In 1860 William Henry Seward was supposed to be president. It was the job the celebrated New York senator and former state governor had been training for all his life. Favourite to win the Republican nomination, the flamboyant Seward had cannoneers in place in his upstate home town ready to announce his successful candidacy and had prepared his victory speech to the Senate. But he was outmanoeuvred. At the 1860 Republican National Convention in Chicago the home state “rail splitter” Abraham Lincoln got the nomination. Devastated, it seemed Seward’s illustrious career was over. But his best days were still ahead.
Born in 1801, Seward had a wealthy and privileged childhood, thanks to his slaveholding father, as slavery was not fully abolished in New York until 1827. He graduated with first class honours from prestigious Union College, Schenectady, and trained for the bar, practising law with judge Elijah Miller. He married Miller’s brilliant daughter Frances, and she would be his intellectual equal for the rest of their lives. Another key partner was New York political boss Thurlow Weed, who would manage all Seward’s campaigns and become his closest ally. Seward was becoming bored with the law and was drawn towards politics. Weed shaped public opinion through his Albany Evening Journal which promoted Seward’s campaign for a seat in the New York Senate. Seward was elected in September 1830, aged 29. In 1834 Thurlow groomed Seward for New York governorship as the candidate of the new Whig Party, but he narrowly lost the ballot. “What a demon is this ambition,” the crushed Seward wrote as he returned to legal practice. He found success as a partner in a land-developing business until the Panic of 1837. The silver lining was that people blamed the Democrats for the financial crash. With Weed’s help, Seward succeeded in his second bid to be governor a year later. The youthful new Whig governor wanted to expand canals and railways, and wanted better schooling, including for the black and Irish population. He formed an unlikely alliance with Irish Catholic bishop of New York John Hughes to reform the school system, angering nativists who claimed Seward was “in league with the pope”. Having witnessed ill-treatment in the south, he was also strongly anti-slavery. The South branded him a “bigoted New England fanatic” when he refused to surrender fugitive slaves who arrived by ship in New York. Seward was re-elected in 1840 with a much smaller majority. Reading the signs, Seward decided not to run a third time and returned to law practice. He turned down an invite to be the new Liberal Party’s candidate for president in 1844. He defended black man William Freeman, charged with murder in Seward’s home town, Auburn. When Freeman was threatened with lynching, Seward vowed to remain his counsel “until death”. Even Weed doubted his wisdom but Seward persisted with a defence of insanity. The jury ignored his plea and sentenced Freeman to death. Seward was hated in Auburn, but the case made him famous nationally.
Seward first met Abraham Lincoln in 1848 after the Whigs nominated Mexican war hero and slaveholder Zachary Taylor for president. Both Seward and Lincoln spoke at a Boston rally. Seward demanded a Northern non-slaveowner be elected while Lincoln’s speech attacked Democrats. Seward said Lincoln’s speech was funny, but had pointedly avoided the slavery issue. They stayed the night at a hotel and had a long and thoughtful conversation. Lincoln admitted he was a “hayseed” and Seward had made him think about slavery issues.
Taylor’s election win helped Weed to convince the New York state legislature to put Seward in the Senate. Once elected, the celebrity Seward became part of Taylor’s inner circle. Weed remained worried about Seward’s outspoken support for black rights, as slavery bubbled to the top of the agenda. Seward was disappointed in the compromise of 1850 which admitted California to the union at the cost of strengthening the fugitive slave act, which he bitterly opposed. Then Taylor died suddenly and the new president was Seward’s New York political enemy, Millard Fillmore. The Whigs split north and south over the issue of slavery. They were badly beaten in the 1852 presidential election, and would never win another. The passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act in 1854 was a further disappointment, allowing new territories to decide for themselves whether to allow slavery.
