Welcome back to The Deep Dive. We are back with
a fresh stack of notes and biographies and historical
accounts. And today we are tackling a figure
who is technically famous, but I think for most
of us he's famous in a very trivial sort of jeopardy
question kind of way. That is a very fair way
to put it actually. Yeah. I mean, we know the
name, but we don't really know the man. Right.
We are talking about William H. Seward. And if
I'm being completely honest here before I read
through this source material, I had maybe two
facts in my head about him. One, he's the Seward's
Folly guy who bought Alaska when everyone else
thought it was just this frozen wasteland. And
two, he was Abraham Lincoln's Secretary of State.
Which, you know, usually just conjures up an
image of a guy standing stiffly in the background
of some black and white photo while Lincoln does
all the heavy lifting. Exactly. But the sources
we have today, they paint a wildly different
picture. It wasn't just a background character.
Our mission today is to uncover the man who some
historians argue was actually the indispensable
man of the Civil War era. Indispensable is a
strong word, but it really fits here. Yeah, he
was a radical antislavery advocate way before
it was popular or safe to be one. He was the
target of a brutal assassination plot on the
exact same night Lincoln was killed. And this
is the part that really surprised me. He essentially
designed the blueprint for the United States
to become a global superpower. It's just a massive
legacy. If you look at the sheer breadth of his
political career from the 1830s straight through
the Reconstruction era, Seward is arguably the
most significant American politician of the 19th
century who never actually became president.
And that right there is the hook that really
got me. Because, you know, we tend to look back
at history and think Abraham Lincoln was just
inevitable, like he was destiny's child. But
going into 1860, William Seward wasn't just a
candidate. He was the heavy favorite. Oh, he
was the titan of the party. Yeah. Lincoln was
an afterthought. So our goal with this deep dive
is to figure out how this man, who is essentially
supposed to be king, ended up working for the,
quote, little Illinois lawyer, unquote, and how
they form this incredibly effective political
partnership. It's a fascinating dynamic. So let's
start with that 1860 like. Why was Seward seen
as such a lock for the Republican nomination?
Well, you have to look at the resume. By 1860,
Seward is the most prominent Republican in the
country bar none. He had been the governor of
New York for two terms. He had been a U .S. senator
for over a decade. He was the intellectual leader
of the anti -slavery movement. And Lincoln? Lincoln
was a one -term congressman from a decade prior
who had famously just lost two Senate races.
He was a fantastic orator, sure, but in terms
of actual governance, he was nobody compared
to Seward. Wow. I mean, Seward was so confident
he didn't even go to the convention in Chicago.
He stayed home in Auburn, New York, literally
waiting for the cannon on his lawn to be fired
to announce his victory. That is a level of confidence
that usually precedes a disaster. Yeah, it really
does. So if he was the smart bet, why did he
end up losing? It really comes down to the old
political adage that a long record is just a
long list of things for people to get angry about.
Yeah. Seward had been in the trenches for decades,
and he had managed to make three very specific
groups of people very nervous. OK, who were the
groups? First, you had the moderates. Seward
had a reputation as a radical. A dangerous radical,
actually. He had given these fiery speeches where
he used phrases that terrified the political
center. Oh, I saw the phrase higher law pop up
a lot in our notes. What exactly did that mean
in this context? So this was back in 1850. He
was arguing against the spread of slavery into
new territories. And he basically said that while
the Constitution might allow slavery, there is
a higher law. meaning God's law or moral law
that condemns it. See, to modern ears, that sounds
like a very noble moral stance. It is to us.
But in 1850, it sounded like treason to a southerner
or even a conservative northerner. He was essentially
saying that his personal morality trumped the
Constitution. Ah, I see. It implied that if he
were ever president, he wouldn't respect the
legal compromises that were barely holding the
country together at that point. It made him sound
like an anarchist to the establishment. OK, so
the moderates are terrified he's going to tear
up the Constitution. Who else? The nativists.
