Booth's Escape Route

[Linda Anderson]

(02-07-2013 09:34 PM)Linda Anderson Wrote:  

(02-07-2013 08:30 PM)L Verge Wrote:  And Mr. Seward did not think that political assassination was the American way...

Seward wrote that in 1862. He was an optimist.

They Killed Papa Dead cites a New York Times article published May 12, 1865 that reflects how Seward's attitude towards political assassination had changed. However, after reading this article, it seems likely that Seward believed that the President and his cabinet were in danger all along.

"Mr. SEWARD talks freely of the assassination and of all its circumstances and antecedents. I do not think he was in the least surprised at it. Indeed, he has more than once within the last two years told me in conversation that we should never emerge from this great war without political assassinations. They might be attempted in the hope of aiding the rebellion, or for the purpose of revenging its defeat; but they were morally certain to come. For his own part, I know that he had made his personal arrangements with a view to the possibility of such a close of his own career. He was never insensible of the extent to which the great body of the slaveholding oligarchy held him responsible for the political and moral changes which prompted the rebellion."