pidly as panics do.

The biographer of Mr. Seward may fairly enough glide lightly over this
episode, since it was nothing more than an episode; but one who writes
of Mr. Lincoln must, in justice, call attention to this spectacle of the
sage statesman from whom, if from any one, this "green hand," this
inexperienced President, must seek guidance, thus in deliberate writing
pointing out a course which was ridiculous and impossible, and which, if
it had been possible, would have been an intolerably humiliating
retreat. The anxious people, who thought that their untried President
might, upon the worst estimate of his own abilities, get on fairly well
by the aid of wise and skilled advisers, would have been aghast had they
known that, inside of the government, the pending question was: not
whether Mr. Lincoln would accept sound instruction, but whether he would
have sense to recognize bad advice, and independence to reject it.
Before Mr. Seward went to bed on that night of April 1, he was perhaps
the only man in the country who knew the solution of this problem. But
he knew it, for Mr. Lincoln had already answered his letter. It had not
taken the President long! The secretary's extraordinary offer to assume
the responsibility of pursuing and directing the policy of the
government was rejected within a few hours after it was made; rejected
not offensively, but briefly, clearly, decisively, and without thanks.
Concerning the proposed policies, domestic and foreign, the President
said as little as was called for; he actually did not even refer to the
scheme for inaugurating gratuitously a war with a large part of Europe,
in order for a while to distract attention from slavery.

To us, to-day, it seems that the President could not have missed a
course so obvious; yet Mr. Seward, who suggested the absurdity, was a
great statesman. In truth, the President had shown not only sense but
nerve. For the difference between Seward's past opportunities and
experience and his own was appreciated by him as fully as by any one. He
knew perfectly well that what seemed the less was controlling what
seemed the greater when he overruled his secretary. It took courage on
the part of a thoughtful man to put himself in such a position. Other
solemn reflections also could not be avoided. Not less interested than
any other citizen in the fate of the nation, he had also a personal
relation to the ultimate event which was exclusively his own. For he
h