Another question, now asked,--'Will Mr. Seward exhaust negotiation?'--may be in like manner answered by himself. In a succeeding debate on the same 'fisheries' controversy, commenting upon negotiation, he said: '_Sir, it is the business of the Secretary of State, and of the government, always to be ready, in my humble judgment, to negotiate under all circumstances, whether there be threats or no threats, whether there be force or no force: but the manner and the spirit and the terms of the negotiation will be varied by the position that the opposing party may occupy_.'
It can not be denied that more cordial relations exist between the President and the Secretary of State than ever any previous administration disclosed: so that when Mr. Seward acts, the government will prove a powerful unit. Indeed, in this connection, history will hereafter write precisely what Mr. Seward, in his speech on the 'Clayton-Bulwer treaty,' said respecting the Taylor administration:--'Sir, whatever else may have been the errors or misfortunes of that administration, want of mutual confidence between the Secretary of State and his distinguished chief was not one of them. They stood together firmly, undivided, and inseparable to the last. _Storms of faction from within their own party and from without beset them, and combinations and coalitions in and out of Congress assailed them with a degree of violence that no other administration has ever encountered_. But they never yielded.'
We can not better conclude this paper, while the volumes of Mr. Seward's works are open on the table, than by quoting still again, and asking the reader to apply his own remarks on Secretary of State Webster in the fisheries-war speech, before alluded to: 'I shall enter into no encomium on the Secretary of State; he needs none. I should be incompetent to grasp so great a theme, if it were needed. The Secretary of State! There he is! Behold him, and judge for yourselves. There is his history; there are his ideas; his thoughts spread over every page of your annals for near half a century. _There are his ideas, his thoughts impressed upon and inseparable from the mind of his country and the spirit of the age_. The past is at least secure. The past is enough of itself to guarantee a future of fame unapproachable and inextinguishable.'