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PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATES:
CONTAINING SKETCHES, BIOGRAPHICAL, PERSONAL AND POLITICAL,
OF
Prominent Candidates for the Presidency
IN 1860.
BY
D. W. BARTLETT.
NEW YORK:
A. B. BURDICK, PUBLISHER,
8 SPRUCE STREET.
1859.
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1859, by
A. B. BURDICK,
In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for
the Southern District of New York.
W. H. TIMSON, Stereotyper. GEO. RUSSELL & CO., Printers.
PREFACE.
The sketches in this volume vary in length and minuteness, not from a
disposition, on my part, to withhold facts, but because a few of my
subjects are too cautious to allow their private history to go before
the public; nevertheless, the work contains full and accurate details
of the private and public history of our "PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATES"--not
one of whom has any idea of the position I have assigned him.
In selecting candidates, of course, I have followed my own
judgment--had I made use of everybody's, I might fill a dozen volumes.
I have sketched _the prominent men_ who have been named in connection
with the Presidency in 1860. Messrs. Buchanan and Pierce I have passed
over as men who have gone through a campaign--and through a
Presidential term--and the people know them. It is the men who have
not run the race for Presidential honors--the new men--of whom the
public would learn something, or I have made a mistake in writing this
book. The general reader will easily find in the volume the position
of any candidate on the issues of the day; and possibly, beside,
interesting personal details which show the character of the man.
THE AUTHOR.
CONTENTS.
PAGE
I.
WILLIAM H. SEWARD, 7
II.
STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS, 51
III.
SALMON P. CHASE, 95
IV.
EDWARD BATES, 118
V.
DANIEL S. DICKINSON, 127
VI.
JOHN BELL, 150
VII.
JOHN P. HALE, 161
VIII.
ALEXANDER H. STEPHENS, 179
IX.
N. P. BANKS, 198
X.
JOSEPH LANE, 205
XI.
JOHN MCLEAN, 218
XII.
HENRY A. WISE, 233
XIII.
R. M. T. HUNTER, 244
XIV.
HENRY WILSON, 251
XV.
JEFFERSON DAVIS, 295
XVI.
JAMES L. ORR, 305
XVII.
JOHN MINOR BOTTS, 316
XVIII.
JAMES H. HAMMOND, 322
XIX.
HOWELL COBB, 333
XX.
JOHN C. BRECKINRIDGE, 336
XXI.
JOHN C. FREMONT, 346
PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATES.
WILLIAM H. SEWARD.
The stranger who enters the hall of the United States Senate and casts
his eye over the array of senators, will be not a little surprised,
possibly somewhat amused, when William H. Seward is pointed out to
him. Accustomed to think of Mr. Seward as one of the greatest men in
the country, a first-class statesman, as well as orator--for he has
_read_, not _heard_, his numberless speeches upon the subjects of the
day--he expected to find a gentleman of imposing aspect, to discover
the impressive appearance which awes the stranger, or the audience.
But, instead of this, he finds a quiet man, sitting in his seat,
listening with imperturbable calmness to every senator who chooses to
speak, however dry, however provoking, however stupid. For Mr. Seward
is well known to be _the best listener_ in the Senate. This arises
from his rigid politeness, if we may use the phrase, which will not
allow him to refuse his ear and eye to any man who chooses to speak.
There he sits, leaning back in his chair, a slender man, of average
height, clad in simple black, with a singular face, grey eyes, grey
hair, Roman nose, a second Wellington, ever in repose. Who ever saw
William H. Seward excited? He is never to be provoked by friend or
enemy, and is either devoid of all sensibility, or has a spirit which
can triumph over, soar above, the common infirmities of poor human
nature. We have seen Mr. Seward on two very trying occasions. One,
when Mr. Hale, his friend and seat-mate, thought it his duty to
severely criticise his vote on the army bill (this was in the winter
of 1857-8), and in which criticism he was very personal. Mr. Seward
sat composedly in his seat during the painful review of his brother
senator, and rose to reply as pleasantly and as quietly as he ever did
in his life.
On another occasion, when the Senate sat late in the night on the
Cuban bill--last spring--Mr. Toombs made a fierce, and we must say
disgraceful attack upon Mr. Seward, calling him, among other names, "a
tuppenny demagogue." During the entire harangue by the Georgian
senator, Mr. Seward twirled his spectacles, unconsciously, and in his
reply was slow, freezingly cold, and never for a moment addressed or
looked at Mr. Toombs. These facts show that Mr. Seward purposely
refuses in public to allow himself to be angered by personalities or
to offer there personalities. He guards constantly against the
temptation to offend in this particular. He has often been accused by
ardent Republicans of lacking courage, physical courage, and that he
did not reply to the attacks of his southern enemies with sufficient
spirit. It is a mistake to ascribe this conduct of Mr. Seward to
cowardice. It is the result of deliberate thought in him--and if it is
mistaken policy, then of course it is to be set down as a blunder, not
a vice.
