because he was almost sure to see every opportunity, and to make the most of it. A statesman in character and purpose, he was yet a consummate opportunist.

Seward would have preferred to be a theorizer and non-partisan reformer-for his natural tastes and temperament were of that character-if thereby he could have obtained the fame and the power he sought. He acted on the theory that whatever his ideas might be, they were of little consequence unless there was some opportunity for him to carry them out. So the question how to gain personal ascendency was always present.

He believed that the Whig and then the Republican party would be much better for the country in any case than the Democratic party. To support a third party would entail a loss of time, and at least a temporary sacrifice of power. As his influence and success increased, he came to look upon himself as the one person that could defeat the schemes and undermine the strength of the Democrats and the secessionists. Once in authority, he would advance the public interests as fast as the people approved. To advocate right principles at a time when to do so would strengthen the opposition, or to maintain a strict consistency and frank honesty in public utterances at the expense of letting an enemy gain an advantage, he regarded as a mistaken use of one's resources-a surrender of a practical good to a theoretical one. Of course Seward's sincerity was often brought into question, much to his own sorrow. However, nothing, of which absolute knowledge is impossible, is more certain than that he was never consciously inconsistent. He considered the object, and by it tested the means. In his mind there was no inconsistency between being opposed to compromise in 1850 and in favor of it in 1861; between denouncing popular sovereignty in 1854 and accepting it in 1858; because each position was, at the particular time, believed to be most favorable to freedom. Likewise, to take one attitude regarding the Clayton-Bulwer treaty in 1853, and just the opposite one in 1856, did not prove real inconsistency, for his aim on both occasions was to prevent the Democrats from gaining an advantage. Such was his philosophy of action.

To call him a great politician is neither precise nor adequate. He is entitled to the rank that results from a fair judgment of his qualities as a Senator in comparison with those of his contemporaries in active politics. In sincerity and in the moral quality of his purposes he