I
Mention This Here To Show That Though The President Can In Fact
Dismiss His Ministers, He Is In A
Great manner bound to them, and
that a minister in Mr. Seward's position is hardly to be dismissed.
But from
The 1st of November, 1861, till the day on which I left
the States, I do not think that I heard a good word spoken of Mr.
Seward as a minister, even by one of his own party. The Radical or
Abolitionist Republicans all abused him. The Conservative or Anti-
abolition Republicans, to whose party he would consider himself as
belonging, spoke of him as a mistake. He had been prominent as
Senator from New York, and had been Governor of the State of New
York, but had none of the aptitudes of a statesman. He was there,
and it was a pity. He was not so bad as Mr. Cameron, the Minister
for War; that was the best his own party could say for him, even in
his own State of New York. As to the Democrats, their language
respecting him was as harsh as any that I have heard used toward
the Southern leaders. He seemed to have no friends, no one who
trusted him; and yet he was the President's chief minister, and
seemed to have in his own hands the power of mismanaging all
foreign relations as he pleased. But, in truth, the States of
America, great as they are, and much as they have done, have not
produced statesmen.
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