Lincoln administration War breaks out Lincoln faced the question of what to do about Fort Sumter in Charleston harbor, held by the Army against the will of South Carolinians, who had blockaded it. The fort's commander, Major
Robert Anderson, had sent word that he would run out of supplies. Seward, backed by most of the Cabinet, recommended to Lincoln that an attempt to resupply Sumter would be provocative to the border states, that Lincoln hoped to keep from seceding. Seward hinted to the commissioners who had come to Washington on behalf of the Confederacy that Sumter would be surrendered. Lincoln was loath to give up Sumter, feeling it would only encourage the South in its insurgency. With the Sumter issue unresolved, Seward sent Lincoln a memorandum on April 1, proposing various courses of action, including possibly declaring war on France and Spain if certain conditions were not met, and reinforcing the forts along the
Gulf of Mexico. In any event, vigorous policies were needed and the president must either establish them himself or allow a Cabinet member to do so, with Seward making it clear he was willing to do it. Lincoln drafted a reply indicating that whatever policy was adopted, "I must do it", though he never sent it, but met with Seward instead, and what passed between them is not known. Seward's biographers make the point that the note was sent to a Lincoln who had not yet proved himself in office. Lincoln decided on expeditions to try to relieve Sumter and Florida's
Fort Pickens. Meanwhile, Seward was assuring Justice
John Archibald Campbell, the intermediary with the Confederate commissioners who had come to Washington in an attempt to secure recognition, that no hostile action would be taken. Lincoln sent a notification to South Carolina's governor of the expedition, and on April 12, Charleston's batteries began firing on Sumter, beginning the
Civil War.
Diplomacy When the war started, Seward turned his attention to making sure that foreign powers did not interfere in the conflict. His biggest challenge was dealing with Great Britain, some of whose leaders favored the Confederacy. An Anglo-American war would probably ensure Confederate independence. Seward and Lincoln had to closely watch and carefully respond. When the Confederacy announced in April 1861 that it would authorize
privateers, Seward sent word to the American representatives abroad that the U.S. would become party to the
Paris Declaration Respecting Maritime Law of 1856. This would outlaw such vessels, but Britain required that, if the U.S. were to become a party, the ratification would not require action to be taken against Confederate vessels. The Palmerston government considered recognizing the Confederacy as an independent nation. Seward was willing to wage war against Britain if it did and drafted a strong letter for the American Minister in London,
Charles Francis Adams, to read to the Foreign Secretary,
Lord Russell. Seward submitted it to Lincoln, who, realizing that the Union was in no position to battle both the South and Britain, toned it down considerably, and made it merely a memorandum for Adams's guidance. In May 1861, Britain and France declared the South to be
belligerents by international law, and their ships were entitled to the same rights as U.S.-flagged vessels, including the right to remain 24 hours in neutral ports. Nevertheless, Seward was pleased that both nations would not meet with Confederate commissioners or recognize the South as a nation. Britain did not challenge the Union blockade of Confederate ports, and Seward wrote that if Britain continued to avoid interfering in the war, he would not be overly sensitive to what wording they used to describe their policies. In November 1861, the , commanded by Captain
Charles Wilkes, intercepted the British mail ship
RMS Trent and
removed two Confederate diplomats,
James Mason and
John Slidell. They were held in Boston amid jubilation in the North and outrage in Britain. The British minister in Washington,
Lord Lyons, demanded their release, as the U.S. had no right to stop a British-flagged ship traveling between neutral ports. The British drew up war plans to attack New York and sent reinforcements to Canada. Seward worked to defuse the situation. He persuaded Lyons to postpone delivering an ultimatum and told Lincoln that the prisoners would have to be released. Lincoln did let them go, reluctantly, on technical grounds. Relations between the U.S. and Britain soon improved; in April 1862, Seward and Lyons signed a treaty they had negotiated allowing each nation to inspect the other's ships for contraband slaves. In November 1862, with America's image in Britain improved by the issuance of the preliminary
Emancipation Proclamation, the British cabinet decided against recognition of the Confederacy as a nation. Despite Britain's neutrality, Confederate agents in Britain had arranged for the purchases of arms to be
delivered to Confederate ports through blockade runners as well as the construction of Confederate warships, most notably the
CSS Alabama, which ravaged Union shipping after her construction in 1862. With
two more such vessels under construction the following year, supposedly for French interests, Seward pressed Palmerston not to allow the warships to leave port, and, nearly complete, they were seized by British officials in October 1863.
