THE REMINISCENCES OF CARL SCHURZ
for the presidency, and who had to stand aside and see it given to a little Illinois lawyer! You speak to me of disappointment!”
These stories came to me after the matter had been finally settled, too late to have any effect upon my conduct. I believed then, and now believe them to be substantially true, as Mr. Potter told them to me, including that of Mr. Seward's outbreak. Mr. Seward permitted his feeling that the Republican party had grossly wronged him, to run away with his temper on various other well-authenticated occasions; and at that time he had, like many others, not yet arrived at a just appreciation of Mr. Lincoln's character and abilities, and looked down upon him as a person much below his level. But as to the reasons Mr. Seward urged against my being sent as American Minister to a European court at that time, he was clearly right. I think I should have judged as he did, had I been Secretary of State. It is true, his apprehensions were not justified by the event. Soon after the confirmation of my appointment by the Senate I received a visit from Señor Tassara, the Spanish Minister in Washington, who had been a journalist, and, I believe, at one time, somewhat of a revolutionary character himself. He gave me every reason to think that my appointment was quite acceptable to the Spanish Government. And in the course of time my personal relations with that government became in fact very agreeable. But it might have been otherwise, and Mr. Seward was perfectly correct in not wishing to take any superfluous risk in that respect. Whenever in later years I reflected upon that part of my career, I have inwardly reproached myself for not anticipating at that time Mr. Seward's view of the matter, although it was kept secret from me while the question was still pending. I certainly ought to have done so. But I have to confess that my pride—or I might perhaps more
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