wavering minds and develop Union sentiment,
flags began to appear on stores and private residences. Seward was
ablaze with zeal. "Before I spoke," he wrote Weed, "not one utterance
made for the Union elicited a response. Since I spoke, every word for
the Union brings forth a cheering response."[703]

[Footnote 701: F.W. Seward, _Life of W.H. Seward_, Vol. 2, p. 488.]

[Footnote 702: _Ibid._, p. 490.]

[Footnote 703: F.W. Seward, _Life of W.H. Seward_, Vol. 2, p. 497.

"In regard to February, 1861, I need only say that I desired to avoid
giving the secession leaders the excuse and opportunity to open the
civil war before the new Administration and new Congress could be in
authority to subdue it. I conferred throughout with General Scott, and
Mr. Stanton, then in Mr. Buchanan's Cabinet. I presume I conversed
with others in a way that seemed to me best calculated to leave the
inauguration of a war to the secessionists, and to delay it, in any
case, until the new Administration should be in possession of the
Government. On the 22d of February, in concert with Mr. Stanton, I
caused the United States flag to be displayed throughout all the
northern and western portions of the United States." Letters of W.H.
Seward, June 13, 1867.--William Schouler, _Massachusetts in the Civil
War_, Vol. 1, pp. 41, 42.]

But, amidst it all, Seward's enemies persistently charged him with
inclining to the support of the Crittenden compromise. "We have
positive information from Washington," declared the _Tribune_, "that a
compromise on the basis of Mr. Crittenden's is sure to be carried
through Congress either this week or the next, provided a very few
more Republicans can be got to enlist in the enterprise.... Weed goes
with the Breckenridge Democrats.... The same is true, though less
decidedly, of Seward."[704] It is probable that in the good-fellowship
of after-dinner conversations Seward's optimistic words and
"mysterious allusions,"[705] implied more than he intended them to
convey, but there is not a private letter or public utterance on which
to base the _Tribune's_ statements. Greeley's attacks, however, became
frequent now. Having at last swung round to the "no compromise"
policy of the radical wing of his party, he found it easy to condemn
the attitude of Weed and the Unionism of Seward, against whom his
lieutenants at Albany were waging a fierce battle for his election as
United States senator.

[Footnote 704: New York _Tribune