It may be questioned whether this was the wisest course, but wisdom is often disconcerted by an indignity, and even a meek Christian may forget to turn the other cheek after receiving the first blow until the natural man has asserted himself by a retort in kind. But the wrong was committed; his resignation was accepted; the vulgar letter, not fit to be spread out on these pages, is enrolled in the records of the nation, and the first deep wound was inflicted on the proud spirit of one whose renown had shed lustre on the whole country.
That the burden of this wrong may rest where it belongs, I quote the following statement from Mr. Jay's paper, already referred to.
“It is due to the memory of Mr. Seward to say, and there would seem
now no further motive for concealing the truth, that I was told in
Europe, on what I regarded as reliable authority, that there was
reason to believe that on the receipt of Mr. Motley's resignation
Mr. Seward had written to him declining to accept it, and that this
letter, by a telegraphic order of President Johnson, had been
arrested in the hands of a dispatch agent before its delivery to Mr.
Motley, and that the curt letter of the 18th of April had been
substituted in its stead.”
The Hon. John Bigelow, late Minister to France, has published an article in “The International Review” for July-August, 1878, in which he defends his late friend Mr. Seward's action in this matter at the expense of the President, Mr. Andrew Johnson, and not without inferences unfavorable to the discretion of Mr. Motley. Many readers will think that the simple record of Mr. Seward's unresisting acquiescence in the action of the President is far from being to his advantage. I quote from his own conversation as carefully reported by his friend Mr. Bigelow. “Mr. Johnson was in a state of intense irritation, and more or less suspicious of everybody about him.”—“Instead of throwing the letter into the fire,” the President handed it to him, the secretary, and suggested answering it, and without a word, so far as appears, he simply answered, “Certainly, sir.” Again, the secretary having already written to Mr. Motley that “his answer was satisfactory,” the President, on reaching the last paragraph of Mr. Motley's letter, in which he begged respectfully to resign his post, “without waiting to learn what Mr. Seward had done or proposed to do, exclaimed, with a not unnatural asperity, 'Well, let him go,' and 'on hearing this,' said Mr. Seward, laughing, 'I did not read my dispatch.'” Many persons will think that the counsel for the defence has stated the plaintiff's case so strongly that there is nothing left for him but to show his ingenuity and his friendship for the late secretary in a hopeless argument. At any rate, Mr. Seward appears not to have made the slightest effort to protect Mr. Motley against his coarse and jealous chief at two critical moments, and though his own continuance in office may have been more important to the State than that of the Vicar of Bray was to the Church, he ought to have risked something, as it seems to me, to shield such a patriot, such a gentleman, such a scholar, from ignoble treatment; he ought to have been as ready to guard Mr. Motley from wrong as Mr. Bigelow has shown himself to shield Mr. Seward from reproach, and his task, if more delicate, was not more difficult. I am willing to accept Mr. Bigelow's loyal and honorable defence of his friend's memory as the best that could be said for Mr. Seward, but the best defence in this case is little better than an impeachment. As for Mr. Johnson, he had held the weapon of the most relentless of the 'Parcae' so long that his suddenly clipping the thread of a foreign minister's tenure of office in a fit of jealous anger is not at all surprising.
Thus finished Mr. Motley's long and successful diplomatic service at the Court of Austria. He may have been judged hasty in resigning his place; he may have committed himself in expressing his opinions too strongly before strangers, whose true character as spies and eavesdroppers he was too high-minded to suspect. But no caution could have protected him against a slanderer who hated the place he came from, the company he kept, the name he had made famous, to whom his very look and bearing —such as belong to a gentleman of natural refinement and good breeding —must have been a personal grievance and an unpardonable offence.
I will add, in illustration of what has been said, and as showing his feeling with reference to the matter, an extract from a letter to me from Vienna, dated the 12th of March, 1867.
. . . “As so many friends and so many strangers have said so much
that is gratifying to me in public and private on this very painful
subject, it would be like affectation, in writing to so old a friend
as you, not to touch upon it. I shall confine myself, however, to
one fact, which, so far as I know, may be new to you.
“Geo. W. M'Cracken is a man and a name utterly unknown to me.
“With the necessary qualification which every man who values truth
must make when asserting such a negation,—viz., to the very best of
my memory and belief,—I never set eyes on him nor heard of him
until now, in the whole course of my life. Not a member of my
family or of the legation has the faintest recollection of any such
person. I am quite convinced that he never saw me nor heard the
sound of my voice. That his letter was a tissue of vile calumnies,
shameless fabrications, and unblushing and contemptible falsehoods,
—by whomsoever uttered,—I have stated in a reply to what ought
never to have been an official letter. No man can regret more than
I do that such a correspondence is enrolled in the capital among
American state papers. I shall not trust myself to speak of the
matter. It has been a sufficiently public scandal.”
XIX. 1867-1868. AEt. 53-54.
LAST TWO VOLUMES OF THE “HISTORY OF THE UNITED NETHERLANDS.”—GENERAL CRITICISMS OF DUTCH SCHOLARS ON MOTLEY'S HISTORICAL WORKS.