Mr. Seward feared that the country was in danger of suffering very seriously from a possible, if not indeed probable, mistake of the Administration. In the creed of his own statesmanship, there was no article that comprehended revenge as a just motive for action. No man had suffered more of personal obloquy from the South than he, no one living had received deeper personal injury from the demoniac spirit, the wicked inspiration of the rebellion. But he did not for one moment permit those causes which would have powerfully influenced lower natures to control his action, or even to extort a single word of passionate resentment.
It had been Mr. Seward's fortune at different epochs in the country's history and in different phases of his own career to incur the harshest censure from political associates. He had been accused at one time of urging the anti-slavery cause so far as to endanger the Union; and, when the Union was endangered, he was accused of being willing to sacrifice the anti-slavery cause to save it. "The American people," said he in February, 1861, "have in our day two great interests,--one the ascendency of freedom, the other the integrity of the Union. The slavery interest has derived its whole political power from bringing the latter object into antagonism with the former. Twelve years ago Freedom was in danger, and the Union was not. . . . To-day practically Freedom is not in danger, and the Union is. With the loss of the Union, all would be lost." Mr. Seward, influenced by this belief, went farther in the direction of conciliation for the avoidance of war than his associates were willing to follow. His words gave offense to some who had long been his most earnest supporters,--a fact thus pointedly recognized by him: "I speak now singly for Union, striving if possible to save it peaceably; if not possible, then to cast the responsibility upon the party of slavery. For this singleness of speech, I am suspected of infidelity to freedom." But Mr. Seward held his course firmly, and waited for vindication as men of rectitude and true greatness can afford to wait. "I refer myself not to the men of my time, but to the judgment of history."
A similar dedication of himself to the judgment of history was in Mr. Seward's opinion again demanded of him. He was firmly persuaded that the wisest plan of reconstruction was the one which would be speediest; that for the sake of impressing the world with the strength and the marvelous power of self-government, with its Law, its Order, its Peace, we should at the earliest possible moment have every State restored to its normal relations with the Union. He did not believe that guarantee of any kind beyond an oath of renewed loyalty was needful. He was willing to place implicit faith in the coercive power of self-interest operating upon the men lately in rebellion. He agreed neither with the President's proclaimed policy of blood, nor with that held by the vast majority of his own political associates, which, avoiding the rigor of personal punishment, sought by exclusion from political honor and emolument to administer wholesome discipline to the men who had brought peril to the Government and suffering to the people.