And this is a crucial piece of the puzzle that
often gets overlooked in history class. In 1860,
there was a very powerful political faction called
the Know -Nothings. They were intensely anti
-immigrant and intensely anti -Catholic. And
Seward was on the wrong side of them. He was
on the right side of history, but definitely
the wrong side of that electorate. Back when
he was governor of New York in the late 1830s
and early 40s, he did something almost unheard
of. He pushed for public school funding for immigrants,
specifically Catholic immigrants. Really? Yeah,
he believed that if you educated the children
of immigrants, they would just become better
citizens. He famously called America the asylum
of the oppressed of every nation, which angered
the nativists, but made him a hero to Catholic
communities. That sounds incredibly progressive
for that era. It was, but the Know -Nothings
absolutely hated him for it. And here is the
political math the Republicans needed to win
Pennsylvania and Indiana to win the White House.
Those states had huge natives populations. The
party bosses realized that if they ran Seward,
the nativists would revolt and they'd lose the
general election. So Lincoln was just safer.
Exactly. Lincoln had almost no record on immigration.
He was a blank slate. So Seward was too moral
on slavery for the moderates and too supportive
of immigrants for the nativists. Right. And finally,
he had the heavy baggage of his best friend,
Thurlow Weed. Thurlow Weed is an incredible name,
by the way. Sounds like a Batman villain. He
certainly acted like one sometimes. Weed was
a notorious political boss. He essentially ran
the New York machine. He was the guy in the smoke
-filled room handing out patronage jobs and making
the shady deals. So guilt by association? Precisely.
Seward was the high -minded philosopher, but
Weed was the muscle. It made Seward look corrupt
just by being tied to him. Lincoln didn't have
a Thurlow Weed. He looked... fresh and honest,
you know, honest Abe. So the convention happens,
the drama unfolds. Seward actually leads on the
first ballot, right? He does. But he just can't
clinch the majority. By the third ballot, Lincoln
overtakes him. The cannon on Seward's lawn never
fires. How did he take that? I mean, to be so
sure and then lose to a guy you consider an amateur?
He was utterly devastated. He felt, and he actually
wrote this in letters, that he had been justly
entitled to the nomination. He believed he was
the one who built the party, and now they were
handing the prize to this inexperienced Prairie
lawyer. I feel like most politicians in that
situation would sulk or maybe actively sabotage
the nominee. Many expected him to do exactly
that. But this is where you really see the character
of the man. After the initial shock wore off,
he pivoted. He realized the cause saving the
Union and stopping the spread of slavery was
simply bigger than his own ego. So he supported
Lincoln. More than supported. He famously went
on a massive speaking tour. He arguably campaigned
harder for Lincoln than Lincoln campaigned for
himself. But he still didn't really respect Lincoln
intellectually, did he? No, not at all. When
Lincoln wins and asks Seward to be Secretary
of State, Seward accepts But he has this very
specific idea in his head. He thinks, okay, Lincoln
is a figurehead. I will be the premier. I'll
be the one actually running the country. I love
the arrogance there. Like, I'll let you sit in
the big chair, Abe, but I'm driving the bus.
It culminated in one of the most astonishing
documents in American history. April 1st, 1861.
The so -called April Fool's Day memo. What was
it? The war is about to start. The South is seceding.
Seward sends a formal letter to Lincoln saying
basically we have no policy. We are drifting.
Someone needs to take charge. If it isn't you,
it must be me. He actually put that in writing
to the president. He did. And he even had this
wild idea to reunite the country by purposely
starting a war with France or Spain. He thought
a foreign war would force the South to come back
to the flag. That is just unhinged. Start a global
conflict 50 years early just to distract the
Confederacy. It was desperate. But look at how
Lincoln handled it. He didn't fire Seward. He
didn't leak the letter to the press to humiliate
him, which he easily could have done. He wrote
back a private note saying, essentially, if this
must be done, I must do it. Setting the boundaries.