When Mr. Seward speaks, he again disappoints the stranger. There is no
_manner_, none of the acts of the orator are to be seen. He leans
against the top of his chair, and in an easy, conversational manner
_talks_ to the Senate, all the time swinging his spectacles to and fro
as if at the fireside.
With his arms folded, and leaning back upon the lofty railing in the
old Senate hall, we heard Mr. Seward deliver such startling sentiments
as these:
"I think, with great deference to the judgments of others, that
the expedient, peaceful, and right way to determine it, is to
reverse the existing policy of intervention in favor of slave
labor and slave States. It would be wise to restore the Missouri
prohibition of slavery in Kansas and Nebraska. There was peace in
the territories and in the States until that great statute of
Freedom was subverted. It is true that there were frequent debates
here on the subject of slavery, and that there were profound
sympathies among the people, awakened by or responding to those
debates. But what was Congress instituted for but debate? What
makes the American people to differ from all other nations, but
this--that while among them power enforces silence, here all
public questions are referred to debate, free debate in Congress.
Do you tell me that the Supreme Court of the United States has
removed the foundations of that great statute? I reply, that they
have done no such thing; they could not do it. They have remanded
the negro man, Dred Scott, to the custody of his master. With that
decree we have nothing here, at least nothing now, to do. This is
the extent of the judgment rendered, the extent of any judgment
they could render. Already the pretended further decision is
subverted in Kansas. So it will be in every free State and in
every free Territory of the United States. The Supreme Court,
also, can reverse its spurious judgment more easily than we could
reconcile the people to its usurpation. Sir, the Supreme Court of
the United States attempts to command the people of the United
States to accept the principles that one man can own other men,
and that they must guarantee the inviolability of that false and
pernicious property. The people of the United States never can,
and they never will, accept principles so unconstitutional and so
abhorrent. Never, never. Let the Court recede. Whether it recede
or not, we shall reorganize the Court, and thus reform its
political sentiments and practices, and bring them into harmony
with the Constitution and with the laws of nature. In doing so we
shall not only reassume our own just authority, but we shall
restore that high tribunal itself to the position it ought to
maintain, since so many invaluable rights of citizens, and even of
States themselves, depend upon its impartiality and its wisdom.
"Do you tell me that the slave States will not acquiesce, but will
agitate? Think first whether the free States will acquiesce in a
decision that shall not only be unjust, but fraudulent. True, they
will not menace the Republic. They have an easy and simple remedy,
namely to take the government out of unjust and unfaithful hands,
and commit it to those which will be just and faithful. They are
ready to do this now. They want only a little more harmony of
purpose and a little more completeness of organization. These will
result from only the least addition to the pressure of slavery
upon them. You are lending all that is necessary, and even more,
in this very act. But will the slave States agitate? Why? Because
they have lost at last a battle that they could not win, unwisely
provoked, fought with all the advantages of strategy and
intervention, and on a field chosen by themselves. What would they
gain? Can they compel Kansas to adopt slavery against her will?
Would it be reasonable or just to do it, if they could? Was negro
servitude ever forced by the sword on any people that inherited
the blood which circulates in our veins, and the sentiments which
make us a free people? If they will agitate on such a ground as
this, then how, or when, by what concessions we can make, will
they ever be satisfied? To what end would they agitate? It can now
be only to divide the Union. Will they not need some fairer or
more plausible excuse for a proposition so desperate? How would
they improve their condition, by drawing down a certain ruin upon
themselves? Would they gain any new security for Slavery? Would
they not hazard securities that are invaluable? Sir, they who talk
so idly, talk what they do not know themselves. No man when cool
can promise what he will do when he shall be inflamed; no man
inflamed can speak for his actions when time and necessity shall
bring reflection. Much less can any one speak for States in such
emergencies."
The Senate Hall was crowded--the galleries packed with a dense throng
of men and women, and the entire audience leaned forward to catch
every one of the words we have quoted, the southern senators smiling
scornfully, while some of them were speaking; yet the orator went on
as smoothly, as easily, as if he were discoursing a passage of ancient
history with a knot of tried friends, instead of dealing with great
and living issues before an audience, half of whom, to say the least,
were his bitter enemies, eagerly listening to convict him of any
imprudent or unjust sentiment.
Mr. Seward is no orator as the word is ordinarily understood. He has
little or no animation, no address, no impressiveness. It is _the
thoughts, the ideas_ of his speeches, which make them so powerful, so
widely popular. Almost any one of his speeches _reads_ better than it
delivers. Mr. Seward, long ago, must have lost all ambition to become
merely an orator--if he ever at any time indulged in such an ambition.
He speaks not to the few hundreds who can hear his voice, as he well
knows; but to millions outside the walls of the Capitol. And so he
studies his speeches, makes them truly great, and worth reading by
anybody and everybody, then commits them to memory, and recites them
in the Senate that they may go with the official stamp upon them to
the millions of readers in the free States.
