¹ See The Education of Henry Adams (Boston, 1918), pp. 103–5, where Henry makes Seward an honorary Adams, and pp. 246–7, where he calls him ‘the great man—the only chief he [Adams] ever served even as a volunteer’.Google Scholar

² Bancroft, F., The Life of William H. Seward (2 vols., New York, 1900).Google Scholar

³ Seward, Frederick published a three-volume Life and Letters of his father, which contains much valuable material, including Seward's fragmentary autobiography; but Professor Van Deusen warns that the work has to be used with care, since ‘there are many inaccuracies’ (p. 636).Google Scholar

⁴ Bemis, Samuel Flagg (ed.), The American Secretaries of State and their Diplomacy (New York, 1927–1966), VII (1928), 3–115, contains an essay on Seward by Temple, Henry W..Google Scholar See also Adams, E. D., Great Britain and the American Civil War (2 vols., New York, 1925).Google Scholar I may also mention Hendrick, Burton J., Lincoln's War Cabinet (Boston, 1946), Which contains an excellent account of Seward's relations with Lincoln, although Professor Van Deusen does not list it in his bibliography. lasted from six to ten o'clock, and had eleven courses. Soup, fish, and roast beef came in order. Then the plates were all changed, and roast turkey and vegetables appeared. Next asparagus was brought on by itself, then sweetbreads, followed by a sequence of quails and green peas, terrapins, ducks, a tenth course of ice cream, wine jelly, and pies, and finally apples, nuts, and prunes. The ladies then departed, leaving the gentlemen to their wine and cigars. Coffee in the drawing room marked the end of this Lucullan feast.Google Scholar

⁵ ‘His expenditure for this one article was considerable, though gifts from foreign diplomats and purchases through American representatives abroad reduced its cost. Through Sanford he ordered early in 1863 one barrel of Bordeaux and one of Burgundy for guests and a second barrel of Bordeaux for ordinary table use. James Harvey sent him two cases of port, 1815 vintage, one a gift from the Minister to Portugal. Blatchford, while in Rome purchased Valernian [sic] wines for Seward and (a Seward favourite) Lachrima Christi, [sic] “the best that can be bought in Naples.” Count Piper, head of the Swedish legation, supplied him with enough Norwegian aqua vita [sic] to last the rest of his life. When Mercier left Washington, Seward's letter of regret reminded him of his promise to forward ten or twelve dozen bottles of good Burgundy. When the Secretary of State ended his term of public service the transportation of his wine cellar to Auburn constituted a real problem’ (p. 403).

⁶ ‘I am glad that you saw the Siamese twins. They are very nice young men, as I am informed. Would you like to see them when they are hunting? I wonder whether they both fire at once?’— Seward, to ‘one of the boys’, n.d., Bancroft, Life of Seward, I, 204.Google ScholarQuoted, in Van Deusen, , Seward, p. 91.Google Scholar

⁷ Potter, David M., Lincoln and his Party in the Secession Crisis, Yale, second edition, 1962, pp. 182–4.Google Scholar

⁸ Van Deusen, , Seward, 243–9.Google Scholar

⁹ See, for example, Hendrick, , Lincoln's War Cabinet, bk. II, passim.Google Scholar

¹⁰ Seward, himself denounced this view, in 1863Google Scholar, as an ‘injurious error’. Van Deusen, , Seward, pp. 301–2.Google Scholar

¹¹ Though it is worth pointing out that the key dispatch in the early controversy about the Powers' recognition of the Confederacy's belligerent rights was expressly approved, after important modifications, by Lincoln. Of course, he may simply have bowed to the Secretary's judgement that a ‘bold and decisive’ stroke was necessary. But that is not very like him. It is more likely that he shared the indignation of Seward and of American public opinion. See Van Deusen, , Seward, pp. 295–8.Google Scholar