Exactly. He asserted his authority with total
grace and kept Seward in the fold. And somehow
from that massive moment of tension, they became,
well, best friends is maybe a stretch, but they're
incredibly close. Actually, best friends is pretty
accurate for the Washington context. They spent
countless evenings together just chatting by
the fire. Lincoln loved Seward's company. You
have to remember, Lincoln was under crushing
weight. Seward was worldly, he was funny, he
liked to drink, he had a million stories. There's
that anecdote in the sources about the boots.
Oh yeah, Lincoln walks in on Seward polishing
his own boots. Seward says, in Washington we
don't blacken our own boots. And Lincoln deadpans,
well whose boots do you blacken? That's great.
It really shows their comfort level. And I was
reading about their collaboration on the Emancipation
Proclamation. I always assumed that was a solo
Lincoln project. But the notes emphasize that
Seward played a huge role in the timing. Absolutely
crucial role. Lincoln wanted to issue the proclamation
in the summer of 1862. But the Union Army was
losing battles left and right. Seward stepped
in and warned him, Mr. President, if you issue
this now, when we are getting beaten, it will
look like the last shriek of a retreating army.
It will look like an act of desperation. So he
told them to wait for a win. Yes. He told Lincoln
to wait until they won a major battle. So it
came from a position of strength. They waited
for Antietam. That advice probably saved the
proclamation from being dismissed internationally
as a joke. Let's talk about his actual day job
though, Secretary of State. The expert analysis
in our materials suggests that while Lincoln
was busy managing the generals, Seward was managing
the entire world. The biggest nightmare scenario
for the Union was that Britain or France would
formally recognize the Confederacy as a real
country and intervene. If the Royal Navy showed
up to break the Union blockade, the war was over.
The North loses. Seward's entire job was to prevent
that from happening. And it almost went completely
off the rails with the Trent affair. I see this
reference constantly in Civil War history, but
what actually happened there? It's late 1861.
A Union warship intercepts a British mail ship
called the Trent. They board it, and they arrest
two Confederate diplomats who are on their way
to London to ask for military help. OK, so the
Union caught the bad guys. Sounds like a win.
The North loved it. They had parades, fireworks,
the whole thing. But the British, they went completely
ballistic. You can't just board a neutral Royal
Mail ship and kidnap people. It's a massive violation
of international law. Right. Britain immediately
started sending thousands of troops to Canada.
They were ready to burn down New York. So Seward
is stuck between a rock and a hard place. If
he hands the prisoners back, the northern public
rips them apart. If he keeps them, Britain declares
war and the Union is doomed. This is where he
showed his absolute diplomatic genius. He wrote
a masterful letter to the British government.
He essentially said, we are returning the prisoners,
but not because we were wrong to stop the ship.
We are returning them because our sea captain
didn't follow the proper legal procedure of bringing
the ship into port for adjudication. He won on
a technicality? He spun it brilliantly. He told
the northern public we won because Britain finally
acknowledged our maritime rights. And he told
the British, hear your men, sorry about the procedural
mix up. He allowed everyone to save face and
a disastrous war was averted. That is some high
level political maneuvering. But our sources
point out there is a darker side to his tenure,
too. There's a lot of talk about a little bell.
Yes. This is the part of Seward that makes modern
civil libertarians cringe. Early in the war,
before the military fully took over domestic
security, Seward was actually in charge of arresting
suspected Southern sympathizers in the North.
Without trial. without trial without habeas corpus
there's a famous quote and the authenticity is
debated by historians but it perfectly captures
the power he held where he supposedly tells the
british ambassador i can touch a bell on my right
hand and order the arrest of a citizen in ohio
i can touch a bell on my left and order the arrest
of a citizen in new york can the queen of england
do so much wow That is chilling. It really is.