Mr. Seward has long been popular in Washington--personally, we
mean--even among his political enemies. When he came to Washington, it
was with difficulty that he got a pew in one of the fashionable
churches of the capital. Association with him was then thought to be
contamination; but, long since, his hospitality, his high mindedness,
and his charitable nature, have won for him not only the respect, but
the love of many of the citizens of Washington, and some at least of
the citizens of the far southern States. No man has more bitter
political enemies than Mr. Seward, and no prominent man fewer personal
enemies. Those who know him, esteem him highly, however severely they
may condemn his political sentiments.
William Henry Seward was born in Florida, New York, May 16, 1801, and
is now 58 years old. His ancestors were of Welsh extraction upon his
father's side, and of Irish on the mother's side. His father was a
physician in the State of New York, of good character and excellent
abilities, and his mother was a woman of warm affections and a strong
and cultivated intellect. The people of the little town of Florida,
generally, were natives of New England, and the tone of society was
what some would call Puritanic. In such a village, education and good
morals were highly esteemed, and the young mind would be naturally
impressed with the importance of great truths, of morality and
humanity.
William Henry, while a boy, was noted in the village where he lived,
and especially among his circle of family friends, as a great student.
His intellect was thought to be precociously developed; but if such
was the fact, none of the later effects which usually follow unnatural
precocity showed themselves in Mr. Seward's career. He was also known,
and is still remembered by his school-day friends, for that frankness,
purity and gentleness of character which now distinguish him. As a boy
he was pure, and a brother senator remarked of Mr. Seward in our
hearing the other day, "He is the purest public man I ever knew!"
When nine years old, he was sent to school at an academy in Goshen, N.
Y. At fifteen, the pale, thin, studious lad entered Union College at
Schenectady, where he very rapidly distinguished himself by his
application, his brilliant talents and the gentleness of his character
and disposition. His favorite studies were rhetoric, moral philosophy
and the ancient classics. He was a close and thorough student. He rose
at four in the morning and sat up late at night. It was here that he
acquired those habits of continuous mental toil which have
characterized him since he came to public life.
Mr. Seward graduated from Union College with distinguished honors.
Among his fellow-graduates were Judge Kent, Dr. Hickok, Professor
Lewis, and other eminent men. Shortly after leaving college, Mr.
Seward entered the law office of John Anthon, in the city of New York,
where, as in college, his unusual devotion to his studies attracted
the attention of his teachers and led his friends to prognosticate for
him a brilliant future. He finished his legal studies with Judge Duer
and Ogden Hoffman, in Goshen, and was admitted to the bar of the
Supreme Court of New York at Utica in 1822.
In 1823, Mr. Seward took up his residence in the pretty village of
Auburn, N.Y. which to this day is his "home," and will always be his
abiding place. He became, in 1824 the law-partner of Judge Miller of
Auburn and married his youngest daughter, Frances Adeline Miller. The
fruits of this marriage were five children, one of whom died young,
another took to the army, another to the law, and the remaining two
are comparatively young.
Mr. Seward's personal appearance cannot be said to be prepossessing,
yet there are fine points in his personal appearance. His ways are
modest, his brow and eyes have, however, a sleepy aspect, which has
been fostered by his habit of snuffing and smoking tobacco
immoderately.
The first time we saw Mr. Seward was at his home--the pretty village
of Auburn--beneath the roof of a mutual friend. His face struck us at
first unpleasantly, for it seemed too lifeless and expressionless for
a man with so much mind, so great an intellect; but in a few moments
the clouds passed off and the clear vault of his intellect was open to
the eye. His eye grew bright and the fascination of his conversation
was at once felt. The compact brow expressed power, the eye genius,
the lips force of character, the whole body stately dignity, as well
as frankness. In his manners and conversation both in private and in
public, Mr. Seward is one of the most natural of men. Nothing is
forced or affected, but a pleasant negligence characterizes his
manner.
Some men pass for great men because they are physically great and
dignified, and because they utter few words and those in a sententious
manner. Mr. Seward is not one of these dignitaries, but has won his
greatness by _hard work_. He never was one of those brilliant geniuses
who suddenly startle the world, but wrought out his reputation, and
_earned_ the honor which has been so freely accorded to him by his
fellow-men.
In Auburn, Mr. Seward has long been personally very popular. His
position is a happy one. He has moderate wealth--enough for all his
wants--and there at least--however much his hospitality in the Capitol
may savor of splendor--there he lives in plain, almost frugal style.
He has for years been a member of the Episcopal church at Auburn.