Involvement in wartime detentions From the start of the war until early 1862, when responsibility was passed to the War Department, Seward was in charge of determining who should be detained without charges or trial. Approximately 800 men and a few women, believed to be Southern sympathizers or spies, were detained, usually at the initiation of local officials. Once Seward was informed, he would often order that the prisoner be transferred to federal authorities. Seward was reported to have boasted to Lord Lyons that "I can touch a bell on my right hand, and order the arrest of a citizen ... and no power on earth, except that of the President, can release them. Can the Queen of England do so much?" In September 1861, Maryland legislators planned to vote to leave the Union. Seward took action against them: his son Frederick, the
United States Assistant Secretary of State, reported to his father that the disloyal legislators were in prison. On the evidence provided by detective
Allen Pinkerton, Seward in 1862 ordered the arrest of
Rose Greenhow, a Washington socialite with Confederate sympathies. Greenhow had sent a stream of reports south, which continued even after she was placed under house arrest. From Washington's
Old Capitol Prison, the "Rebel Rose" provided newspaper interviews until she was allowed to cross into Confederate territory. When Seward received allegations that former president Pierce was involved in a plot against the Union, he asked Pierce for an explanation. Pierce indignantly denied it. The matter proved to be a hoax, and the administration was embarrassed. On February 14, 1862, Lincoln ordered that responsibility for detentions be transferred to the War Department, ending Seward's part in them.
Relationship with Lincoln Seward had mixed feelings about the man who had blocked him from the presidency. One story is that when Seward was told that to deny
Carl Schurz an office would disappoint him, Seward angrily stated, "Disappointment! You speak to me of disappointment! To me, who was justly entitled to the Republican nomination for the presidency, and who had to stand aside and see it given to a little Illinois lawyer!" Despite his initial reservations about Lincoln's abilities, he came to admire Lincoln as the president grew more confident in his job. Seward wrote to his wife in June 1861, "Executive skill and vigor are rare qualities. The President is the best of us, but he needs constant and assiduous cooperation." According to Goodwin, "Seward would become his most faithful ally in the cabinet .... Seward's mortification at not having received his party's nomination never fully abated, but he no longer felt compelled to belittle Lincoln to ease his pain." Lincoln, a one-term congressman, was inexperienced in Washington ways and relied on Seward's advice on protocol and social etiquette. The two men built a close personal and professional relationship. Lincoln fell into the habit of entrusting Seward with tasks not within the remit of the State Department, for example asking him to examine a treaty with the
Delaware Indians. Lincoln would come to Seward's house and the two lawyers would relax before the fire, chatting. Seward began to feature in the president's humorous stories. For example, Lincoln would tell of Seward remonstrating with the president, whom he found polishing his boots, "In Washington, we do not blacken our own boots," with Lincoln's response, "Indeed, then whose boots
do you blacken, Mr. Secretary?" Image:Emancipation proclamation.jpg|thumb|left|Lincoln meeting with his Cabinet for the first reading of the
Emancipation Proclamation draft on July 22, 1862. Seward is seated at mid-right.
Painting by
Francis Carpenter.
(Clickable image—use cursor to identify.) poly 269 892 254 775 193 738 130 723 44 613 19 480 49 453 75 434 58 376 113 344 133 362 143 423 212 531 307 657 357 675 409 876
Edwin Stanton poly 169 282 172 244 244 201 244 148 265 117 292 125 305 166 304 204 321 235 355 296 374 348 338 395 341 469
Salmon Chase poly 569 893 535 708 427 613 357 562 377 456 393 404 468 351 451 317 473 259 520 256 544 283 530 339 526 374 559 401 594 431 639 494 715 542 692 551 693 579 672 546 623 552 596 617 698 629 680 852
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Gideon Welles poly 703 783 752 769 825 627 907 620 929 569 905 538 886 563 833 563 873 502 930 450 1043 407 1043 389 1036 382 1042 363 1058 335 1052 333 1052 324 1081 318 1124 338 1133 374 1116 412 1132 466 1145 509 1117 588 1087 632 1083 706
William Seward poly 905 418 941 328 987 295 995 284 982 244 990 206 1036 207 1046 247 1047 284 1066 312 1071 314 1049 327 1044 354 1033 383 1033 407 921 453