He was running a massive domestic surveillance
and detention network. He argued it was absolutely
necessary because spies were everywhere and Washington
was surrounded by slave states. But it shows
that Seward, the liberal idealist, was willing
to be incredibly authoritarian if he thought
it would save the nation. Which brings us to
the end of the war. April 14th, 1865. The Night
of Blood. I think most people know John Wook's
Booth shot Lincoln as part of a conspiracy, but
I don't think they realize how close Seward came
to dying that exact same night. It was a coordinated
decapitation strike against the government. Booth
went after Lincoln. Another conspirator was supposed
to kill the Vice President Andrew Johnson, but
he lost his nerve. And a massive brute of a man
named Lewis Powell was sent to kill Seward at
his home. And Seward was already in terrible
shape. He's completely helpless. A few days earlier,
he had been in a horrific carriage accident.
The horses bolted. He jumped out and he shattered
his jaw and broke his arm. He was lying in bed
in his home on Lafayette Square, drifting in
and out of consciousness. So this assassin, Powell,
just talks his way into the house. He pretended
to be delivering medicine from Seward's doctor.
He forced his way upstairs. Seward's son, Frederick,
tried to stop him on the landing. Powell pulled
a gun, aimed it right at Frederick's chest and
pulled the trigger. It misfired. So Powell took
this heavy pistol and pistol -whipped Frederick
so hard he cracked his skull open. Frederick
went into a coma for weeks. Then Powell kicks
open the bedroom door. He has a massive bowie
knife. He slashes Seward's daughter Fanny who
was trying to protect her father. He jumps onto
the bed where this old broken man is lying and
he starts stabbing him wildly in the face and
neck. How does anyone survive something like
that? It was the carriage accident that saved
him. Because of his broken jaw, Seward was wearing
this awkward contraption, a metal and canvas
neck brace. Powell's knife kept deflecting off
the metal. He sliced Seward's cheek open. Soot
was permanently scarred from it, but he couldn't
hit the jugular because of that brace. Plus,
a soldier, Private Robinson, rushed in and managed
to pull Powell off. That is just almost miraculous.
It was an absolute bloodbath. Powell shouted,
I'm mad, I'm mad, and ran out, leaving five severely
wounded people in the house. Seward, bleeding
profusely on the floor, was actually one to whisper
to the servants, I am not dead. Send for the
police. Close the house. The resilience is just
unbelievable. But the psychological aftermath?
Lincoln is dead. Seward survives. You would think
he would just retire, go home to Auburn, especially
since his wife died of shock just weeks later,
right? Yes, his wife, Frances, and his daughter
Fanny both died shortly after, essentially from
the trauma and stress of that horrific night.
His family was destroyed. He famously said later
he wished he had deserved the reward of dying
there with Lincoln, but he didn't leave. He stayed
on as secretary of state for the new president,
Andrew Johnson. And this seems to be where his
historical reputation really tanked. Why did
he stick with Johnson? The sources show Johnson
was a disaster for the Republicans. It was a
profound tragedy of loyalty. Johnson favored
very mild, lenient policies toward the defeated
South. He actively opposed civil rights for freed
slaves. The radical Republicans who used to be
Seward's closest allies absolutely hated Johnson.
They eventually impeached him. So why stay? Because
Seward genuinely believed that if he left...
the government would collapse into total anarchy.
He supported Johnson's milder reconstruction
because he thought he was the only adult in the
room keeping the president from doing something
truly catastrophic. So he sacrificed his own
political standing and legacy to be the guardrail.
He did. And he was despised for it. He was booed
in the streets. His old friends stopped talking
to him. They saw him as a traitor who was enabling
a racist president. It was a terribly lonely
end to his domestic political career. But even
in the middle of all that misery and isolation,
he was still looking at a map. He was still planning.
Which brings us to the empire part of the story.
Seward was a visionary expansionist to his core.
He didn't just want to heal the Union. He wanted
the United States to dominate the hemisphere.
