Born at Florida, Orange County, N. Y., May 16, 1801; died at Auburn, N. Y., Oct. 10, 1872. A noted American statesman. He graduated at Union College in 1820; was admitted to the bar in 1822; settled in Auburn in 1823; was elected in 1830 as anti-Masonic candidate to the New York State Senate, in which he served until 1834; was the unsuccessful Whig candidate for governor in 1834; was elected (Whig) governor of New York in 1838; was reëlected in 1840, and served till Jan. 1, 1843; was Whig and afterward Republican United States senator from New York 1849–61; made in 1858 a celebrated speech at Rochester, in which he declared that the antagonism between freedom and slavery was an “irrepressible conflict” between opposing forces; was a candidate for the Republican nomination for President in 1860; was secretary of state 1861–69; was severely wounded by an accomplice of John Wilkes Booth, April 14, 1865; made a journey to Europe 1859 (having made a similar journey in 1833); traveled in western United States and Mexico in 1869; and made a journey around the world 1870–71. During his incumbency of the secretaryship of state he averted serious complications with Great Britain by his prudence and skill in the negotiations over the “Trent affair;” prevailed on the French government to withdraw its troops from Mexico; and in 1867 concluded the negotiations with Russia for the cession of Alaska. He supported the reconstruction policy of President Johnson. His works were published by G. E. Baker in 5 vols. 1853–84.

Personal

  His wife and his children were constantly in his thoughts as in his heart, and his friendship was firm, warm and lasting. There was in him a very high and delicate sense of honor, and he always held himself far above any position or office which he filled.

  Seward in conversation was slow and methodical till warmed up, when he was one of the most voluminous and eloquent of talkers. No statesman in the country had a vaster range of reading, or wider experience in the management of public affairs. He had been almost continuously in public life since he was thirty, and was educated in a State where adroitness and audacity are needed to make a successful politician, who must sometimes pretend “to see the things he sees not.”

  In all the relations of private life he was most admirable: a devoted husband, a kind and sympathetic father, a firm and loyal friend, an excellent neighbor and citizen. The bitter disappointment of the people of Auburn at his failure to receive the presidential nomination in 1860 shows the love they bore him. His optimism in politics and in life generally was not merely the result of a disposition naturally cheerful and buoyant, but of a firm faith in an overruling Providence. His industry was tireless, his capacity for work enormous. He often wrote far into the night, and during the years of his active practice as a lawyer the young men in his office would frequently find in the morning the floor of his room strewn with papers which he had written while they were asleep.

Statesmen

  The most remarkable feature in his public career is his consistent adherence to principle. Guided not by a low worldly policy, or motives of secular expediency, but by the radiant light of ideal truth, his course has been like the path of a noble ship on the ocean, faithfully steering by celestial luminaries. His past history presents the best assurance of his future activity. Whatever the sphere in which he may be placed, it is certain that he will bring exalted talents to the performance of the humblest as well as the noblest duties, postponing all private interests to his love of humanity, and seeking as the highest boon of a manly life, the realization of truth, justice, and love, in the institutions of society.

  The State of New York by a full delegation with complete unanimity of purpose at home, came to this convention and presented as its choice, one of its citizens who had served the State from boyhood up, who had labored for and loved it. We came from a great state with as we thought, a great statesman, and our love of the great republic from which we are all delegates, the great American Union, and our love of the great Republican party of the Union and our love of our statesman and candidate, made us think that we did our duty to the country and the whole country in expressing our preference for him. For it was from Gov. Seward that most of us learned to love Republican principles, and the Republican party. His fidelity to the country, the constitution and the laws, his fidelity to the party and the principle that the majority govern, his interest in the advancement of our party to its victory, that our country may rise to its true glory, induces me to assume to speak his sentiments as I do indeed the opinion of our whole delegation when I move you as I do now that the nomination of Abraham Lincoln, of Illinois, as the Republican candidate for the suffrages of the whole country for the office of Chief Magistrate of the American Union, be made unanimous.

  Apart from politics, I liked the man, though not blind to his faults. His natural instincts were humane and progressive…. That his ends have ever been patriotic, I will not doubt; that his means have sometimes been mistaken, I think his warmest friends must admit. That he once aspired to the Presidency is a truth, but no reproach; able, wise, and good men have done so, without impeachment.

