ne cheers for
the passage in which he describes Lafayette as rejecting all and every
compromise, and the knowing ones told him those cheers laid out
Thurlow Weed, and then he came and told me, of course."--Thurlow Weed
Barnes, _Life of Thurlow Weed_, Vol. 2, p. 308.]

[Footnote 675: "While the evidence is not positive that Seward
contemplated heading a movement of Republicans that would have
resulted in the acceptance by them of a plan similar in essence to the
Crittenden compromise, yet his private correspondence shows that he
was wavering, and gives rise to the belief that the pressure of Weed,
Raymond, and Webb would have outweighed that of his radical Republican
colleagues if he had not been restrained by the unequivocal
declarations of Lincoln."--James F. Rhodes, _History of the United
States_, Vol. 3, p. 157.]

[Footnote 676: F.W. Seward, _Life of W.H. Seward_, Vol. 2, p. 480.]

On December 13 Seward received the desired letter from the
President-elect, formally tendering him the office of secretary of
state. The proffer was not unexpected. Press and politicians had
predicted it and conceded its propriety. "From the day of my
nomination at Chicago," Lincoln said, in an informal and confidential
letter of the same day, "it has been my purpose to assign you, by your
leave, this place in the Administration. I have delayed so long to
communicate that purpose, in deference to what appeared to me a proper
caution in the case. Nothing has been developed to change my view in
the premises; and I now offer you the place in the hope that you will
accept it, and with the belief that your position in the public eye,
your integrity, ability, learning, and great experience all combine to
render it an appointment pre-eminently fit to be made."[677]

[Footnote 677: Nicolay and Hay, _Abraham Lincoln_, Vol. 3, p. 349.]

In the recent campaign Seward had attracted such attention and aroused
such enthusiasm, that James Russell Lowell thought his magnanimity,
since the result of the convention was known, "a greater ornament to
him and a greater honour to his party than his election to the
Presidency would have been."[678] Seward's friends had followed his
example. "We all feel that New York and the friends of Seward have
acted nobly," wrote Leonard Swett to Weed.[679] A month after the
offer of the portfolio had been made, Lincoln wrote Seward that "your
selection for the state department having become public, I am happy to
find