He looked at the Pacific Ocean and saw the entire
future of global commerce. Which leads us directly
to the purchase of Alaska in 1867. The Russians
want to sell. Why did Seward want it? Everyone
else made fun of it. The papers called it Seward's
Icebox or a polar bear garden. Actually, the
notes debunk that myth a bit. While there were
vocal critics, most major newspapers actually
supported the purchase. Seward saw the strategic
geometry of it. If the U .S. owned Alaska, it
would bracket British Columbia, which was part
of the British Empire. Right, putting the squeeze
on them. Exactly. He thought it might pressure
Canada to join the U .S. eventually, but more
importantly, it was the bridge to Asia. He wanted
deep water ports that could reach China and Japan.
So it wasn't about the natural resources. They
didn't know about the gold or the oil yet. Not
really, no. That was just a lucky bonus that
came decades later. For Seward, it was entirely
about projecting commercial power. He negotiated
with the Russian minister Stokoe and bought a
subcontinent for seven point two million dollars,
which is about two cents an acre. He had to fight
Congress tooth and nail to actually pay the bill,
but he got it done. And later, when someone asked
him what his greatest achievement was, he didn't
say preventing war with Britain or helping Lincoln
draft the Emancipation Proclamation? No, he said
the purchase of Alaska. but it will take the
people a generation to find it out. Always playing
the long game. Always. He tried to buy the Danish
West Indies too, what we now call the Virgin
Islands, but Congress blocked him. He looked
at acquiring Hawaii, even looked at Greenland
and Iceland. He had a grand vision of the U .S.
as a commercial empire stretching from the Arctic
down to the Caribbean. After he finally leaves
office in 1869 when President Grant basically
snubs him, He does something that I think perfectly
captures his restless spirit. He doesn't just
sit on a porch in Auburn. He goes on a massive
trip around the world. At age 69, partially paralyzed
from a stroke with a scarred face and a broken
body, he sets off across the U .S. meeting Brigham
Young in Utah and then heads to Japan, China,
India, Egypt, Europe. He met with emperors and
kings. He was the first truly prominent American
statesman to engage with Asia on their own turf.
And there's a detail in the records here about
his traveling companion that I found really touching,
but also a little quirky. You mean Olive Risley.
She's a young woman, the daughter of a family
friend. She traveled with him to help care for
him physically. But of course, the Victorian
society immediately started gossiping about an
old man and a young woman traveling together.
So Seward did the most practical Seward thing
possible. He legally adopted her. He adopted
her just so they could travel together without
a scandal. Exactly. It was highly unorthodox,
but it worked. Yeah. It allowed him to have companionship
and care in his final years without ruining her
social reputation. And when he finally passed
away in 1872 back home in Auburn, his last words
to his family were surprisingly simple for a
guy who spent his life giving these massive sweeping
speeches. His final words were just, love one
another. That was it. So as we wrap up, let's
try to synthesize all of this. We have this deeply
complex figure, the idealist who hates slavery
and envisions a diverse nation, and the operator
who isn't afraid to arrest people without trial
or make backroom deals. When you look at the
source material, how should we view him today?
Well, the sources really present a duality. You
have what they call the John Quincy Adams Seward.
The ideal is the dreamer of human rights and
global empire. And then you have the Thurlow
Weed Seward, the pragmatist, the ruthless backroom
dealer. But the provocative takeaway here is
about the America we live in right now. We built
monuments to Lincoln because he saved the soul
of the country. He kept us united. But if you
look at the United States today as a global superpower,
A massive industrial nation spanning the continent,
trading heavily with Asia, projecting naval power
and absorbing emigrants. That is almost exactly
the nation William Seward designed. So Lincoln
saved the Union, but Seward built the Empire.
I think that's the perfect way to summarize it.
He was the true architect of the American century,
even if he never got to sit in the president's
chair. Well, I am certainly never going to look
at a map of Alaska the same way again. It wasn't
folly at all. It was the future. This gives you
a lot to mull over, especially when you think
about whose vision truly shapes a nation, the
one who holds the highest office or the one plotting
the course behind the scenes. Thanks for diving
deep with us today. My pleasure. And thank you
for listening. We'll catch you on the next deep
dive.