A new political force emerged, the nativist Know Nothings who had not forgiven Seward for funding Catholic schools. Seward was up for re-election in 1855, and he needed all of Weed’s powers to cobble together a narrow majority in the state legislature relying on Seward’s anti-slavery credentials. Seward pledged allegiance to the new Republican Party in 1856 and considered running for president that year. Weed counselled against it saying the party was not yet organised enough to win. He was right. Eventual candidate John Fremont won much of the North but Southern votes helped elect Democrat James Buchanan. In 1857 Seward condemned the Supreme Court Dred Scott decision blaming Buchanan for the ruling which denied blacks basic rights. Six months later Seward made an even more incendiary speech saying that an “irrepressible conflict” between north and south was inevitable. He was proved right, but the polarising speech put off Republican moderates. They would eventually get behind Lincoln, who attracted wider notice in his spirited 1858 Illinois debates with Democrat Stephen Douglas.
As the 1860 election approached, Weed made a costly misstep. Certain that Seward had the nomination sewn up and fearful he might antagonise moderates further, Weed advised him to go on a European tour. Seward enjoyed meeting Queen Victoria, Palmerston, Gladstone, King Leopold of Belgium and the pope. He returned in early 1860 to tell the Senate only he could hold the union together. But other candidates had used his absence to advance their positions. There were three other strong contenders; Lincoln, Ohio governor Salmon Portland Chase and Missouri judge Edward Bates. Chase was so sure he would win, he did not even campaign. Bates was the oldest candidate at 64, but had a lifetime of distinguished service and was backed by the powerful Blair family of Maryland, who believed the westerner Bates alone could quell the southern secession movement.
There was also influential New York Tribune editor Horace Greeley. Greeley long wanted political office but Weed and Seward offered no help. Greeley’s grudge against them increased in 1856 when they supported his rival, New York Times editor Henry Raymond, as governor of New York. In 1860 Greeley listed his grievances but Seward assumed his anger was temporary and ignored him.
In May 40,000 people attended the Republican Convention at the Chicago “Wigwam”. Seward had the most pledges and a change of rules strengthened his position as he now only needed a majority, not two-thirds of the delegates. Recognising Seward’s commanding lead, Lincoln’s strategy was to offend no-one. He courted conservative states worried that Seward’s candidacy might hurt their chances in state elections. Greeley added to the doubts, supporting Bates, and saying Seward could not carry key states including Pennsylvania. On the day of the ballot, Seward’s supporters chanted loudly when his name was read out. But Lincoln’s name got an even bigger hometown reception in this “trial of lungs”. In the first ballot Seward had 173½ votes, Lincoln 102, Chase 49 and Bates 48, with 233 needed to win. After two ballots it was Seward 184½ to Lincoln’s 181. The Blairs got behind Lincoln and he won on the third ballot.
Seward believed his shock defeat was “final and irrevocable” but pledged to support the Republican ticket. Weed went to Lincoln’s home in Springfield to plot strategy. Hopes of a win were increased as the Democrats split into northern and southern camps. Seward went west on tour to stump for Lincoln. Reporters marvelled at his ability to make speeches seem spontaneous. He met Lincoln in Springfield, one observer noting the president-elect was shy and awkward with a sense “the positions should be reserved.”
But they were not and on November 6 Weed’s organisational skills got New York’s pivotal 35 electoral college votes to ensure a Republican victory, causing seven southern states to secede from the Union. Lincoln’s thoughts turned to a cabinet and he offered Seward the chief role of secretary of state. Seward baulked. He wanted a cabinet of former Whigs which he could dominate. Lincoln needed a broader coalition and knew he could not allow Seward to “take the first trick”. Lincoln also offered cabinet positions to fellow candidates Chase (Treasury) and Bates (Attorney-General). Like Chase and Bates, Seward eventually accepted, telling Frances “I will try to save freedom and my country”. With the new administration unable to take office until March 4, Seward established secret contact with outgoing attorney-general Edwin Stanton who was exasperated with Buchanan’s refusal to take the crisis seriously.
