ary of
State changed the President's policy,[1065] a suggestion that Seward
himself corroborated in an after-dinner speech at New York in
September, 1866. "When Mr. Johnson came into the Presidency," said the
Secretary, "he did nothing until I got well, and then he sent for me
and we fixed things."[1066]

[Footnote 1062: McPherson's _Reconstruction_, p. 45.]

[Footnote 1063: Blaine's _Twenty Tears of Congress_, Vol. 2, p. 14.]

[Footnote 1064: Edward L. Pierce, _Life of Sumner_, Vol. 4, p. 376;
Sumner's _Works_, Vol. 11, p. 19.]

[Footnote 1065: James G. Blaine, _Twenty Years of Congress_, Vol. 2, p.
63.]

[Footnote 1066: New York _Tribune_, September 4, 1866.]

But Seward did more to exasperate Republicans than change a harsh
policy to one of reconciliation. He believed in the soundness of the
President's constitutional views and the correctness of his vetoes,
deeming the course of Congress unwise.[1067] It is difficult,
therefore, to credit Blaine's unsupported statement that Seward
"worked most earnestly to bring about an accommodation between the
Administration and Congress."[1068] The split grew out of the
President's veto messages which Seward approved and probably wrote.

[Footnote 1067: Thornton K. Lothrop, _Life of Seward_, p. 424.]

[Footnote 1068: James G. Blaine, _Twenty Years of Congress_, Vol. 2, p.
115.]

Until the spring of 1866 Seward's old friends believed he had remained
in the Cabinet to dispose of diplomatic questions which the war left
unsettled, but after his speech at Auburn on May 22 the men who once
regarded him as a champion of liberty and equality dropped him from
their list of saints. He argued that the country wanted reconciliation
instead of reconstruction, and denied that the President was
unfaithful to the party and its cardinal principles of public policy,
since his disagreements with Congress on the Freedman's Bureau and
Civil Rights Bills "have no real bearing upon the question of
reconciliation." Nor was there any "soundness in our political
system, if the personal or civil rights of white or black, free born
or emancipated, are not more secure under the administration of a
State government than they could be under the administration of the
National government."[1069] This sentiment brought severe criticism.
"Mr. Seward once earned honour by remembering the negro at a time when
others forgot him," said the _Independent_; "he now earns dishonour by
forgetting the negro whe