He Resolved To
Make Every Englishman In America Feel Himself In Some Way Punished,
Because England Had Not Assisted The North.
And now came the
arrest of Slidell and Mason out of an English mail steamer, and Mr.
Seward took care to let it be understood that, happen what might,
those two men should not be given up.
Nothing during all this time astonished me so much as the
estimation in which Mr. Seward was then held by his own party. It
is, perhaps, the worst defect in the constitution of the States,
that no incapacity on the part of a minister, no amount of
condemnation expressed against him by the people or by Congress,
can put him out of office during the term of the existing
Presidency. The President can dismiss him; but it generally
happens that the President is brought in on a "platform" which has
already nominated for him his cabinet as thoroughly as they have
nominated him. Mr. Seward ran Mr. Lincoln very hard for the
position of candidate for the Presidency on the Republican
interest. On the second voting of the Republican delegates at the
Convention at Chicago, Mr. Seward polled 184 to Mr. Lincoln's 181.
But as a clear half of the total number of votes was necessary -
that is, 233 out of 465 - there was necessarily a third polling, and
Mr. Lincoln won the day. On that occasion Mr. Chase and Mr.
Cameron, both of whom became members of Mr. Lincoln's cabinet, were
also candidates for the White House on the Republican side.
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