Mr. Seward's father was a Jeffersonian Democrat, and he naturally
accepted the politics of his father; but not long after he began to
practise law, he left the Democratic party for the opposition. When
the Missouri Compromise roused the North from its slumbers, he sided
almost instinctively with the friends of freedom, and made several
public speeches during the excitement against any compromise with
slavery. In 1830, he was elected to the State Senate on anti-Masonic
grounds. In 1833, he made the tour of Europe. One year later, he was
nominated for governor of the State of New York by the Whig party, and
was defeated. In 1838, he was again nominated to that office, and was
elected by ten thousand majority. When his term had expired, he was
again elected to the same honorable post. While governor of New York
he made her respected and admired throughout the world. He used all
his influence and power for the repeal of all State laws which in any
manner countenanced the institution of negro slavery. The law which
permitted a southern slaveholder to retain possession of his slave
while travelling through the State, was repealed. A law was also
passed which allowed a fugitive the benefit of a jury-trial, and
prohibiting State officers from assisting in the recovery of
fugitives, and also denying the use of the jails for the confinement
of fugitive slaves under arrest. The Supreme Court pronounced most of
these laws unconstitutional afterward. Another law was passed, chiefly
through the influence of Mr. Seward, for the recovery of kidnapped
colored citizens of New York. Under the operation of this humane
enactment, Solomon Northup, who for twelve years had been forced to
toil upon a far distant southern plantation, was rescued and brought
back to his friends. The story of his case was published afterward and
had a very large sale.
To crown his official acts, Mr. Seward, just before retiring from his
gubernatorial office, recommended the abolition of that law requiring
a freehold qualification of negro voters.
The governor of Virginia made a requisition upon him for the surrender
of certain parties accused of assisting slaves to escape from their
owners. He refused to comply with the demand, upon the ground that the
article in the Constitution authorizing a demand of fugitives from
justice covered only such persons as were criminals by the laws of the
several States and the civilized world. Aiding a slave to escape from
his master, in his opinion, was no crime, and he did not feel it to be
his duty to surrender the accused. A long controversy was the result
of this bold decision, and retaliatory measures were tried by the
State of Virginia, but Governor Seward remained firm to the end.
In 1847, Mr. Seward defended John Van Zandt, who was accused of aiding
the escape of slaves from their master, at the bar of the Supreme
Court of the United States. It was one of the most eloquent arguments
he ever made, and he would not accept of a dollar's compensation for
his great effort.
While riding once upon the banks of the beautiful Owasco Lake, the
friend who was with us, pointed out a pleasant farmhouse as the scene,
a few years before, of a terrible murder, and not far distant, in a
lonely churchyard, we saw the graves of the victims. A negro of the
name of William Freeman, at the age of sixteen, was sent to the State
Prison for five years, for alleged horse-stealing. He declared his
innocence of the charge, and it has since been admitted by those who
tried him, that he was doubtless an innocent man; but, through the
false swearing of the real thief, he was sent to prison. The injustice
of his punishment, coupled with barbarous treatment while in prison,
resulted in an idiotic insanity, and when, at last, he was set free,
his term of imprisonment having expired, he went forth an idiot--a
lunatic--with but one idea in his brain--that the outside world had
most foully wronged him.
One night, without a spark of provocation, this wretched negro entered
the house of a Mr. Van Nest and killed him, his wife, a child, and his
mother, a woman of seventy. He was arrested the next day, and such was
the terrible state of excitement in and around Auburn, that it was
with great difficulty that the people were restrained from hanging the
culprit up to the most convenient tree. The negro, idiot that he was,
confessed the murder and laughed over it. This enraged the people
still more, and they clamored for his blood. Seward had acquired much
popularity in his arguments in criminal cases, and his neighbors
became at once alarmed for fear he would defend the negro. He was
absent then at the South, and such was the frantic state of the people
of Auburn that his law-partners announced that he would not defend the
case. But Mr. Seward was his own master still, and though he saw what
the feeling was, and that the negro was sure to be brought in guilty,
yet as the miserable man was friendless, he examined most carefully
into the case and came to the deliberate conclusion that Freeman was
insane. Hoping that other counsel would appear, he did not offer his
services. The day of trial came, and the villagers hoped that no
lawyer _dared_ to defend the criminal. The indictment was read against
him, and he was asked if he plead guilty or not guilty. The only reply
he made was "Ha!" He was asked if he had counsel--"he didn't know."
The poor wretch had no idea of what was transpiring, that he was upon
his trial for life. At this juncture, Mr. Seward, who was present, was
entirely overcome by his feelings, but he in a moment answered:
"May it please the court: _I shall remain counsel for the prisoner
until his death_." For two weeks, in the hottest of weather, he
conducted the defence, without pay. He was subjected to insult from
some of his old friends, and the feeling of the town was strongly
against him. The well known John Van Buren was the District Attorney,
and with the predetermination of the jury, of course a verdict of
"guilty," was rendered. Mr. Seward's argument was one of the finest he
ever made. Alluding to the unpopularity which he had brought upon
himself by his course, he said:
"In due time, gentlemen of the jury, when I shall have paid the debt
of nature, my remains will rest here in your midst with those of my
kindred and neighbors. It is very possible they may be unhonored,
neglected, spurned! But perhaps years hence, when the passion and
excitement which now agitate this community shall have passed
away--some wandering stranger--some lone exile--some _Indian_, some
_negro_, may erect over them a humble stone, and thereon write this
epitaph, 'HE WAS FAITHFUL.'"