Caleb Smith poly 1081 308 1102 255 1095 220 1093 181 1109 161 1145 160 1169 191 1153 227 1153 246 1199 268 1230 310 1239 377 1237 443 1220 486 1125 451 1118 412 1136 378 1124 342
Montgomery Blair poly 1224 479 1298 416 1304 379 1295 329 1325 310 1360 324 1370 359 1371 385 1371 397 1413 425 1422 497 1440 563 1348 555 1232 517
Edward Bates poly 625 555 595 620 699 625 730 550
Emancipation Proclamation poly 120 80 120 300 3 300 3 80
Portrait of Simon Cameron poly 752 196 961 189 948 8 735 10
Portrait of Andrew Jackson Other cabinet members became resentful of Seward, who seemed to be always present when they discussed their departments' concerns with Lincoln, yet they were never allowed to be there when the two men discussed foreign affairs. Seward announced when cabinet meetings would be; his colleagues eventually persuaded Lincoln to set a regular date and time for those sessions. Seward's position on the Emancipation Proclamation when Lincoln read it to his cabinet in July 1862 is uncertain; Secretary of War
Edwin Stanton wrote at the time that Seward opposed it in principle, feeling the slaves should simply be freed as Union armies advanced. Two later accounts indicate that Seward felt that it was not yet time to issue it, and Lincoln did wait until after the bloody stalemate at
Antietam that ended Confederate General
Robert E. Lee's incursion into the North to issue it. In the interim, Seward cautiously investigated how foreign powers might react to such a proclamation, and learned it would make them less likely to interfere in the conflict. Seward was not close to Lincoln's wife
Mary, who by some accounts had opposed his appointment as Secretary of State. Mary Lincoln developed such a dislike for Seward that she instructed her coachman to avoid passing by the Seward residence. The Secretary of State enjoyed the company of the younger Lincoln boys,
Willie and
Tad, presenting them with two cats from his assortment of pets. Seward accompanied Lincoln to
Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, in November 1863, where Lincoln was to deliver a short speech, that would become famous as the
Gettysburg Address. The night before the speech, Lincoln met with Seward. There is no surviving evidence that Seward contributed any changes: he stated after the address, when asked if had had any hand in it, that only Lincoln could have made that speech. Seward also proposed to Lincoln that he proclaim a day of national thanksgiving, and drafted a proclamation to that effect. Although post-harvest thanksgiving celebrations had long been held, this first formalized
Thanksgiving Day as a national observance.
1864 election; Hampton Roads Conference It was far from certain that Lincoln would even be nominated in 1864, let alone re-elected, as the tide of war, though generally favoring the North, washed back and forth. Lincoln sought nomination by the
National Union Party, composed of Republicans and
War Democrats. No one proved willing to oppose Lincoln, who was nominated. Seward was by then unpopular among many Republicans and opponents sought to prompt his replacement by making Lincoln's running mate former New York Democratic senator
Daniel S. Dickinson; under the political customs of the time, one state could not hold two positions as prestigious as vice president and Secretary of State. Administration forces turned back Dickinson's bid, nominating instead Military Governor of Tennessee
Andrew Johnson, with whom Seward had served in the Senate. Lincoln was re-elected in November; Seward sat with Lincoln and the assistant presidential secretary,
John Hay, as the returns came in. , Lincoln,
Edwin Stanton,
Gideon Welles and other members In January 1865,
Francis Preston Blair, father of former Lincoln
Postmaster General Montgomery Blair, went, with Lincoln's knowledge, to the Confederate capital of Richmond to propose to Davis that North and South unite to expel the French from their domination of Mexico. Davis appointed commissioners (Vice President
Alexander Stephens, former U.S. Supreme Court justice Campbell, and former Confederate Secretary of State
Robert M. T. Hunter) to negotiate. They met with Lincoln and Seward at the
Hampton Roads Conference the following month. Lincoln would settle for nothing short of a cessation of resistance to the federal government and an end to slavery; the Confederates would not even concede that they and the Union were one nation. There was much friendly talk, as most of them had served together in Washington, but no agreement. After the conference broke up, Seward sent a bucket of champagne to the Confederates, conveyed by a black oarsman in a rowboat, and called to the southerners, "keep the champagne, but return the Negro."