On January 12, Seward made a major Senate speech defending the union but offering compromise with the south. The seven confederate states elected Jefferson Davis as president but Seward hoped his conciliatory speech would keep Virginia in the union. It only increased his enemies among hardline radical Republicans. Lincoln travelled to Washington in March after a long tour of northern states. Seward warned him of an assassination threat as they passed through southern-sympathising Baltimore, Maryland, a threat also recognised by detective Allan Pinkerton (whose unblinking eye logo earned his profession the nickname “private eye”). Lincoln travelled incognito through the night to Washington, though critics accused him of cowardice.
Seward attempted to control Lincoln on arrival, taking him to see Buchanan at the White House, congressmen at the Senate, and top general Winfield Scott, with dinner that first night at Seward’s house. Seward almost threatened to resign when he heard Chase would be treasurer. When a reporter asked Lincoln why he had chosen a cabinet of enemies and rivals, the president replied: “We needed the strongest men of the party in cabinet…I had no right to deprive the country of their services.” As Doris Goodwin wrote in Team of Rivals, Seward, Chase and Bates were indeed strong, but “the prairie lawyer from Springfield would emerge as the strongest of them all.”
But Lincoln’s inauguration speech leaned heavily on Seward and was conciliatory to the south, calling on “the mystic chords of memory” to touch “the better angels” of the nature of all Americans. It was well received in Virginia, though further south was more belligerent. Lincoln pledged to defend South Carolina’s Fort Sumter, while Seward secretly negotiated to surrender Sumter to keep Virginia in the union. The South attacked the fort on April 12, triggering the civil war and the departure of Virginia to the Confederacy. Secretary of State Seward had to convince Britain not to back the south to feed its Manchester and Leeds cotton factories. He threatened war but Lincoln softened his message to London. Nevertheless Washington would not tolerate the British breaking the southern blockade.
Like all Northerners, Seward was devastated after the Union’s shock defeat in the First Battle of Bull Run in July 1861. But like Lincoln, he believed that organisation and experience would improve matters and their firm resolve was critical in restoring hope. Lincoln and Seward spent much time together and enjoyed each other’s company telling stories and jokes, though Mary Lincoln resented the relationship and distrusted Seward. Others had similar views believing Lincoln was dominated by Seward, not realising the president was his own man, something Seward himself grew to appreciate. Nevertheless Seward’s influence was shown in late 1861 when a Union vessel intercepted the British ship Trent on the high seas and arrested two Confederate envoys. Though Lincoln and most Northerners feted the Union captain, Seward realised an outraged Britain was serious about retaliation. Not wanting a second war, Lincoln endorsed Seward’s diplomatic strategy of surrendering the envoys without apology.
The first war was going badly in 1862 as top union general George McClellan habitually overestimated Rebel forces and was “outgeneraled” by Robert E. Lee. Lincoln made the decision to emancipate the slaves, but in cabinet deferred to Seward who thought it might seem like an act of desperation. He advised Lincoln to wait for a Union victory. Though the September 1862 battle of Antietam in Maryland was as best a very bloody stalemate thanks to McClellan’s timidity, it forced Lee to abandon his invasion of the north. It gave Lincoln the excuse to issue the proclamation, again accepting a Seward proposal to maintain black freedom beyond the war. The Antietam “victory” was temporary with Lincoln sacking McClellan and Lee regaining the initiative with a crushing defeat of Union forces at Fredericksburg in December. Political recriminations followed with many Republicans scapegoating Seward as “a paralysing influence” on Lincoln and the army. A powerful Senate delegation was urged on by the scheming Treasurer Salmon Chase who was plotting his own path to presidency in 1864. Lincoln soothed the delegation by telling them that decisions were unanimously agreed, and forced an embarrassed Chase into a public defence of cabinet. Lincoln rejected the resignations of Seward and Chase and scored a massive political win, saving his friend Seward from an attack that was really directed at him while solidifying his own position as master of cabinet and the party.
