In 1856, when the newly-formed anti-slavery party, known as the Republican, met to name a national ticket, Seward was the logical candidate, but refused to allow his name to be considered, and the choice fell upon that brilliant adventurer, John C. Fremont.  Fremont was, of course, defeated, and Seward continued to be the leader of Republican thought, and the chief originator of Republican doctrine.  Indeed, he was, in a sense, the Republican party, so that, four years later, he seemed not only the logical but the inevitable choice of the party for President.  His most formidable opponent was Abraham Lincoln, of Illinois, who had been carefully working for the nomination, and who was blessed with the shrewdest of campaign managers.  Seward led on the first ballot, and would have won but for the expert trading already referred to in the story of Lincoln’s nomination.

It was natural that Lincoln should offer him the state portfolio, and Seward accepted it.  From first to last, he held true to the President, and the services he rendered the country were second only to those of Lincoln himself.  When Lincoln was killed, an attempt was also made to murder Seward, and was very nearly successful—­so nearly that for days Seward lingered between life and death.  He recovered, however, to resume his place in Johnson’s cabinet.  Over the new President he had great influence; he had long been an advocate of mercy toward the South, and he did much to persuade the President to the course he followed in restoring the southern states to the Union, without reference to the wishes of Congress.  Even John Sherman pronounced the plan “wise and judicious,” but Stevens, Sumner, and their powerful coterie in Congress violently opposed it, and Seward came in for his share of the vituperation and bitter accusation which the plan called forth.  Johnson’s defeat closed his political career, and the last years of his life were spent in travel.

The very cause of his downfall marks him as the greatest of the three, for he placed justice above expediency, and not even the attempt upon his life changed his feeling toward the South.  Perhaps the wisdom of his judgment was never better exemplified than in his purchase from Russia of the great territory known as Alaska, for the sum of $7,200,000.  Alaska was regarded at the time as an icy desert of no economic value, but time has changed that estimate, and the discovery of gold there made it one of the richest of the country’s possessions.

Outside of Seward, Sumner and Stevens, the most prominent public man of the time was Salmon P. Chase, an Ohioan who had for many years taken an important part in the anti-slavery controversy.  Although sent to the Senate in 1849 as a Democrat, he left the party on the nomination of Pierce in 1852, when it stood committed to the support and extension of slavery.  Three years later, he was elected governor of Ohio by the Republicans.  He was Lincoln’s secretary