Assassination attempt attacking
Frederick Seward after attempting to shoot him
John Wilkes Booth had originally planned to kidnap Lincoln, and recruited conspirators, including
Lewis Powell, to help him. Having found no opportunity to abduct the president, on April 14, 1865, Booth assigned Powell to assassinate Seward and
George Atzerodt to kill Vice President Johnson. Booth himself would kill Lincoln. The plan was to slay the three senior members of the Executive Branch. Accordingly, another member of the conspiracy,
David Herold, led Powell to the Seward home on horseback and was responsible for holding Powell's horse while he committed the attack. Seward had been hurt in an accident some days before, and Powell gained entry to the home on the excuse he was delivering medicine to the injured man, but was stopped at the top of the stairs by Seward's son Frederick, who insisted Powell give him the medicine. Powell instead attempted to fire on Frederick and beat him over the head with the barrel of his gun when it misfired. Powell burst through the door, threw Fanny Seward (Seward's daughter) to one side, jumped on the bed, and stabbed William Seward in the face and neck five times. A soldier assigned to guard and nurse the secretary, Private
George F. Robinson, jumped on Powell, forcing him from the bed. Private Robinson and
Augustus Henry Seward, another of Seward's sons, were also injured in their struggle with the would-be assassin. Ultimately, Powell fled, stabbing a messenger, Emerick Hansell, as he went, only to find that Herold, panicked by the screams from the house, had left with both horses. Seward was at first thought dead, but revived enough to instruct Robinson to send for the police and lock the house until they arrived. for saving Seward's life Almost simultaneously with the attack on Seward, Booth had mortally wounded Lincoln at
Ford's Theatre. Atzerodt, however, decided not to go through with the attack on Johnson. When Secretary of War Edwin Stanton and Navy Secretary Gideon Welles hurried to Seward's home to find out what had happened, they found blood everywhere. All five men injured that night at the Seward home survived. Powell was captured the next day at the boarding house of
Mary Surratt. He was
hanged on July 7, 1865, along with Herold, Atzerodt, and Surratt, convicted as conspirators in the Lincoln assassination. Their deaths occurred only weeks after that of Seward's wife Frances, who never recovered from the shock of the assassination attempt.
Johnson administration between 1865 and 1872, facing to the left to hide the scars from the assassination attempt
Reconstruction and impeachment cartoon from before the 1866 midterm elections. Seward is depicted as Johnson's grand vizier, motioning for the execution of
Thaddeus Stevens, and is seen again in the inset, scars from the assassination attempt visible. In the first months of the new Johnson administration, Seward did not work much with the president. Seward was at first recovering from his injuries, and Johnson was ill for a time in the summer of 1865. Seward was likely in accord with Johnson's relatively gentle terms for the South's re-entry to the Union, and with his pardon of all Confederates but those of high rank.
Radical Republicans such as Stanton and Representative Thaddeus Stevens proposed that the freed slaves be given the vote, but Seward was content to leave that to the states (few Northern states gave African-Americans the ballot), believing the priority should be reconciling the power-holding white populations of the North and South to each other. Unlike Lincoln, who had a close rapport with Seward, Johnson kept his own counsel and generally did not take advantage of Seward's political advice as Congress prepared to meet in December 1865. Johnson had issued proclamations allowing for the southern states to reform their state governments and hold elections; they mostly elected men who had served as prewar or wartime leaders. Seward advised Johnson to state, in his first
annual message to Congress, that southern states meet three conditions for readmission to the Union: repeal of secession, repudiation of the war debt incurred by the rebel governments, and ratification of the
Thirteenth Amendment. Johnson, hoping to appeal to both Republicans and Democrats, did not take the suggestion. Congress did not seat southerners but appointed a joint committee of both houses to make recommendations on the issue. Johnson opposed the committee; Seward was prepared to wait and see. In early 1866, Congress and President Johnson battled over the extension of the authorization of the
Freedmen's Bureau. Both sides agreed that the bureau should end after the states were re-admitted, the question was whether that would be soon or not. With Seward's support, Johnson vetoed the bill. Republicans in Congress were angry with both men, and tried but failed to override Johnson's veto. Johnson vetoed the
Civil Rights Bill, which was to grant citizenship to the freedmen. Seward advised a conciliatory veto message; Johnson ignored him, telling Congress it had no right to pass bills affecting the South until it seated the region's congressmen. This time Congress overrode his veto, gaining the necessary two-thirds majority of each house, the first time this had been done on a major piece of legislation in American history. , wishes a plague on both their Houses (of Congress) as Seward (as Romeo, right) leans over him.
Alfred Waud cartoon from 1868. Johnson hoped the public would elect congressmen who agreed with him in the 1866 midterm elections, and embarked on a trip, dubbed the
Swing Around the Circle, giving speeches in a number of cities that summer. Seward was among the officials who went with him. The trip was a disaster for Johnson; he made a number of ill-considered statements about his opponents that were criticized in the press. The Radical Republicans were strengthened by the results of the elections. The Republican anger against Johnson extended to his secretary of state—Senator
William P. Fessenden of Maine said of Johnson, "he began by meaning well, but I fear that Seward's evil counsels have carried him beyond the reach of salvation". In February 1867, both houses of Congress passed the
Tenure of Office Bill, purporting to restrict Johnson in the removal of presidential appointees. Johnson suspended, then fired, Stanton over Reconstruction policy differences, leading to
the president's impeachment for allegedly violating the Tenure of Office Act. Seward recommended that Johnson hire the renowned attorney,
William M. Evarts, and, with Weed, raised funds for the president's successful defense.
