passes anything that we have experienced in our sojournings from Bangor, in the state of Maine, to this place. The discovery that here there is so much of kindness for us, so much of respect and consideration, takes us by surprise. I will confess freely that it affects us with deep sensibility, for we did not propose to visit St. Joseph. There is a land beyond you-a land redeemed and saved for freedom, through trials and sufferings that have commended its young and growing people to the respect of mankind and to our peculiar sympathy.

"We proposed to be quiet travelers through the state of Missouri, hoping and expecting without stopping here, to rest this night on the other side of the Missouri, where we knew we would be welcome. [A voice-'We won't hurt you.'] No, I know you won't hurt me. The man who never wished evil to any human being, who challenges enemies as well as friends to show the wrong with which any being made in his own form can accuse him when he comes before the bar of justice, has no fear of being harmed in the country of his birth and of his affection. But I stated that, not merely for the purpose of showing how agreeable is this fraternal welcome. It is full of promise. I pass over all that has been said to me of consideration for myself. There are subjects on which I take no verdict from my fellow citizens. I choose to take the approbation, if I can get it, of my own conscience, and to wait till a future age for the respect and consideration of mankind. But I will dwell for one moment on this extraordinary scene, full of assurance on many points, and interesting to every one of you as it is to me.

"The most cheering fact, as it is the most striking one in it, is that we who are visitors and pilgrims to Kansas, beyond you, find that we have reached Kansas already on the northern shores of the Missouri river. Now come up here—if there are any such before me—you, who are so accustomed to sound an alarm about the danger of a dissolution of the Union; come up here, and look at the scene of Kansas and Missouri, so lately hostile, brought together on either shore in the bonds of fraternal affection and friendship. That is exactly what will always occur whenever you attempt to divide this people and to set one portion against another. The moment you have brought the people to the point where there is the least degree of danger to the national existence felt, then those whom party malice or party ambition have arrayed against each other as enemies, will embrace each other as friends and brethren.

"Let me tell you this simple truth; that though you live in a land of slavery there is not a man among you who does not love slavery less than he loves the Union. Nor have I ever met the man who loved freedom so much, under any of the aspects involved in the present presidential issues, as he loved the Union, for it is only through the stability and perpetuity of this Union that any blessings whatever may be expected to descend on the American people.

"And now, fellow citizens, there is another lesson which this occasion and this demonstration teach. They teach that there is no difference whatever in the nature, constitution or character of the people of the several states of this Union, or of the several sections of this Union. They are all of one nature, even if they are not all native born, and educated in the same sentiments. Although many of them came from distant lands, still the very effect of their being American citizens is to make them all alike.

"I will tell you why this is so. The reason is simply this: The democratic principle that every man ought to be the owner of the soil that he cultivates, and the owner of the limbs and the head that he applies to that culture, has been adopted in some of the states earlier than in others; and where it was adopted earliest it has worked out the fruits of higher advancement, of greater enterprise, of greater prosperity. Where it has not been adopted, enterprise and industry have languished in proportion. But it is going through; it is bound to go through. [A voice--'It's not going through here.'] Yes, here. Asit has already gone through eighteen states of the Union so it is bound to go through all of the other fifteen. It is bound to go through all of the thirty-three states of the Union for the simple reason that it is going through the world."

On Monday (September 24), Mr. Seward reached Kansas. As he passed down the Missouri river, he was recognized at several places on the Missouri and Kansas shores of the river, and saluted with cheers, entering into frank and familiar conversations with the people. His first step on the soil of Kansas, at Leavenworth, was announced by the firing of cannon and the shouts of thousands of people. He was escorted to the hotel by a procession of citizens, including all the mechanics in the city, bearing their various tools and implements. Mr. A. C. Wilder, in introducing Mr. Seward to the people, spoke of him as the representative of Kansas in the senate of the United States. Mr. Seward's remarks in response were, at the time, briefly sketched as follows:

"Mr. Seward began his reply by saying that it was well that he had not the voice to enable him to speak at length, for the emotions which were crowding upon him could not be expressed in words. He would not have them think him wanting in gratitude, if his language failed to express the feelings which oppressed him. Many years ago, when he visited General Lafayette, the brave Frenchman who fought for us, he saw, at the entrance of his residence, two brass cannons, which bore the inscription, 'Presented by the liberty-loving citizens of Paris.' Here, at his entrance into Kansas, he found two symbols of the spirit of her free people. The one was the cannon which was booming on the hill near by. He had heard that it was captured by the free state men during the commotion which existed several years ago, when they were struggling for free institutions. Another evidence of the free impulses by which we were animated was the organization of the wide-awakes whom he saw around him, not in the customary costume of that body, but as an army of free laboring men-carpenters, masons, and mechanics of all kinds—who had come out, in their working clothes, with their tools of all kinds, in a body, to welcome him. Mr. Seward proceeded to pay a handsome compliment to the wide-awake club. He then alluded again to the subject of free labor, and said that it must be respected as being the foundation of

