greed
neither with the President's proclaimed policy of blood, nor with that
held by the vast majority of his own political associates, which,
avoiding the rigor of personal punishment, sought by exclusion from
political honor and emolument to administer wholesome discipline to the
men who had brought peril to the Government and suffering to the people.

Mr. Seward was undoubtedly influenced in no small degree in these
conclusions by the habit of mind he had acquired in conducting the
foreign affairs of the Government during the period of the war. He had
keenly felt the reproach, the taunt, and the open or ill-disguised
satisfaction reflected by a large number of the public men of Europe
that we were no longer and could never again be "the _United_ States of
America." He felt that the experiment of Imperial Government in
Mexico, then in progress under Maximilian, was a disturbing element,
and tended by possible conflicts on this continent to embroil us with
at least two great European powers. The defense against that unwelcome
alternative, and the defense against its evil result, if it should
come, would in his judgment be found in a completely restored Union--with
the National Government supreme, and all its parts working in
harmony and in strength. He believed moreover that the legislation
which should affect the South, now that peace had returned, should be
shared by representatives of that section, and that as such
participation must at last come if we were to have a restored Republic,
the wisest policy was to concede it at once, and not nurture by delay
a new form of discontent, and induce by withholding confidence a new
phase of distrust and disobedience among the Southern people.

Entertaining these views, and deeply impressed with the importance of
incorporating them in the plan of reconstruction, Mr. Seward rose
from his sick-bed, pale, emaciated, and sorrowful, to persuade his
associates in the Government, of the wisdom and necessity of adopting
them. He had undoubtedly a hard task with the President. The two men
were naturally antagonistic on so many points that agreement and
cordiality seemed impossible upon a question in regard to which they
held views diametrically opposite. Mr. Johnson inherited all his
political principles from the Democratic party. He had been filled
with an intense hatred of the Whigs and with an almost superstitious
dread of the Federalists. Mr. Seward and he were therefore