  It will be, however, as Secretary of State of the United States, during the whole period of the late Civil War, and for nearly four years after that war was closed, and while its results were in daily progress of development, that Mr. Seward will be longest remembered. To him is primarily and principally due the successful administration of our foreign affairs during that eventful and critical period. Volume after volume of official correspondence attests his unceasing labors. And if, in the vast mass of his written or spoken words, in a time of so much anxiety and agitation, there be some which even his best friends would willingly obliterate; or if, amid the many responsibilities he was compelled to assume, there were some acts to be regretted by any of us,—yet all such disparagements of his name and fame will be forgotten hereafter, in the grateful remembrance that through his leading intervention our peace with foreign nations was preserved, and our country left free to fight out the great battle of the Union to its final triumph.

  Mr. Lincoln could not fail soon to perceive the fact that, whatever estimate he might put on his own acute judgment, he had to deal with a superior in native intellectual power, in extent of acquirement, in breadth of philosophic experience, and in the force of moral discipline. On the other hand, Mr. Seward could not have been long blind to the deficiencies of the chief in these respects, however highly he might value his integrity of purpose, his shrewd capacity, and his generous and amiable disposition.

  A greater error could scarcely be committed than to represent that Mr. Lincoln “had to deal with a superior intellectual power” when he came in contact with Mr. Seward. The reverse was the fact. In mere scholastic acquirements “Mr. Seward, never a learned man,” may have had the advantage, though in this respect there was less difference than is generally supposed; while “in breadth of philosophical experience and in the force of moral discipline” the almost self-taught and reflective mind of Mr. Lincoln, which surmounted difficulties and disadvantages that his Secretary never knew, conspicuously excelled. In the executive council and in measures of administration the Secretary had influence, not always happily exercised, but the President’s was the master mind.

  The conviction is almost universal that he knew less of law and cared less about it than any other man who has held high office in this country. If he had not abandoned the law, he might have been a sharp attorney; but he never could have risen to the upper walks of the profession. He would have been kept in the lowest rank, not by want of mental capacity or lack of diligent habits, but by the inherent defects of his moral nature. He did not believe in legal justice, and to assist in the honest administration of it was against the grain of all his inclinations…. When Mr. Seward went into the State Department he took a Little Bell to his office in place of the Statute Book, and this piece of sounding brass came to be a symbol of the Higher Law. When he desired to kidnap a free citizen, to banish him, to despoil him of his property, or to kill him after the mockery of a military trial, he rang his Little Bell and the deed was done. This man, to whom you would assign a place in history above all other American statesmen, took a childish delight in the perverted use of his power, and displayed it as ostentatiously as one of those half-witted boys who were sometimes raised to the purple in the evil days of the Roman empire.

  Seward was a favorite of fortune. He was fortunate in his gifts, his surroundings, his successes, his career, his temperament, his friendships. He was peculiarly blessed in the last respect by having as a lifelong friend Thurlow Weed, one of the most astute and powerful politicians we have ever produced, who relieved Seward of many of the burdens of politics, and left him free to work out the principles they both had at heart. It was a rare chance which gave Seward such a friend, and he made the most of it, as he did of all his opportunities, after the fashion of successful people. Very few men have made themselves count for more than Seward, in proportion to their ability. This arose from his wonderful capacity for dealing with his fellow-men, from his robust common sense, and from his cautious firmness.

  William H. Seward had all the higher qualities of statesmanship. Of a delicacy of temperament that indicated genius, he possessed a mind of rare power, which he filled with vast stores of information through patient and impartial study. His mind was singularly suggestive, and sustained by a courage and industry that moulded these suggestions into measures of legislation highly beneficial to the people he served…. How discouraging to the student of history to see men so great neglected, their services unrecognized, their work unknown, while epauletted creatures, upon whose imbecility rests the responsibility of uncalled for carnage that spread mourning and cruel desolation over all the land, are rewarded in life and honored to immortality in death…. In the heart of New York, a bronze statue of heroic size has been erected to the memory of New York’s greatest statesman. It will darken into slow decay, as his memory fades into oblivion without probably one of the busy millions knowing that, for four years, nothing stood between that great commercial centre and the utter ruin of a bombardment but the subtle intellect and patriotic heart of that one man. Without a navy, possessed of no coast defences, our cities on the sea were at the mercy of the weakest naval power of Europe. In all this I detract nothing from the fame of Lincoln. Seward was a greater man in one thing, but not in all things, than Abraham Lincoln; and were we the enlightened people we claim to be, the great Secretary’s name would live along the pages of our history as that of one whose cultured mind, indomitable will, high courage, and pure patriotism, made a debt we were proud to acknowledge, thus honoring ourselves in honoring him.

