War or peace, happiness or adversity, one
nation or two--all these were in the balance. Lincoln entered
the episode a doubtful quantity, not with certainty the master
even in his own Cabinet. He emerged dominating the situation,
but committed to the terrible course of war.
One cannot enter upon this great episode, truly the turning point
in American history, without pausing for a glance at the
character of Seward. The subject is elusive. His ablest
biographer* plainly is so constantly on guard not to appear an
apologist that he ends by reducing his portrait to a mere
outline, wavering across a background of political details. The
most recent study of Seward** surely reveals between the lines
the doubtfulness of the author about pushing his points home. The
different sides of the man are hard to reconcile. Now he seemed
frank and honest; again subtle and insincere. As an active
politician in the narrow sense, he should have been sagacious and
astute, yet he displayed at the crisis of his life the most
absolute fatuity. At times he had a buoyant and puerile way of
disregarding fact and enveloping himself in a world of his own
imagining. He could bluster, when he wished, like any demagogue;
and yet he could be persuasive, agreeable, and even personally
charming.
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