An Appellate Court granted a new trial, but before it came on the
criminal died. A post mortem examination revealed the fact that his
brain was _one mass of disease, and nearly destroyed_! Mr. Seward was
suddenly and unexpectedly set right again before the people, and was
restored to the old place in their affections.
We have noticed this portion of Mr. Seward's life because it
effectually disposes of that cry raised against him by certain
persons, that he is a demagogue. No demagogue defends the poor and
forsaken, at the expense of personal popularity. He flatters the
prejudices of the people and does not go across them to his own
injury.
Mr. Seward was elected, in 1849, to the Senate of the United States,
where he has remained to this day. His course is everywhere known. He
was a Whig, and is of course warmly in favor of a Protective Tariff
and other prominent Whig measures, though he subordinates them all to
the great question of Human Freedom.
As a Whig, Mr. Seward was the friend of the slave. He opposed the
famous compromise measures of 1850, struggled against the repeal of
the Missouri Compromise--came slowly into the Republican movement, but
when once in it, no man could excel him, and few equal, in hearty
devotion to the party and its cause. From the first, he condemned the
great American movement, and has lost popularity in some quarters for
doing so. He is in favor of internal improvements and a homestead law,
as his votes will show. He objects to any hasty, irritating attempts
to buy or take Cuba--no insults--let everything be done fairly and
gentlemanly; and, if the pear drops to the ground ripe, eat the fruit.
_But no fruit-stealing, or buying at ruinous prices!_
A friend of Mr. Seward speaks of Mr. Seward's style in the following
language:
"His rapid idealization, his oriental affluence, though not vagueness
of expression, and the Ciceronian flow of his language, proceeding not
from the heat of youth or the vapors of wine, but from the exceeding
fertility of his imagination, combine to render him an interesting
speaker. Yet his enunciation is neither clear nor distinct, and the
tones of his voice often grate harshly upon the ear. He is not devoid
of grace, however; he is calm and dignified, but earnest.
"His style is elegant rather than neat; elaborate rather than
finished. It possesses a sparkling vivacity, but is somewhat deficient
in energetic brevity. It is not always easy, for there is more labor
than art; but if the wine has an agreeable _bouquet_, the connoisseur
delights to have it linger. Like young D'Israeli, whose political
position, in some respects, resembles his own, he has occasionally a
tendency to restore declamation, a natural predilection perhaps for
Milesian floridness and hyperbole, and, like Napoleon, a love for
gorgeous paradoxes. But, in general, his words are well-chosen and are
frequently more eloquent than the ideas. His sentences are all
constructed with taste; they have often the brilliancy of Mirabeau,
and the glowing fervor of Fox."
We must notice a few quotations from a very few of Mr. Seward's most
prominent speeches. At Detroit, Oct. 2, 1856, he spoke upon "The
Slaveholding Class," to a mass convention, in which he first argued
that the aggrandizement of the slaveholding class, to the detriment of
the rest of the people of the country, is a perversion of the
Constitution. He then, in a masterly style, gave a sketch of the
condition of the country--showed the organization of the courts, of
Congress, of the departments--all--all entirely in the control of the
slaveholding class--and closed with the subjoined paragraphs:
"Mark, if you please, that thus far I have only shown you the mere
governmental organization of the slaveholding class in the United
States, and pointed out its badges of supremacy, suggestive of
your own debasement and humiliation. Contemplate now the reality
of the power of that class, and the condition to which the cause
of human nature has been reduced. In all the free States, the
slaveholder argues and debates the pretensions of his class, and
even prosecutes his claim for his slave before the delegate of the
Federal Government, with safety and boldness, as he ought. He
exhorts the citizens of the free States to acquiesce, and even
threatens them, in their very homes, with the terrors of disunion,
if that acquiescence is withheld; and he does all this with
safety, as he ought, if it be done at all. He is listened to with
patience, and replied to with decorum, even in his most arrogant
declamations, in the halls of Congress. Through the effective
sympathy of other property classes, the slaveholding power
maintains with entire safety a press and permanent political
organizations in all the free States. On the contrary, if you
except the northern border of Delaware, there is nowhere in any
slaveholding State personal safety for a citizen, even of that
State itself, who questions the rightful national domination of
the slaveholding class. Debate of its pretensions in the halls of
Congress is carried on at the peril of limb and life. A free press
is no sooner set up in a slaveholding State than it is demolished,
and citizens who assemble peacefully to discuss even the extremest
claims of slavery, are at first cautioned, and, if that is
ineffectual, banished or slain, even more surely than the
resistants of military despotism in the French empire. Nor, except
just now, has the case been much better even in the free States.
