Great Britain and the American Civil War

by Ephraim Douglass Adams

British Ministers, however, would have paid little attention to Seward's speeches intended for home political consumption, or to a careless bit of social talk, had there not been suspicion of other and more serious evidences of unfriendliness. Lyons was an unusually able and well-informed Minister, and from the first he had pictured the leadership of Seward in the new administration at Washington, and had himself been worried by his inability to understand what policy Seward was formulating. But, in fact, he did not see clearly what was going on in the camp of the Republican party now dominant in the North. The essential feature of the situation was that Seward, generally regarded as the man whose wisdom must guide the ill-trained Lincoln, and himself thinking this to be his destined function, early found his authority challenged by other leaders, and his policies not certain of acceptance by the President. It is necessary to review, briefly, the situation at Washington.

Lincoln was inaugurated as President on March 4. He had been elected as a Republican by a political party never before in power. Many of the leading members of this party were drawn from the older parties and had been in administrative positions in either State or National Governments, but there were no party traditions, save the lately created one of opposition to the expansion of slavery to the Territories. All was new, then, to the men now in power in the National Government, and a new and vital issue, that of secession already declared by seven Southern States, had to be met by a definite policy. The important immediate question was as to whether Lincoln had a policy, or, if not, upon whom he would depend to guide him.

In the newly-appointed Cabinet were two men who, in popular estimate, were expected to take the lead--Chase, of Ohio, the Secretary of the Treasury, and Seward, of New York, Secretary of State. Both were experienced in political matters and both stood high in the esteem of the anti-slavery element in the North, but Seward, all things considered, was regarded as the logical leading member of the Cabinet. He had been the favoured candidate for Republican Presidential nomination in 1860, making way for Lincoln only on the theory that the latter as less Radical on anti-slavery, could be more easily elected. Also, he now held that position which by American tradition was regarded as the highest in the Cabinet.

In fact, everyone at Washington regarded it as certain that Seward would determine the policy of the new administration. Seward's own attitude is well summed up in a despatch to his Government, February 18, 1861, by Rudolph Schleiden, Minister from the Republic of Bremen. He described a conversation with Seward in regard to his relations with Lincoln:

"Seward, however, consoled himself with the clever remark, that there is no great difference between an elected president of the United States and an hereditary monarch. The latter is called to the throne through the accident of birth, the former through the chances which make his election possible. The actual direction of public affairs belongs to the leader of the ruling party, here as well as in any hereditary principality.
"The future President is a self-made man and there is therefore as little doubt of his energy as of his proverbial honesty ('honest old Abe'). It is also acknowledged that he does not lack common sense. But his other qualities for the highest office are practically unknown. His election may therefore be readily compared with a lottery. It is possible that the United States has drawn the first prize, on the other hand the gain may only have been a small one. But unfortunately the possibility is not excluded that it may have been merely a blank."

The first paragraph of this quotation reports Seward's opinion; the second is apparently Schleiden's own estimate. Two weeks later Schleiden sent home a further analysis of Lincoln:

"He makes the impression of a natural man of clear and healthy mind, great good-naturedness and best intentions. He seems to be fully conscious of the great responsibility which rests upon him. But at the same time it appears as if he had lost some of his famous firmness and resoluteness through the novelty of the conditions which surround him and the hourly renewed attempts from various sides to gain influence over him. He is therefore at present inclined to concede double weight to the superior political experience of his Secretary of State[200]."