THE REMINISCENCES OF CARL SCHURZ
way, in his answer reminded Mr. Seward that it was the President's business and responsibility to determine the policy of the administration; and he had further intimated his disapproval of Mr. Seward's fantastic suggestions of foreign embroilment by not mentioning them at all. Thus this attempt at a sort of palace revolution had passed behind the scenes unknown to anybody except the actors in it, Mr. Lincoln keeping the secret from motives of generosity and patriotic considerations, and Mr. Seward naturally concealing a defeat which would have become fatal to his standing and his ambitions had it become public.
Thus it was left to posterity to wonder at the strange confusion of so able a mind as Seward's, which not only glaringly misjudged the mental and moral caliber of such a man as Lincoln, but conceived a scheme of policy which, if adopted, would inevitably have resulted in the ruin of the Republic. Seward's conduct on this occasion is, indeed, one of the psychological puzzles of history. On the other hand, the late revelation of this amazing incident has served only to heighten the admiration in which posterity holds the President who, in the face of so galling a provocation, was great enough to forgive the insult as a temporary aberration of the offender, and to consider only what mischief a Cabinet-crisis for such reasons might have wrought at the time, and what service such a man as Seward might still render to the Republic if wisely controlled. And thus the secret was religiously kept until the historian disclosed it.
But there was many an uneasy feeling floating about in the atmosphere of Washington in those days. According to the reports coming from the Southern States, the rebellion was rapidly organizing and strengthening itself, State after State joining the Confederacy, and the Southern people rush-
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