Mr. Seward was undoubtedly influenced in no small degree in these conclusions by the habit of mind he had acquired in conducting the foreign affairs of the Government during the period of the war. He had keenly felt the reproach, the taunt, and the open or ill-disguised satisfaction reflected by a large number of the public men of Europe that we were no longer and could never again be "the _United_ States of America." He felt that the experiment of Imperial Government in Mexico, then in progress under Maximilian, was a disturbing element, and tended by possible conflicts on this continent to embroil us with at least two great European powers. The defense against that unwelcome alternative, and the defense against its evil result, if it should come, would in his judgment be found in a completely restored Union--with the National Government supreme, and all its parts working in harmony and in strength. He believed moreover that the legislation which should affect the South, now that peace had returned, should be shared by representatives of that section, and that as such participation must at last come if we were to have a restored Republic, the wisest policy was to concede it at once, and not nurture by delay a new form of discontent, and induce by withholding confidence a new phase of distrust and disobedience among the Southern people. Entertaining these views, and deeply impressed with the importance of incorporating them in the plan of reconstruction, Mr. Seward rose from his sick-bed, pale, emaciated, and sorrowful, to persuade his associates in the Government, of the wisdom and necessity of adopting them. He had undoubtedly a hard task with the President. The two men were naturally antagonistic on so many points that agreement and cordiality seemed impossible upon a question in regard to which they held views diametrically opposite. Mr. Johnson inherited all his political principles from the Democratic party. He had been filled with an intense hatred of the Whigs and with an almost superstitious dread of the Federalists. Mr. Seward and he were therefore political antipodes. The one was the eulogist and follower of John Quincy Adams, the other was a sincere believer in the creed and the measures of Andrew Jackson. As Adams and Jackson had agreed only in devotion to the Union, so now Seward and Johnson seemed to have no other principle of Government in common, and that principle was equally strong in each.