  Notwithstanding his limitations, Seward stands in the front rank of political leaders, both on account of the talents he displayed and the services he rendered to his country. And he holds the first place among all our Secretaries of State. Sumner had a more thorough knowledge of international law; Adams was by birth and education equipped for diplomacy; Chase had a genius for managing national finances in a critical time. Stanton was the broad and tireless organizer of the physical forces that saved the nation. Seward had dash, a knowledge of political conditions, and a versatility such as none of these men possessed, while his perfect tact and vigor of intellect, his enthusiasm and inspiring hope, made him the almost perfect supplement to Lincoln. The Secretary grew in diplomacy as the President grew in statesmanship.

  He had many of the qualities of a diplomat—good temper, resolution, finesse and a high sense of national dignity…. Perhaps it will not be too much to say that the characteristic of Seward’s whole public life was youth. He had the hopes, the ambitions, the convictions, the expectations of a young man; hence he easily reacted from the severe disappointments of 1856, 1860 and 1861. He was a man who loved to lead and who loved to be well thought of, but one who could nevertheless accept the leadership of another and who could even endure the pangs of unpopularity throughout all his later life…. His mind was quick, and he had the lawyer’s habit of marking differences of conditions which might take away the force of cases cited against him; Seward so loved to be thought a frank, open, direct and candid man that in his own mind he always deserved that reputation. The greatest criticism upon Seward is his own remarkable suggestions sent to President Lincoln, April 1, 1861. Ever since the publication of that document by Nicolay and Hay, writers on the period have painted the moral. Bancroft is, however, the first to show a practical reason for Seward’s attitude: he alone has discovered how much Seward had become involved by his own belief in a pacific settlement and by his own hope to bring about that settlement unaided. The fault was a great one; the atonement is equally great, for Lincoln’s concise, considerate answer changed the chieftain into a loyal ancient. From the Sumter expedition to Lincoln’s death, it does not appear that Seward hampered or disturbed the President by separate adventures, by carping criticism or by half-hearted service. In fact, Lincoln thoroughly liked and enjoyed him, and enjoyed those floating stories about Seward’s forgetfulness which the biographer has left out of his book. In earnestness, in perception of the real nature of the slavery contest, in the moral indignation which nerved the nation to its great task, a lesser man than his great rival Chase, Seward was the better friend to Lincoln and the better aid. His international law might be faulty, his despatches might loose the eagle’s screams, but he did direct his great abilities with a single heart toward his important task.

General

  There can be no doubt, however, of Governor Seward’s talents, especially as a writer of pure English. His style is perspicuous and nervous, free from the tawdry and unmeaning embellishments of our modern public documents, and equally fitted for the good taste of the scholar and the comprehension of the plain man of sense.

  Seward is a great man among great men. He is not so volcanic as Benton—not so logical as Webster—not so eloquent as Clay—not so brilliant as Foote—not so jovial as Hale; but he can write a better letter than any of them. A little from his pen will go a great distance and keep a long time. His classic style, his earnest air, his truthful manner, his uncommon sense, his perfect self-control, his thorough knowledge of the leading questions of the day, compel the attention and admiration of the hearer. He is never timid, never tame, never squeamish, never vulgar, never insulting. He is independent without egotism, modest without subserviency, dignified without pomposity, and sociable without affectation.

  Soon after the death of Mr. Adams, I proposed to Mr. Seward to write for publication, a life of John Quincy Adams. Although much engrossed in legal business he accepted my offer and undertook the work. He was greatly assisted in its production by the Rev. John M. Austin, a writer of several popular books, and in whom Mr. Seward had the utmost confidence. The work reached a sale of over 40,000 copies. This was one of my earlier successes as a publisher of that class of books.

  This work [“Diplomatic History of Civil War in America”] with its many documents by Mr. Seward, illustrates his mental, political, and literary powers. Not externally brilliant, they were of solid worth, and secured for the United States diplomatic triumphs as great and as essential as those of Gettysburg and Appomattox.