BOTTLING THAT WASP.
It was confidently forethought by the numerous admirers of Governor Seward--who escaped being the President by a political combination and not want of supreme merit--that he would in the Cabinet, whatever nominally his post, be the ruling spirit. Not a man suspected that the plain man of the prairie could develop into the lord of the manor, and put and keep not only the able and cultured Seward, but the turbulent Stanton and the obstreperous Chase, in their places. The pettifogger of the West simply expanded, like its sunflower, in the fierce white light around the chair, and was the lion, among the lesser creatures.
Seward raised his hand early. Within a month he had the impertinent fatuity to lay before his superior a paper suggesting the policy, and moving that the President might commit to him, the secretary, the carrying out of that policy! With gentle courtesy--says General Viele--Lincoln took the paper from the author and popped it into his portfolio. He had no policy, and did not want another's. He had bottled his wasp. Seward was obedient as the spaniel. His powers were recognized by the villains who comprised him in the detestable plot.