¹² See Van Deusen, , Seward, p. 347.Google Scholar He gives a reference to Welles, Gideon, Diary, Beale, H. K. (ed.) (New York, 1960), I, 205.Google Scholar

¹³ See Van Deusen, , Seward, p. 392. Professor Van Deusen holds that Lincoln's promise of support had reference to 1868. The difficulty about this is not only that it contradicts Frederick Seward, the only source of the story, but that by 1868 Seward (born in 1801) would be older than any man ever elected, or nominated by a major party. It seems much more likely that Lincoln meant 1864. Neither he nor Seward knew that the war would still be raging, or that the radicals would still be strong enough to deny Seward the nomination. On the other hand they did know that no President had been elected to a second term since 1832, and that none had even been re-nominatedGoogle Scholar (at least to a consecutive second term) since 1840.

¹⁴ Bancroft, , Seward, II, 526–7.Google Scholar

¹⁵ Sometimes he breaks through, as in his rebuke to Douglas, Stephen A., who habitually spoke of ‘niggers’. ‘Douglas, no man who spells Negro with two gs will ever be elected President of the United States’ (p. 153).Google Scholar

¹⁶ Professor Van Deusen may feel that he has provided the necessary information in his companion lives of Thurlow Weed (1947) and Seward's other great ally, Horace Greeley (1953). Unhappily, they are cut to the same pattern, the central figure being treated in isolation, so are not really much help—not to mention that they were written rather a long time ago.

¹⁷ Benson, Lee, The Concept of Jacksonian Democracy: New York as a Test Case (Princeton, 1961). (Atheneum edition, New York 1964.)Google ScholarWilliams, T. Harry, Huey Long (London, 1970).Google Scholar For a list of unpublished dissertations used by Professor Van Deusen, , see his Seward, p. 647.Google Scholar Of particulai interest are such titles as Pace, A. Di, ‘Prelude to Civil War: the Decline of the Whig Party in New York, 1848–1852’ (University of Rochester)Google Scholar; Miller, M. V., ‘The Emergence of William H. Seward as a National Leader, 1847–1859’ (University of Southern California)Google Scholar; Muntz, E. G., ‘The First Whig Governor of New York, William Henry Seward, 1838–1842’ (University of Rochester).Google Scholar

¹⁸ Thomas, John L., American Historical Review, LXXIV, 2 (12. 1968).Google Scholar

¹⁹ Van Deusen, , Seward, p. 55.Google Scholar

²⁰ Adams, , Education, p. 104.Google Scholar

²¹ Benson, , Jacksonian Democracy (Atheneum, ed.), p. 13.Google Scholar

²² ‘If the theory of our constitution was fully expounded by its founders, its most complete security is to be effected by the highest attainable equality in the social conditions of our citizens. Power will always unite with the few or the many, according to the extension or limitation of knowledge. The highest attainable equality is to be accomplished by education and internal improvement as they distribute among the whole community the advantages of knowledge and wealth.’ See Benson, , Jacksonian Democracy (Atheneum, ed.), p. 14Google Scholar; or Baker, George E. (ed.), The Works 0f William H. Seward (New York, 1853), III, 213.Google Scholar

²³ We learn from Bancroft that Seward's paternal grandfather was a New Jersey man. Presumably his father made the move to New York. Henry himself was born in Orange County, N.Y., just across the state line from New Jersey. He moved to Auburn at the age of twenty-two.

²⁴ Benson, , Jacksonian Democracy (Atheneum, ed.), p. 36.Google Scholar

²⁵ Bancroft, , Seward, II, 526.Google Scholar

²⁶ In his life of Weed Professor Van Deusen attributed Seward's decision against the Regency to the affair of De Witt Clinton's dismissal from the Erie Canal board (see his Weed, p. 27); but in Seward he says the reasons for the decision ‘must remain a matter of conjecture’ (p. 11).

²⁷ An examination of Seward's foreign policy and attitude to American expansion in terms of his upstate background and constituency would also probably be profitable to those studying the roots of the American empire.