n the nation demands that the negro should be
remembered."[1070]

[Footnote 1069: This speech does not appear in his _Works_, but was
published at the time of its delivery in pamphlet form.]

[Footnote 1070: New York _Independent_, May 31, 1866.]

Seward's participation in the President's tour of the country
contributed to destroy his popularity. This Quixotic junketing journey
quickly passed into history as the "swinging-around-the-circle" trip,
which Lowell described as an "advertising tour of a policy in want of
a party."[1071] Seward had many misgivings. The memory of the
President's condition on inauguration day and of his unfortunate
speech on February 22 did not augur well for its success. "But it is a
duty to the President and to the country," he wrote, "and I shall go
on with right good heart."[1072] In the East the party got on very
well, but at Cleveland and other Western cities the President acted
like a man both mad and drunk, while people railed at him as if he
were the clown of a circus. "He sunk the Presidential office to the
level of a grog-house," wrote John Sherman.[1073]

[Footnote 1071: James Russell Lowell, _Political Essays_, p. 296.]

[Footnote 1072: F.W. Seward, _Life of W.H. Seward_, Vol. 3, p. 339.]

[Footnote 1073: Sherman's Letters, p. 278.]

Seward's position throughout was pathetic. His apologies and
commonplace appeals for his Chief contrasted strangely with the
courageous, powerful, and steady fight against the domination of
slavery which characterised his former visits to Cleveland, and the
men who had accepted him as their ardent champion deprecated both his
acts and his words. It called to mind Fillmore's desertion of his
anti-slavery professions, and Van Buren's revengeful action in 1848.
"Distrusted by his old friends," said the _Nation_, "he will never be
taken to the bosom of his old enemies. His trouble is not that the
party to which he once belonged is without a leader, but that he
wanders about like a ghost--a leader without a party."[1074]

[Footnote 1074: New York _Nation_, Vol. 3, p. 234.]

CHAPTER XII

HOFFMAN DEFEATED, CONKLING PROMOTED

1866

The knowledge that Republicans, to overcome the President's vetoes,
must have a two-thirds majority in Congress, precipitated a State
campaign of unusual energy. The contest which began on April 9, when
Johnson disapproved the Civil Rights Bill, was intensified by the
Philadelphia convention and the President's