The
soreness of that disappointment was intensified when they saw this
Western man in the White House, with so much of rustic manner and speech
as still clung to him, meeting his fellow-citizens, high and low, on a
footing of equality, with the simplicity of his good nature unburdened by
any conventional dignity of deportment, and dealing with the great
business of state in an easy-going, unmethodical, and apparently somewhat
irreverent way. They did not understand such a man. Especially Seward,
who, as Secretary of State, considered himself next to the Chief
Executive, and who quickly accustomed himself to giving orders and making
arrangements upon his own motion, thought it necessary that he should
rescue the direction of public affairs from hands so unskilled, and take
full charge of them himself. At the end of the first month of the
administration he submitted a "memorandum" to President Lincoln, which
has been first brought to light by Nicolay and Hay, and is one of their
most valuable contributions to the history of those days. In that paper
Seward actually told the President that at the end of a month's
administration the government was still without a policy, either domestic
or foreign; that the slavery question should be eliminated from the
struggle about the Union; that the matter of the maintenance of the forts
and other possessions in the South should be decided with that view; that
explanations should be demanded categorically from the governments of
Spain and France, which were then preparing, one for the annexation of
San Domingo, and both for the invasion of Mexico; that if no satisfactory
explanations were received war should be declared against Spain and
France by the United States; that explanations should also be sought from
Russia and Great Britain, and a vigorous continental spirit of
independence against European intervention be aroused all over the
American continent; that this policy should be incessantly pursued and
directed by somebody; that either the President should devote himself
entirely to it, or devolve the direction on some member of his cabinet,
whereupon all debate on this policy must end.
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