It is only as of yesterday, when the free citizens, assembled to
discuss the exactions of the slaveholding class, were dispersed in
Boston, Utica, Philadelphia and New York. It is only as of
yesterday, that when I rose, on request of citizens of Michigan,
at Marshall, to speak of the great political questions of the day,
I was enjoined not to make disturbance or to give offence by
speaking of free soil, even on the ground which the Ordinance of
1787 had saved to freedom. It was only as of yesterday that
Protestant churches and theological seminaries, built on Puritan
foundations, vied with the organs of the slaveholding class in
denouncing a legislator who, in the act of making laws affecting
its interests, declared that all human laws ought to be conformed
to the standard of eternal justice. The day has not even yet
passed when the press, employed in the service of education and
morality, expurgates from the books which are put into the hands
of the young all reflections on slavery. The day yet lasts when
the flag of the United States flaunts defiance on the high seas
over cargoes of human merchandise. Nor is there an American
representative anywhere, in any of the four quarters of the globe,
that does not labor to suppress even there the discussion of
American slavery, lest it may possibly affect the safety of the
slaveholding class at home. If, in a generous burst of sympathy
with the struggling Protestant democracy of Europe, we bring off
the field one of their fallen champions, to condole with and
comfort him, we suddenly discern that the mere agitation of the
principles of freedom tend to alarm the slaveholding class, and we
cast him off again as a waif, not merely worthless, but dangerous
to ourselves. The natural and ancient order of things is reversed;
freedom has become subordinate, sectional and local; slavery, in
its influence and combinations, has become predominant, national
and general. Free, direct and manly utterance in the cause of
freedom, even in the free States themselves, leads to ostracism,
while superserviceability to the slaveholding class alone secures
preferment in the national councils. The descendants of Franklin,
and Hamilton, and Jay, and King, are unprized--
----'Till they learn to betray,
Undistinguish'd they live, if they shame not their sires,
And the torch that would light them to dignity's way,
Must be caught from the pile when the country expires.'
"In this course of rapid public demoralization, what wonder is it
that the action of the Government tends continually with fearfully
augmenting force to the aggrandizement of the slaveholding class?
A government can never be better or wiser, or even so good or so
wise as the people over whom it presides? Who can wonder, then,
that the Congress of the United States, in 1820, gave to slavery
the west bank of the Mississippi quite up to the present line of
Kansas, and was content to save for freedom, out of the vast
region of Louisiana, only Kansas and Nebraska! Who can wonder that
it consented to annex and admit Texas, with power to subdivide
herself into five slave States, so as to secure the slaveholding
class a balance against the free States then expected to be
ultimately organized in Kansas and Nebraska? Who can wonder, that
when this annexation of Texas brought on a war with Mexico, which
ended in the annexation of Upper California and New Mexico, every
foot of which was free from African slavery, Congress divided that
vast territory, reluctantly admitting the new State of California
as a free State, because she would not consent to establish
slavery, dismembered New Mexico, transferred a large portion of it
to slaveholding Texas, and stipulated that what remained of New
Mexico, together with Utah, should be received as slave States if
the people thereof should so demand? Who can wonder that the
President, without any reproof by Congress, simultaneously offered
to Spain two hundred millions of dollars for the purchase of Cuba,
that it might be divided into two slaveholding States, to be
admitted as members of the Federal Union, and at the same time
menaced the European Powers with war should they interfere to
prevent the consummation of the purchase? Who can wonder that,
emboldened with these concessions of the people, Congress at last
sanctioned a reprisal by the slaveholding class upon the regions
of Kansas and Nebraska, not on the ground of justice or for an
equivalent, but simply on the ground that the original concession
of them to freedom was extorted by injustice and unconstitutional
oppression by the free States? Who can wonder that the
slaveholding class, when it had obtained the sanction of Congress
to that reprisal, by giving a pledge that the people of those
territories should be perfectly free, nevertheless, to establish
freedom therein, invaded the territory of Kansas with armed
forces, inaugurated an usurpation, and established slavery there,
and disfranchised the supporters of freedom by tyrannical laws,
enforced by fire and sword, and that the President and Senate
maintain and uphold the slaveholding interests in these
culminating demonstrations of their power, while the House of
Representatives lacks the power, because it is wanting in the
virtue, to rescue the interests of justice, freedom, and humanity?
