William
Seward was born in Orange
County, New York, on 16th May, 1801. After graduating from Union College,
Seward was admitted to the New York State Bar in 1822.
Seward became active in politics and joined the Whig
Party and served as state senator (1830-1834) and state governor
(1838-42). He promoted progressive political policies including prison
reform and increased spending on education. This included the idea
of schools for immigrants taught in their own language.
In 1848 Seward entered the Senate and over the next few years emerged
as the leader of the anti-slavery wing
of the Whig
Party. An opponent of the Fugitive
Slave Act, he defended runaway
slaves in court. In 1850 Seward claimed
in a speech that if slavery was not abolished America would become
embroiled in a civil war. He continued to argue this point of view
over the next ten years.
With the decline in the fortunes of the Whig
Party, Seward joined the Republican
Party in 1855. By this time Seward had moderated
his views and was no longer associated with the group that were known
as the Radical Republicans. Seward lost
the presidential nomination to John
C. Fremont in 1856. He was
expected to get the nomination in 1860 but many of the delegates feared
that his radical past would prevent him from winning the election.
However, radicals such as Horace Greeley
also opposed him because they were angry at his shift to the right.
When Abraham Lincoln won the nomination
Seward loyally supported him and made a long speaking tour of the
West in the autumn of 1860.
As soon as Abraham Lincoln won the election
he offered Seward the post as his Secretary of State. Before accepting
Seward tried to use his influence to get John
C. Fremont appointed as Secretary
of War. Lincoln refused and instead selected the conservative Simon
Cameron. Seward was also unsuccessful in his attempts to
persuade Lincoln not to appoint Salmon
Chase and Montgomery
Blair to the Cabinet. Seward was so unhappy about this that it
was not until the 5th March, 1861, that he agreed to accept the post
as Secretary of State.
During the Fort Sumter crisis Seward
urged Abraham Lincoln not to take any
action that would result in the outbreak of war between the Union
and the Confederacy. He argued that the fort was "a useless symbol
of federal authority and sovereignty" and that a war would drive
the Border States into the arms of the secessionists". Seward
was the only person in the Cabinet who took this view and was powerless
to stop the American Civil War taking
place.
Once fighting began Seward became an aggressive supporter of the war
effort. He became head of the government's program to arrest disloyal
people living in the North. It was claimed that Seward had boasted
that he had so much power "he could ring a little bell and cause
the arrest of a citizen". Although the story is probably untrue,
Seward definitely developed a reputation for using dictatorial methods
to deal with Confederate sympathizers.
Seward also warned the British and French government of the dire consequences
if they recognized the government of Jefferson
Davis. In public he gave the
impression that the United States would be willing to go to war with
any European country that attempted to help the Confederacy. However,
in private, Seward was much more diplomatic and reassured foreign
ministers that he had no intentions of carrying out these threats.
During the American Civil War Seward
became an important influence over Abraham
Lincoln. He persuaded him to delay the announcement of the Emancipation
Proclamationuntil after a major military success. As a result,
Lincoln waited until the Union Army victory
at Antietam
in September, 1862.
Radical Republicans saw Seward as a bad influence on Lincoln and
in December, 1862, made a vigorous attempt to have him ousted from
the Cabinet. However, the Confederates hated Seward for his well-known
opposition to slavery. In April, 1864,
he made a speech where he argued that peace negotiations would be
based on the principal "that slavery will be abolished and all
slaves must be made unconditionally free" He therefore became
a target of the conspiracy organized by John
Wilkes Booth.
On 14th April, 1865, while recovering
from a serious injury as a result of a carriage accident, Seward was
stabbed in the throat by Lewis
Powell.
Doctors feared that Seward would die but he made amazing recovery
from his serious wounds and returned to his post as Secretary of State
under President Andrew Johnson. After
the war Seward became increasing conservative and fully supported
Johnson's policy of appeasing Southern whites. This included Johnson's
vetoing of the
extension of the Freeman's
Bureau, the Civil
Rights Bill and the Reconstruction
Acts.
Radical
Republicans were furious when it became
clear that Seward was willing to sacrifice protection of freed slaves
for the sake of national unity.
Seward was instrumental in 1867 he purchased
Alaska from Russia for $7,200,000 in 1867. William Seward, who was
replaced by Elihu Washburne as Secretary
of State when Ulysses S. Grant became
president, died in Auburn, Cayuga County, on 10th October, 1872.
(1)
William Seward, speech, Rochester, New York (25th October, 1858)
The
slave system is one of constant danger, distrust, suspicion, and watchfulness.
It debases those whose toil alone can produce wealth and resources
for defense to the lowest degree of which human nature is capable,
to guard against mutiny and insurrection, and this wastes energies
which otherwise might be employed in national development and aggrandizement.
In states where the slave system prevails, the masters directly or
indirectly secure all political power and constitute a ruling aristocracy.
In states where the free-labor system prevails, universal suffrage
necessarily obtains and the state inevitably becomes sooner or later
a republic or democracy.
The two systems are at once perceived to be incongruous - they are
incompatible. They never have permanently existed together in one
country, and they never can. Hitherto, the two systems have existed
in different states, but side by side within the American Union. This
has happened because the Union is a confederation of states. But in
another aspect the United States constitute only one nation. Increase
of population which is filling the states out to their very borders,
together with a new and extended network of railroads and other avenues,
and an internal commerce which daily becomes more intimate, is rapidly
bringing the states into a higher and more perfect social unity of
consolidation. Thus, these antagonistic systems are continually coming
into closer contact, and collision results.
