THE LIFE OF SEWARD.* THERE is but one adverse criticism
we have to make on these volumes, and that is a criticism one is apt to make on American political biographies,—Mr. Bancroft has given us too much. Here are over eleven hundred pages, often amounting to a history of the time rather than the biography of an individual. In his effort to be complete and accurate Mr. Bancroft has been too prolix, thus slackening our interest in a striking career. The work might have been cut down by one-third with profit. Apart from this undue length, we have nothing but praise for Mr. Bancroft's endeavour to convey a true impression of Seward's personality and work. The writer is absolutely impartial, and while sympathetic, as a biographer should be, he never shrinks from just criticism or a truthful statement of the exact facts. Seward is painted with his warts, in his habit as he lived. His weaknesses and imperfections are all set forth, though with a loving hand. On the whole, the portrait is a pleasing one. It has long been admitted that Seward was a man of great power, but it. was not felt that he was a very attractive man, and .there was an impression that whatever were his good qualities they were sunk in the politician. This impression is likely to be removed, or at least to be greatly modified, by a perusal of these volumes. We are introduced here to a many-sided and very attractive character—an American, yet with cosmopolitan instincts; a man of the world, yet one also who stood by the higher morality in politics in days when it was considered politically unsafe to do so. Seward was a man of insight, having that power of prevision which is of infinitely greater value than mere intellectual ability. He had the alertness of the American of an earlier generation who in youth was thrown on his own resources. His industry was remarkable. He was the tenderest of husbands and fathers. Unlike so many of his class, he delighted in Nature, his happiest hours being passed in his gardens and meadows. While not a pro- found, he was a good scholar in the old-fashioned sense. He read Tacitus and Cicero in middle life in the midst of public cares ; he read historical works and Dante's Diana Corn media in long railway journeys. He had a capacity for awaken- ing friendship, and he was loyal to his friends. Throughout his life he was courteous to rich and poor alike, and political strife never caused him to lose sight of the humanities of life.
With these undoubted qualities how was it that Seward gave an impression of being a clever politician first and fore- most, and a statesman and man of great character afterwards ? -How is it that the American people chose Lincoln at a great crisis rather than Seward, who seemed to have the first claim ?
9 The Life of William IT. Seward. By Frederic Bancroft. 2 vols. London : Harper and Brotherz.. [$5.] ISr. Bancroft admits that there was a certain incompleteness about Seward,----that he sought to impress, to gain victory,
rather than to be quite clear in intellectual statement or
to be.whole-hearted in moral aim. Thus, says Mr. Bancroft, Seward,. though a good lawyer, failed to be a great one,
because his forensic efforts " lack the close reasoning that make a perfect chain. They excite the reader's admiration and persuade him that they support the better side, yet they often miss that highest effect of satisfying him that there is no other side." It must be said here, however, that a fine plead- ing which Seward made for a poor black idiot who had com- mitted murder was described by Gladstone to Sumner as the, most powerful defence he had ever read in his life. As regards Seward's lack of absolute moral aim, while it is true, as we have said, that he cultivated the higher morality in politics, yet, for the sake of party, he supported both Tyler and Taylor after he had taken his stand as an Anti-Slavery than, and tried hard to persuade the people that the Anti- Slavery cause was safe in their hands, though both were stout defenders of the " peculiar institution." Seward stood on that dim borderland between the pure politician on one side and the moral reformer on the other, and he found it hard, as so many have found it before him, to maintain the great virtue of public consistency.