But the war remained stalemated in the east in 1863 despite a great victory at Gettysburg. There was also trouble on the home front. Peace Democrats, called Copperheads by opponents, were furious after Congress passed the Conscription Act for a mandatory draft. The act was flawed as draftees could be exempted if they paid $300 or found a substitute. Poor Americans, many of them Irish, believed this proved it was “a rich man’s war and a poor man’s fight”. In July New York erupted into five days of draft riots with over a thousand deaths. Irishmen threatened to burn down Seward’s home in Auburn, where Frances still lived. She hid treasured possessions as a precaution but told Seward she was more worried about “poor coloured people…they cannot protect themselves and few are willing to assist them.” The ever buoyant Seward correctly believed the riots would pass and the country would not support the Copperheads. The Peace Democrats lost out in elections that year.
As the 1864 presidential elections approached, many still believed that Seward was the real power behind the throne. Supporting the abolitionist Chase, newspaper publisher William Lloyd Garrison worried that a “vote for Old Abe” would see Seward returned as acting president. Seward knew that was absurd having accepted Lincoln’s control of the cabinet. Seward’s son and secretary Fred said the two men had “grown very close and unreserved”. Their mutual faith helped sustain them through attacks from radicals and conservatives. Western hero Ulysses Grant came east to lead the attack against Lee’s forces unleashing a hideous struggle with 86,000 casualties in seven weeks but the front stalled in front of Richmond. Despite the poor battle news and Chase’s relentless backstabbing, Lincoln regained the Republican presidential nomination on June 7. The favourite for vice president had been New Yorker Daniel Dickinson but if nominated Seward would have had to resign because of the unwritten rule that two significant posts could not be allocated to one state. Weed and Seward threw their support behind Tennessee governor Andrew Johnson. No-one understood how fatal that decision would become.
Chase was forced out of cabinet, and the inner sanctum was Lincoln, Seward and Edwin Stanton, Buchanan’s attorney-general now turned Lincoln’s indefatigable war secretary. “The two S’s” developed an understanding to work together to support Lincoln to win the war and along with Chase’s Treasury replacement William Fessenden, were “the stronger half of the cabinet” according to Lincoln’s secretary John Nicolay. Yet Lincoln’s hopes of winning a second term remained in the balance until September when Sherman captured Atlanta. Afterwards Seward paid tribute to the “wisdom and energy of the war administration” and said nothing was more important than Lincoln’s re-election. “If we do this, the rebellion will perish,” he said. The Democrat candidate was Lincoln’s former top general George McClellan but with the North finally winning the war, the opposition looked foolish for demanding peace. On November 8 Lincoln won all but three states though the popular vote was much closer. Soldiers voted overwhelmingly for their commander-in-chief. “To them he really was Father Abraham,” one corporal noted. Seward said Lincoln would take his place alongside Washington, Franklin, Jefferson, Adams and Jackson “among the benefactors of the human race”.
The North celebrated in early April 1865 when Rebel capital Richmond fell. But Seward could not join the celebrations, having been almost killed in a carriage accident when a horse bolted. He caught his heel on the carriage when jumping off, smashing his face on the pavement. Doctors diagnosed a broken jaw and a badly dislocated shoulder. When his condition worsened with fever, Lincoln rushed to his bedside. Wife Frances said Seward looked bad, but his mind was “perfectly clear”. As the secretary of state continued his painful recovery, the war ended with the surrender at Appomattox on April 9. Stanton woke Seward up to tell him the news. “You have made me cry for the first time in my life,” Seward told him.
Though Seward was still incapacitated five days later, Lincoln was in high good humour at a Good Friday cabinet meeting. “Didn’t our chief look grand today?” Stanton asked a colleague afterwards. Even Mary had never seen her husband so cheerful as they prepared to attend Ford’s Theatre that night. Meanwhile, Confederate-supporting actor John Wilkes Booth met with three conspirators to plot an audacious assassination of Lincoln, Seward and vice president Johnson. George Atzerodt, assigned to kill Johnson, became drunk and wandered off but fellow conspirator Lewis Powell came closer in his attempt to kill Seward.