Who can wonder that federal courts in Massachusetts indict
defenders of freedom for sedition, and in Pennsylvania subvert the
State tribunals, and pervert the _habeas corpus_, the great writ
of Liberty, into a process for arresting fugitive slaves, and
construe into contempt, punishable by imprisonment without bail or
mainprize, the simple and truthful denial of personal control over
a fugitive female slave, who has made her own voluntary escape
from bondage? Who can wonder that in Kansas lawyers may not plead
or juries be empannelled in the Federal Courts, nor can even
citizens vote, without first swearing to support the Fugitive
Slave Law and the Kansas and Nebraska act, while citizens who
discuss through the press the right of slaveholders to domineer
there, are punished with imprisonment or death; free bridges, over
which citizens who advocate free institutions, may pass, free
taverns where they may rest, and free presses through which they
may speak, are destroyed under indictments for nuisances; and
those who peacefully assemble to debate the grievances of that
class, and petition Congress for relief, are indicted for high
treason?
"Just now, the wind sets with some apparent steadiness at the
North, and you will readily confess therefore that I do not
exaggerate the growing aggrandizement of the slaveholding class,
but you will nevertheless insist that that aggrandizement is now
and may be merely temporary and occasional. A moment's reflection,
however, will satisfy you that this opinion is profoundly untrue.
What is now seen is only the legitimate maturing of errors
unresisted through a period of more than thirty years. All the
fearful evils now upon us are only the inevitable results of
efforts to extinguish, by delays, concession, and compromises, a
discussion to which justice, reason and humanity, are continually
lending their elemental fires.
"What, then, is the tendency of this aggrandizement of the slave
interests, and what must be its end, if it be not now or speedily
arrested? Immediate consequences are distinctly in view. The
admission of Kansas into the Union as a slave State, the
subsequent introduction of slavery, by means equally flagrant,
into Nebraska, and the admission of Utah with the twin patriarchal
institutions of legalized adultery and slavery, and these three
achievements crowned with the incorporation of Cuba into the
Republic. Beyond these visible fields lies a region of fearful
speculation--the restoration of the African slave trade, and the
desecration of all Mexico and Central America, by the infliction
upon the half-civilized Spanish and Indian races dwelling there,
by our hands, of a curse from which, inferior as they are to
ourselves, they have had the virtue once to redeem themselves.
Beyond this last surveyed, lies that of civil and servile wars,
national decline and--RUIN!
"I fear to open up these distant views, because I know that you
will attribute my apprehensions to a morbid condition of mind. But
confining myself to the immediate future which is so fearfully
visible, I ask you in all candor, first, whether I have ever
before exaggerated the aggrandizement of the slaveholding class.
Secondly, whether the movement that I now forbode is really more
improbable than the evils once seemed, which are now a startling
reality.
"How are these immediate evils, and whatever of greater evils that
are behind them, to be prevented? Do you expect that those who
have heretofore counselled compromise, acquiescence, and
submission, will change their course and come to the rescue of
liberty? Even if this were a reasonable hope, are Cass, and
Douglass, and Buchanan, greater or better than the statesmen who
have opened the way of compromise, and led these modern statesmen
into it? And if they indeed are so much greater and so much
better, do you expect them to live forever?
"Perhaps you expect the slaveholding class will abate its
pretensions, and practise voluntarily the moderation which you
wish, but dare not demand at its hands. How long, and with what
success, have you waited already for that reformation? Did any
property class ever so reform itself? Did the patricians in old
Rome, the noblesse or the clergy of France? The landholders in
Ireland? The landed aristocracy in England? Does the slaveholding
class even seek to beguile you with such a hope? Has it not become
rapacious, arrogant, defiant? Is it not waging civil war against
Freedom, wherever it encounters real resistance? No! no! you have
let the lion and the spotted leopard into the sheep-fold. They
certainly will not die of hunger there, nor retire from disgust
with satiety. They will remain there so long as renewed appetite
shall find multiplied prey. Be not self-deceived. Whenever a
property class of any kind is invited by society to oppress, it
will continue to oppress. Whenever a slaveholding class finds the
non-slaveholding classes yielding, it will continue its work of
subjugation.
"You admit all this, and you ask how are these great evils, now so
apparent, to be corrected--these great dangers, now so manifest,
to be avoided. I answer, it is to be done, not as some of you have
supposed, by heated debates sustained by rifles or revolvers at
Washington, nor yet by sending armies with supplies and Sharpe's
rifles into Kansas. I condemn no necessary exercise of the right
of self-defence, anywhere. Public safety is necessary to the
practice of the real duties of champions of Freedom. But this is a
contest in which the race is not to the physically swift, nor the
battle to those who have most muscular strength. Least of all is
it to be won by retaliation and revenge. The victory will be to
those who shall practise the highest moral courage, with simple
fidelity to the principles of humanity and justice.
Notwithstanding all the heroism of your champions in Washington
and Kansas, the contest will be fearfully endangered, if the
slaveholding class shall win the President and the Congress in
this great national canvass. Even although every one of these
champions should perish in his proper field, yet the Rights of Man
will be saved, and the tide of oppression will be rolled back from
our northern plains, if a President and a Congress shall be chosen
who are true to freedom. The people and the people only are
sovereign and irresistible, whether they will the ascendency of
slavery or the triumph of liberty.