Mexico Mexico was strife-torn in the early 1860s, as it often had been in the fifty years since its independence. There had been 36 changes of government and 73 presidents, and a refusal to pay foreign debts. France, Spain, and Great Britain joined together to intervene in 1861 on the pretext of protecting their nationals, and to secure repayment of debt. Spain and the British soon withdrew, but
France remained. Seward realized that a challenge to France at this point might provoke its intervention on the Confederate side, so he stayed quiet. In 1864, French emperor
Napoleon III set Archduke
Maximilian of Austria on the
Mexican throne, with French military support. Seward used strident language publicly but was privately conciliatory toward the French. The Confederates had been supportive of France's actions. Upon returning to work after the assassination attempt, Seward warned France that the U.S. still wanted the French gone from Mexico. Napoleon feared that the large, battle-tested American army would be used against his troops. Seward remained conciliatory, and in January 1866, Napoleon agreed to withdraw his troops after a twelve- to eighteen-month period, during which time Maximilian could consolidate his position against the insurgency led by
Benito Juárez. In December 1865, Seward bluntly told Napoleon that the United States desired friendship, but, "this policy would be brought into imminent Jeopardy unless France could deem it consistent with her interest and honor to desist from the prosecution of armed intervention in Mexico." Napoleon tried to postpone the French departure, but the Americans had General Phil Sheridan and an experienced combat army on the north bank of the
Rio Grande and Seward held firm. Napoleon suggested a new Mexican government that would exclude both Maximilian and Juárez. The Americans had recognized Juárez as the legitimate president and were not willing to consider this. In the meantime, Juárez, with the help of American military aid, was advancing through northeast Mexico. The French withdrew in early 1867. Maximilian stayed behind but was soon captured by Juárez's troops. Although both the U.S. and France urged Juárez against it, the deposed emperor was executed by firing squad on June 19, 1867.
Territorial expansion and Alaska Although in speeches Seward had predicted all of North America joining the Union, he had, as a senator, opposed the
Gadsden Purchase obtaining land from Mexico, and Buchanan's attempts to purchase Cuba from Spain. Those stands were because the land to be secured would become slave territory. After the Civil War, this was no longer an issue, and Seward became an ardent expansionist and even contemplated the
purchase of Greenland and
Iceland, aiming to surround and then potentially
annex Canada. The Union Navy had been hampered due to the lack of overseas bases during the war, and Seward also believed that American trade would be helped by the purchase of overseas territory. Believing, along with Lincoln, that the U.S. needed a naval base in the Caribbean, in January 1865, Seward offered to purchase the
Danish West Indies (today the
United States Virgin Islands). Late that year, Seward sailed for the Caribbean on a naval vessel. Among the ports of call was
St. Thomas in the Danish West Indies, where Seward admired the large, easily defended harbor. Another stop was in the Dominican Republic, where he opened talks to obtain
Samaná Bay. When Congress reconvened in December 1866, Seward caused a sensation by entering the chamber of the House of Representatives and sitting down with the administration's enemy, Congressman Stevens, persuading him to support an appropriation for more money to expedite the purchase of Samaná, and sent his son Frederick to the Dominican Republic to negotiate a treaty. Both attempts fell through; the Senate, in the dying days of the Johnson administration, failed to ratify a treaty for the purchase of the Danish possessions, while negotiations with the Dominican Republic were not successful. cartoon on Alaska, 1867. Seward hopes that the purchase will help cool Johnson's fevered political situation. Seward had been interested in whaling as a senator; his interest in Russian America was a byproduct of this. In his speech prior to the 1860 convention, he predicted the territory would become part of the U.S., and when he learned in 1864 that it might be for sale, he pressed the Russians for negotiations. Russian minister Baron
Eduard de Stoeckl recommended the sale. The territory was a money loser, and the Russian-American Company itself allowed its charter to expire in 1861. Russia could use the money more efficiently for its expansion in Siberia or Central Asia. Keeping it ran the risk of it being captured in war by the British, or overrun by American settlers. Stoeckl was given the authority to make the sale and when he returned in March 1867, negotiated with the Secretary of State. Seward initially offered $5 million; the two men settled on $7 million and on March 15, Seward presented a draft treaty to the Cabinet. Stoeckl's superiors raised several concerns; to induce him to waive them, the final purchase price was increased to $7.2 million. The treaty was signed in the early morning of March 30, 1867, and ratified by the Senate on April 10. Stevens sent the secretary a note of congratulations, predicting that the
Alaska Purchase would be seen as one of Seward's greatest accomplishments. ==1868 election, retirement and death==