was oppressively blunt, and Sumner cultivated an ideal
statesmanship that placed him outside the line of practical politics.
Fessenden was more nearly a copy of Seward in temperament and
discretion, but readily conceded the masterly ability of his
colleague. Seward was not magnetic like Clay or Blaine, but he knew
how to make all welcome who came within range of his presence."[664]

[Footnote 664: Alex. K. McClure, _Recollections of Half a Century_,
pp. 213, 214.]

Thus far, since the election, Seward had remained silent upon the
issues that now began to disturb the nation. Writing to Thurlow Weed
on November 18, 1860, he declared he was "without schemes or plans,
hopes, desires, or fears for the future, that need trouble anybody so
far as I am concerned."[665] Nevertheless, he had scarcely reached the
capital before he discovered that he was charged with being the author
of Weed's compromise policy. "Here's a muss," he wrote, on December
3. "Republican members stopped at the _Tribune_ office on their way,
and when they all lamented your articles, Dana told them they were not
yours but mine; that I 'wanted to make a great compromise like Clay
and Webster.'"[666]

[Footnote 665: F.W. Seward, _Life of W.H. Seward_, Vol. 2, p. 478.]

[Footnote 666: Thurlow Weed Barnes, _Life of Thurlow Weed_, Vol. 2, p.
308.]

To Republicans it did not seem possible that Weed's plan of
conciliation, so carefully and ably presented, could be published
without the assistance, or, at least, the approval of his warm
personal and political friend,--an impression that gained readier
credence because of the prompt acquiescence of the New York _Times_
and the _Courier_. Seward, however, quickly punctured Charles A.
Dana's misinformation, and continued to keep his own counsels. "I talk
very little, and nothing in detail," he wrote his wife, on December 2;
"but I am engaged busily in studying and gathering my thoughts for the
Union."[667] To Weed, on the same day, he gave the political
situation. "South Carolina is committed. Georgia will debate, but she
probably follows South Carolina. Mississippi and Alabama likely to
follow.... Members are coming in, all in confusion. Nothing can be
agreed on in advance, but silence for the present, which I have
insisted must not be _sullen_, as last year, but respectful and
fraternal."[668]

[Footnote 667: F.W. Seward, _Life of W.H. Seward_, Vol. 2, p. 479.]

[Footnote 668: Thurlow Weed Barnes, _Life of