"Harsh as my words may have seemed, I do my kinsmen and brethren
of the free States no such injustice as to deny that great
allowances are to be made for the demoralization I have described.
We inherited complicity with the slaveholding class, and with it
prejudices of caste. We inherited confidence and affection toward
our Southern brethren--and with these, our political
organizations, and profound reverence for political authorities,
all adverse to the needful discussion of slavery. Above all, we
inherited a fear of the dissolution of the Union, which can only
be unwholesome when it ceases equally to affect the conduct of all
the great parties to that sacred compact. All these inheritances
have created influences upon our political conduct, which are
rather to be deplored than condemned. I trust that at last these
influences are about to cease. I trust so, because, if we have
inherited the demoralization of slavery, we have also attained the
virtue required for emancipation. If we have inherited prejudices
of caste, we have also risen to the knowledge that political
safety is dependent on the rendering of equal and exact justice to
all men. And if we have suffered our love for the Union to be
abused so as to make us tolerate the evils that more than all
others endanger it, we have discerned that great error at last. If
we should see a citizen who had erected a noble edifice, sit down
inactively in its hall, avoiding all duty and enterprise, lest he
might provoke enemies to pull it down over his head, or one who
had built a majestic vessel, moor it to the wharf, through fear
that he might peradventure run it upon the rocks, we should
condemn his fatuity and folly. We have learned at last that the
American people labor not only under the responsibility of
preserving this Union, but also under the responsibility of making
it subserve the advancement of justice and humanity, and that
neglect of this last responsibility involves the chief peril to
which the Union is exposed.
"I shall waste little time on the newly-invented apologies for
continued demoralization. The question now to be decided is,
whether a slaveholding class exclusively shall govern America, or
whether it shall only bear divided sway with non-slaveholding
citizens. It concerns all persons equally, whether they are
Protestants or Catholics, native-born or exotic citizens. And
therefore it seems to me that this is no time for trials of
strength between the native-born and the adopted freeman, or
between any two branches of one common Christian brotherhood.
"As little shall I dwell on merely personal partialities or
prejudices affecting the candidates for public trusts. Each fitly
personates the cause he represents. Beyond a doubt, Mr. Buchanan
is faithful to the slaveholding class, as Mr. Fillmore vacillates
between it and its opponents. I know Mr. Fremont well; and when I
say that I know that he combines extraordinary genius and
unquestionable sincerity of purpose with unusual modesty, I am
sure that you will admit that he is a true representative of the
Cause of Freedom.
"Discarding sectionalism, and loving my country and all its parts,
and bearing an affection even to the slaveholding class, none the
less sincere because it repels me, I cordially adopt the motto
which it too often hangs out to delude us. I know no North, no
South, no East, and no West; for I know that he who would offer an
acceptable sacrifice in the present crisis must conform himself to
the divine instructions, that neither in this mountain, nor yet at
Jerusalem, shall we worship the Father; but the hour cometh, and
now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in
spirit and in truth.
"Last of all, I stop not to argue with those who decry agitation
and extol conservatism, not knowing that conservatism is of two
kinds--that one which, yielding to cowardly fear of present
inconvenience or danger, covers even political leprosy with
protecting folds; and that other and better conservatism, that
heals, in order that the body of the Commonwealth may be healthful
and immortal.
"Fellow-citizens, I am aware that I have spoken with seriousness
amounting to solemnity. Do not infer from thence that I am
despondent or distrustful of present triumph and ultimate
regeneration. It has required a strong pressure upon the
main-spring of the public virtue to awaken its elasticity. Such
pressure has reached the centre of the spring at last. They who
have reckoned that its elasticity was lost, are now discovering
their profound mistake. The people of the United States have
dallied long with the cactus, and floated carelessly on the calm
seas that always reflect summer skies, but they have not lost
their preference for their own changeless _fleur de lis_, and they
consult no other guidance, in their course over the waters, than
that of their own bright, particular, and constant star, the
harbinger of Liberty."
Mr. Seward's famous Rochester speech has been so often misquoted and
misrepresented that we will quote from it a few passages:
"The slave system is one of constant danger, distrust, suspicion
and watchfulness. It debases those whose toil alone can produce
wealth and resources for defence, to the lowest degree of which
human nature is capable, to guard against mutiny and insurrection,
and thus wastes energies which otherwise might be employed in
national development and aggrandizement.
"The free-labor system educates all alike, and, by opening all the
fields of industrial employment, and all the departments of
authority, to the unchecked and equal rivalry of all classes of
men, at once secures universal contentment, and brings into the
highest possible activity all the physical, moral and social
energies of the State. In States where the slave system prevails,
the masters, directly or indirectly, secure all political power,
and constitute a ruling aristocracy. In the States where the
free-labor system prevails, universal suffrage necessarily
obtains, and the State inevitably becomes, sooner or later, a
republic or democracy.