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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: