Under these motives Mr.Seward retained his portfolio.

He staid on and on, continually hoping to do some act of patriotic service, and steadily losing that great host of friends who for twenty years had looked to him with unfaltering faith for counsel and direction.
Many who had been steadfastly devoted to Mr.Seward for the whole generation in which he had been prominent in public affairs, never could become reconciled to his course at this period.

Some, indeed, refused to concede to him the benefit of worthy motives.

He had, as they believed and declared, been incurably wounded in his pride, and disappointed in his ambition, when Mr.Lincoln, then a comparatively unknown man, was preferred to him by the Republican party as a candidate for the Presidency in 1860.

He had, as they believed, bided his time for revenge.