d sits there rather unnoticed. On several
occasions McClellan let the President wait in the room, together with
other common mortals.

The English statesmen and the English press have the notion deeply
rooted in their brains that the American people fight for empire. The
rebels do it, but not the free men.

Mr. Seward's emphatical prohibition to Mr. Adams to mention the
question of slavery may have contributed to strengthen in England the
above-mentioned fallacy. This is a blunder, which before long or short
Seward will repent. It looks like astuteness--_ruse_; but if so, it is
the resource of a rather limited mind. In great and minor affairs,
straightforwardness is the best policy. Loyalty always gets the better
of astuteness, and the more so when the opponent is unprepared to meet
it. Tricks can be well met by tricks, but tricks are impotent against
truth and sincerity. But Mr. Seward, unhappily, has spent his life in
various political tricks, and was surrounded by men whose intimacy
must have necessarily lowered and unhealthily affected him. All his
most intimates are unintellectual mediocrities or tricksters.

Seward is free from that infamous know-nothingism of which this Gen.
Thomas is the great master (a man every few weeks accused of treason
by the public opinion, and undoubtedly vibrating between loyalty here
and sympathy with rebels).

All this must have unavoidably vitiated Mr. Seward's better nature. In
such way only can I see plainly why so many excellent qualities are
marred in him. He at times can broadly comprehend things around him;
he is good-natured when not stung, and he is devoted to his men.

As a patriot, he is American to the core--were only his domestic
policy straightforward and decided, and would he only stop meddling
with the plans of the campaign, and let the War Department alone.

Since every part of his initiative with European cabinets failed,
Seward very skilfully dispatches all the minor affairs with
Europe--affairs generated by various maritime and international
complications. Were his domestic policy as correct as is now his
foreign policy, Seward would be the right man.

Statesmanship emerges from the collision of great principles with
important interests. In the great Revolution, the thus called fathers
of the nation were the offsprings of the exigencies of the time, and
they were fully up to their task. They were vigorous and fresh; their
intellect was not obstructed by any