The Democratic Party derived its strength originally from its adoption
of the principles of equal and exact justice to all men. So long as
it practised this principle faithfully, it was invulnerable. It became
vulnerable when it renounced the principle, and since that time it
has maintained itself not by virtue of its own strength, or even of
its traditional merits, but because there as yet had appeared in the
political field no other party that had the conscience and the courage
to take up, and avow, and practice the life-inspiring principle which
the Democratic Party surrendered.
At last, the Republican Party had appeared. It avows now, as the Republican
Party of 1800 did, in one word, its faith and its works, "Equal
and exact justice to all men." The secret of its assured success
lies in that very characteristic, which in the mouth of scoffers constitutes
its great and lasting imbecility and reproach. It lies in the fact
that it is a party of one idea; but that idea is a noble one - an
idea that fills and expands all generous souls - the idea of equality
- the equality of all men before human tribunals and human laws, as
they are equal before the divine tribunal and divine laws.
(2)
Henry
Villard reported on the the Republican
Party Convention in 1860. Villard supported William
H. Seward and was surprised when Abraham
Lincoln won the nomination.
I
was enthusiastically for the nomination of William H. Seward, who
seemed to me the proper and natural leader of the Republican Party
ever since his great "irrepressible conflict" speech in
1858. The noisy demonstrations of his followers, and especially of
the New York delegation in his favour, had made me sure, too, that
his candidacy would be irresistible. I therefore shared fully the
intense chagrin of the New York and other State delegations when,
on the third ballot, Abraham Lincoln received a larger vote than Seward.
I had not got over the prejudice against Lincoln with which my personal
contact with him in 1858 imbued me. It seemed to me incomprehensible
and outrageous that the uncouth, common Illinois politician, whose
only experience in public life had been service as a member of the
State legislature and in Congress for one term, should carry the day
over the eminent and tried statesman, the foremost figure, indeed,
in the country.
(3)
William Seward, memorandum to Abraham
Lincoln (1st April, 1861)
My system is built upon
the idea as a ruling one, namely, that we must change the question
before the public from one upon slavery, or about slavery, for a question
upon union or disunion. In other words, from what would be regarded
as a party question to one of patriotism or union.
The occupation or evacuation of Fort Sumter, although not in fact
a slavery or a party question, is so regarded. Witness the temper
manifested by the Republicans in the free states, and even by the
Union men in the South.
I would therefore terminate it as a safe means for changing the issue.
I deem it fortunate that the last administration created the necessity.
For the rest, I would simultaneously defend and reinforce all the
ports in the Gulf and have the Navy recalled from foreign stations
to be prepared for a blockade. Put the island of Key West under martial
law.
(4)
William Bell, testimony before the Military Tribunal investigating
the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln
(19th May, 1865)
I live at the house of
Mr. Seward, Secretary of State, and attend to the door. That man (pointing
to Lewis Powell) came to the house of Mr. Seward on the night of the
14th April. The bell rang and I went to the door, and that man came
in. He had a little package in his hand; he said it was medicine for
Mr. Seward from Dr. Verdi, and that he was sent by Dr. Verdi to direct
Mr. Seward how to take it. He said he must go up; then repeating the
words over, and was a good while talking with me in the hall.
He then walked up to the hall towards the steps. He met Mr. Frederick
Seward on the steps this side of his father's room. He told Mr. Frederick
that he wanted to see Mr. Seward. Mr. Frederick went into the room
and came out, and told him that he could not see him; that his father
was asleep, and to give him the medicine, and he would take it to
him. That would not do; he must see Mr. Seward. He must see him; he
said it in just that way. He then struck Mr. Frederick. Then I ran
down stairs and out of the front door, hallooing "murder".
(5) George Robinson, testimony
before the Military Tribunal investigating the assassination of President
Abraham Lincoln (19th May, 1865)
On the 14th April I was at
the residence of Mr. Seward, Secretary of State, acting as attendant
nurse to Mr. Seward, who was confined to his bed by injuries received
from having been thrown from his carriage. One of his arms was broken
and his jaw fractured.
I heard a disturbance in the hall, and opened the door to see what
the trouble was; and as I opened the door this man (Lewis Powell)
struck me with a knife in the forehead, knocked me partially down,
and pressed by me to the bed of Mr. Seward, and struck him, wounding
him. As soon as I could get on my feet, I endeavored to haul him off
his bed, and then he turned upon me. In the scuffle Major Seward came
into the room and clinched him. Between the two of us we got him to
the door, and he, unclinching his hands from around my neck, struck
me again, this time with his fist, knocking me down, and then broke
away from Major Seward and ran down stairs.
I saw him strike Mr. Seward with the same knife with which he cut
my forehead. It was a large knife, and he held it with the blade down
below his hand. I saw him cut Mr. Seward twice that I am sure of;
the first time he struck him on the right cheek, and then he seemed
to be cutting around his neck.
(6) Major
Augustus Seward, testimony
before the Military Tribunal investigating the assassination of President
Abraham Lincoln (26th May, 1865)
I am the son of William H. Seward, Secretary of State, and was at
his home on the night of 14th April, 1865. I retired to bed at half-past
seven. I very shortly fell asleep, and so remained until I was awakened
by the screams of my sister, when I jumped out of bed and ran into
my father's room. The gas in the room was turned down rather low,
and I saw what appeared to be two men, one trying to hold the other
at the foot of my father's bed. I seized by the clothes on his breast
and shoved the person of whom I had hold to the door, with the intention
of getting him out of the room. While I was pushing him, he struck
me five or six times on the forehead and top of the head, and once
on the left hand, with what I supposed to be a bottle or decanter
that he had seized from the table. During this time he repeated, in
an intense but not strong voice, the words "I'm mad, I'm mad!"
On reaching the hall he gave a sudden turn, and sprang away from me,
and disappeared down the stairs.
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