Reply #13: Seward was a great man. [View All]

[NNadir]

Really he was. He was an active foe of slavery and he, not Lincoln, was widely expected to become President in 1860.

Lincoln appointed him Secretary of State.

Lincoln had to put him in his place at the start, but once put there, he did great things for his country.

He was badly carved up by an attempted assassin on the same night Lincoln was shot by the same conspirators, and was not expected to live.

The story is ably told in Doris Goodwin's "A Team of Rivals" which is a great analytical work of history, one of the finest books I've read on the Lincoln Presidency.