Seward’s Folly?

The 1860 Republican convention was hotly contested, but when Senator Abraham Lincoln of Illinois swung the Illinois delegation to his fellow Senator from New York, William Seward, Seward was nominated as the Presidential standard bearer.  Seward, in gratitude, supported Lincoln’s nomination as Vice President.  If Senator Stephen Douglas, the Little Giant of Illinois, hadn’t died in his sleep in January 1858, he might well have held the Democratic party together.  Instead, it splintered over slavery into rump parties North and South, effectively handing the election to Seward.

Secession, after decades of talk, became a reality, Southerners recalling Seward’s speech, which Seward regretted, referring to an irrepressible conflict between free and slave states.   Seward in response said that he was sure that all differences could be resolved between North and South through negotiation and that the country could be preserved without blood shed.

His words had little effect, and by the time of his inauguration in March, 1861, the only slave states remaining in the Union were Arkansas, Tennessee, North Carolina, Virginia, Missouri, Kentucky, Maryland and Delaware. In his inaugural address President Seward noted his support of a Constitutional amendment preventing the Federal government from interfering with slavery in states where it existed, and proposed a Constitutional convention to resolve the differences between North and South.  His speech fell on deaf ears in the newly formed Confederate States of America, a wave of patriotism for the newly formed nation sweeping the cotton South.

The first flash point that Seward had to deal with was Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor.  Deciding that Sumter was indefensible Seward removed the garrison, much to the disgust of many in the North, including Vice President Lincoln, who retired to Springfield, never to return to Washington.

Seward never did formally recognize the Confederacy, but his unwillingness to use force against it resulted in de facto recognition, a policy unpopular in most of the North, although trade agreements, not treaties, with the Confederacy eased somewhat the dismay in the North.  However, Seward was routinely burned in effigy in the North and his policy was labeled Seward’s Folly.

His administration was not devoid of accomplishments:  the transcontinental railroad was commenced, Alaska was purchased from Russia, land grants by the Federal government stimulated settlement of the West, but all of these achievements were overshadowed by the sundering of the Union.

In 1864 it was the Republican party which was divided, Seward facing his Vice-President Lincoln, who led the True Republican party, and Ohio Congressman Clement Vallandigham, the Democrat standard bearer, who ran on a platform of recognition of the Confederacy, with good relations leading towards the eventual reunion of the country.  The Democrats won a smashing victory, establishing Democrat political dominance until the Wretched Depression, interrupted only by McKinley’s two non-consecutive terms, and Theodore Roosevelt’s two terms during Great War I.

(Bell rings.)  We will look next week at the eventual peaceful reunification of the country in 1960.  Read the next three chapters in your text books over the weekend. (Groans)  Your term papers are due next Friday.  (More groans) Class dismissed.  (Cheers).