It must be said for Seward that he was the earliest of American statesmen of high rank who took up a distinctly Anti-Slavery position. This is high praise, but it is his by right. While Webster and Clay were engaged in futile compromises, while all the Southerners were hostile to any whisper of the question, while the mediocre politicians of the North like Fillmore, Cass, and Pierce were willing to act as jackals for the South, Seward took issue fairly and squarely, though he was supposed to be ruining all his chances thereby. One of the greatest debates which ever took place in the Senate was that on Clay's Compromise resolutions which occurred in 1850, soon after Seward's first election to that body. The Senate was then full of great men ,—Cal houn, Clay, Webster, Jefferson Davis, Chase (afterwards Chief Justice), Hamlin (Vice-President under Lincoln), and others. Calhotin's speech, was read for him, as the aged South Carolina states- man was slowly dying at the time. Clay spoke with such eloquence that he was surrounded by admiring crowds, who insisted on embracing him. Webster with his craggy brows was lordly as ever. It fell to Seward's lot to answer these leading men. He was never an orator in the proper sense of the word, since a permanent catarrh had spoiled his voice, and he was rather insignificant in appearance. When he had spoken it was universally declared that his political prospects were ruined. But in ten short years Clay's compromises were flung to the winds, while the doctrines laid down by Seward were those which the nation was bracing itself to defend by the sword. From the earliest Seward not only attacked slavery, but in the main he attacked it on the true ground, that it was contra saturant. He had imbibed that old Roman idea of the natural law being grounded in absolute right. In two of his speeches Seward coined two famous phrases, quoted thousands of times afterwards in the slavery contest. He said that there was a " higher law " than any statute which men were bound to obey, and he declared that there was an "irrepressible conflict" between slavery and freedom which rendered all compromise impossible. The world came to see how true both these axioms were.
Seward had a varied career. He began public life, singularly, as an Anti-Mason, at a time when there was a craze about Masonry in New York State. He was, however, brought up as a Jeffersonian Democrat, and to that school of thought he adhered for many years. He was elected Governor of New. York in 1838, and held that office until 1843. While Governor he was a zealous reformer, eager in educational and prison reforms. His activity was probably not very good for him as a politician. But the informal combination he made with Greeley and that very astute politician, Thurlow Weed, served him in good stead through his -career. When his term of office expired, he had to go back to the lawyer's desk and, as it were, begin his legal work all over again. It was an uphill task, but he was soon sought after, and in time made a large income...at, the Bar. He was elected to the United States Senate in 1848, and soon became the most energetic Member on the Northern side. He started with the belief that he could demonstrate " the certain .-deliwiance ot.tha. continent from slavery to be, inevitable, and. the &Willi,: tion of the Union to be impossible." _ History has). justified his powerful. insight. In the same fear whew. Seward entered the Senate was formed the new Free Soil party, which in its turn was absorbed -five years later into the Republican party. One would lave thought more highly of Seward had he joined the.Free Sellers instead' of supporting General Taylor for the Preeidency, since . he knew that Taylor was a Pro-Slavery man, and quite unfit to be President. However, when the Republican party was formed . Seward wheeled into line, and was soon thought of for the Presidency. But there was a gaunt, quaint country lawyer living in Illinois, little thought of by the East, but whom the West had its eye on. The Republican Convention at Chicago was the first sign of the predominance of the West in politics, and instead of the brilliant and accomplished Seward getting the nomination, the West declared for Lincoln. It seems that Greeley, too, had turned against Seward, and he worked on the minds of the simpler country delegates. Weed actually wept at Seward's defeat. As. for Seward himself, he was deeply disappointed, but he summoned his friends and told them that all was for the best and.they must work for Lincoln. He gave them a good example by stumping the whole of the Central and North-Western States. Many of Seward's supporters, like James Russell' Lowell, e.g., would have admitted after—some did adinit- that the choice of the Chicago Convention seenied to be directed by a wiser hand than any one could discern amid the excitement of the moment. Lincoln was a better guide of the Republic in its hour of trial than Seviard Would have been. It was a case of homely, patient wisdom and mother-wit as compared with cultured refinement but a hasty mind with an ineradicable tendency to " show off." Into the history of Seward's tenure of the office of Secretary of State we need not enter. Suffice it to say that if he had had'his way the United States might have had two or three wars on its hands, and that prior to Lincoln's second term Seward was for a time a party to a kind of political co-npiracy against his chief. When released from office Seward was able to make a long tour round the world. He needed rest, not only because of the cares of his .trying post, but because of the physical results of the foul attack made on him at the same time that Lincoln was murdered. Everywhere he was royally received,' Asiatic Princes and Kings vieing with European Sovereigns and statesmen to give him welcome. He died at his home in 1873, aged seventy-two years. In person he was short and slight., with a large head, a very prominent nose, and reddish hair which in later years turned to brown. He was rather convivial in his habits, and' entertained a good deal in Washington.
Previous page