Seward’s three-storey house was full of people that night. The bed-ridden secretary of state was on the mend and listened with pleasure at Fred’s account of the cabinet meeting. Seward’s daughter Fanny noted he fell asleep around 10pm and she turned down his lamps and kept a bedside vigil. Powell knocked on the front door and told a servant he had medicine for Seward. He pushed past the servant and met Fred on the stairs. Fred refused to let him pass. When it seemed the intruder was about to leave, he lunged at Fred with a revolver and pulled the trigger. It misfired but Powell savagely brought the gun down on Fred’s head, crushing his skull and leaving him unconscious. A soldier that Stanton had assigned to Seward’s bedroom heard the commotion on the stairs. As the soldier opened the door, Powell slashed him with a knife and rushed towards Seward. Fanny begged him not to kill her father. Seward woke to see Powell plunge the knife into his neck and face, knocking him to the floor and severing his cheek. Fanny’s screams brought another brother Gus into the room. Powell struck Gus on the forehead and hand though Gus and the injured soldier managed to pull the attacker away. Powell ran down the stairs, stabbing an incoming State Department messenger, before fleeing into the night.
Dr Tullio Verdi was first to tend to Seward and assumed his jugular was cut. However the knife was deflected by the metal contraption holding the patient’s broken jaw. Bizarrely, the carriage accident had saved his life. No sooner had Verdi dealt with Seward when Frances directed the doctor to Fred, who looked even closer to death. He then attended to the soldier and asked Frances, “any more?” Yes, she replied and took him to the messenger who suffered a deep gash near the spine. “All this the work of one man!” gasped Verdi. By now word spread that assassins had also attacked Lincoln. Booth used his knowledge of Ford’s to locate him in the state box. He shot from behind, jumped to the stage and escaped while shouting “Sic semper tyrannis”, Virginia’s motto, meaning thus always to tyrants.
Crowds were massing in the street. Despite fears for his own life, Stanton went to Seward’s and was shocked by the bloody scene. He then went to a house next to Ford’s where Lincoln lay dying, placed diagonally across a bed to accommodate his large frame. Stanton took control, taking witness testimony and orchestrating the search for the murderers. By the time Lincoln died at 7:22am on Saturday, newspapers had identified Booth as the assassin. Doctors withheld the news from Seward fearing the shock would kill him. On Easter Sunday Seward looked out the window to see flags at half mast. “He gazed a while,” a witness said, “then turning to his attendant, he announced. ‘The president is dead’.” The attendant denied it but Seward said in tears, “if he had been alive, he would have been the first to call on me.” Lincoln’s secretary John Hay said rarely was there a friendship in government “so absolute and sincere as that which existed between those two magnanimous spirits.”
Booth was killed in a shoot-out and Powell was caught and hanged. Against all odds, Seward and Fred both made full recoveries but the night of family horrors took its toll on Frances Seward. She collapsed and died barely six weeks later. Though disconsolate, Seward remained secretary of state for the full term of Johnson’s presidency. Seward failed to mediate the impeached union Democrat Johnson in his struggles against a Radical Republican Congress but he took great pride in what was originally lampooned as Seward’s Folly, the $7 million purchase of “Icebox” Alaska from Russia. Others would not see the sparsely populated 1.5 million sq km territory’s worth until the Klondike Gold Rush of 1896. Seward was long dead by then. After retiring when Grant became president in 1869, he travelled the world accompanied by the faithful Fred. Seward died peacefully in 1872, aged 71, surrounded by family. His deathbed advice was “Love one another”. Pallbearer Thurlow Weed wept bitterly as his great friend was laid to rest at Auburn’s Fort Hill cemetery. On Seward’s gravestone was written “he was faithful”, his final words to the jury in the 1846 William Freeman case. Seward would have been delighted that fellow great abolitionist Harriet Tubman was buried here in 1913. Both were deeply committed to political equality and liberty.
Woolly Days 
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