Mr.
Stockton, of New Jersey, went so far as to assert that in case of war
the North would raise a regiment to aid the South as often as one was
raised to assail it. Mr. Chase's remarks on the floor of the
convention indicated a disposition to allow the South to go without
resistance on our part, and in a conversation that I had with him as
we walked one evening on Pennsylvania Avenue, toward Georgetown, he
said:
"The thing to be done is to let the South go."
The interest of the convention centred upon the Committee of Thirteen,
of which Mr. Guthrie was chairman. While the Committee of Thirteen was
considering what should be done, Mr. John Z. Goodrich said that he had
called upon Mr. Seward, and that Mr. Seward expressed a wish to see me.
I had not the personal acquaintance of Mr. Seward, and Mr. Goodrich
offered to take me to Mr. Seward's house. We called in the evening.
His conversation and bearing were different from the conversation and
bearing of most of the public men of the time. He spoke as though the
subject of conversation was the chance of a client and the means of
bringing him safely out of his perils. He spoke of the speech he had
made in the Senate and said:
"My speech occupies the mind of the South for the present: then the
proceedings of the Peace Congress will attract attention, and by and
by we shall have the President's inaugural which will probably have
a good influence.
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