1 See Appendix.

our strength and prosperity. Whatever of reputation he had acquired was due mainly to the fact that he had endeavored, in his public capacity, to lay the foundation of free states, and especially the free state of Kansas. He then paid a glowing tribute to the people of this territory. He said they had achieved freedom for themselves; and now it was their duty to aid in securing it to the embryo states around them. Kansas stood as a sentinel in the pathway to the large region of country extending from the British possessions on the north to Texas on the south and west beyond the Rocky mountains. It was our duty to give our influence to secure freedom to the states which would spring up in that wide domain. Mr. Seward then apologized for the brevity of his remarks. He could make but one extended speech in this territory, and that would be at Lawrence, on account of its central position. He closed by urging the people to cherish the free institutions for which they had so long contended. Freedom was not only established here, but would eventually prevail in the whole Union, on the whole continent, and through the whole world."

Mr. Seward, desirous of learning the actual condition of Kansas, avoided, as far as possible, any further public notice, and traveled by private conveyance over as large a portion of the territory as his limited time would permit, visiting, especially, Lecompton and Topeka. At the latter place he was, although entirely unexpected, honored with salutes from cannon. He pertinaciously declined to address the people, but received them all, of both sexes, in a free and easy conversational manner, mingling with them in the streets by the light of their bonfires.

It had already been arranged that he should speak at Lawrence on the twenty-sixth. On that day, as he approached the city, he was met by an immense cavalcade of citizens, and conducted to the place appointed for the meeting. Here he was welcomed to the city and territory, in eloquent speeches' by Mayor Deitzler and Governor Robinson, and by the enthusiastic and hearty cheers of the people. Mr. Seward's speech, on this occasion, is a condensed but eloquent review of the struggle for freedom in Kansas, containing vivid pictures of its beautiful scenery, with touching allusions to its impend· ing calamity. It will be found in another part of this volume, and should be read in this connection, as a portion of the history of Mr. Seward's visit to Kansas. Its delivery was hailed with the most enthusiastic plaudits of the people, who had come from all parts of the territory, some of them long distances on foot. The day was closed with the festivities of a public dinner and ball.

1 See Appendix.

2

2 Kansas, as is well known, was then suffering from a drouth of unparalleled severity, which had prevented the raising of any kind of grain or vegetable food.

On the next morning Mr. Seward left Lawrence, turning his steps, for the first time, eastward and homeward. Hoping to escape any further attention in Leavenworth, he arrived in that city in the evening. But the wide-awakes and the citizens generally had assembled in large numbers, awaiting his appearance. With the usual accompaniments of music and torchlights, he reëntered the city. Unable to resist the demands made upon him, he took the stand which had been erected in front of the hotel for the occasion, and, after the cheering had subsided, spoke briefly, as follows:

"FELLOW CITIZENS: I would talk to you until midnight, pouring forth all my most earnest and hopeful thoughts, if I were sure that the outside world could know, as you do, that I speak on your compulsion, overcoming more determined resolutions of silence than I ever before had formed in similar circumstances.

"I sometimes allow myself to indulge speculations concerning the period when there shall be on this continent no other power than the United States; and a new constitution of human society opens itself before me when I contemplate the influence then to be wrought on Europe and on Asia by the American people, situated midway between the abodes of western and oriental civilization. One great, influential state must then exist here, west of the Mississippi and east of the Rocky mountains. Which would that great and influential state be? It ought to be Missouri. It certainly would have been, if her people had, from the first, been as wise as you are. I do not, indeed, know, nor think it certain, that Missouri will not yet be that great and influential state; for there is hope-there is assurance-that Missouri, taught, though slowly and reluctantly, by the instructions and example of Illinois, Iowa, and especially Kansas, will consent to become a free state. She has, with vast dimensions, a soil as fertile and skies as genial, and a position for commerce as favorable, as those with which God has blessed any part of the earth. She has need, however, to study the moral conditions of

national greatness.

"The fundamental moral conditions of a state, or a republic, are simply these, that every man shall enjoy equal and exact justice, and thus have the fullest opportunity for improving his own condition, his intellect, and his heart, and to win the rewards of character and of influence on society and on mankind. In this respect, you, the people of Kansas, have passed Missouri, and are ahead even of Nebraska, Iowa, and every other state in the American Union. All other states have compromised more or less of these conditions. A stern experience of wrong received from slavery has awakened among you a love of freedom, and a discriminating appreciation of its value, that can never admit of demoralization. You alone have escaped demoralization, which all the other states have, at some times and in some degrees, undergone. Freedom, and not slavery, in the territories of the United States, has been, in fact, only an abstract question in other states. But here it has been a vital, an inspiring, a forming principle. Your territory was made the active arena of that 'irrepressible conflict' between free labor and slave labor, where it came to the trial of mind with mind, of voice with voice, of vote with vote, of bullet against bullet, and of cannon against cannon. You have ac

quired, practically, and through dangers and sufferings, the education and the discipline and the elevation of freedom.

"If there is a people in any part of the world I ought to cherish with enduring respect, with the warmest gratitude and with the deepest interest, assuredly it is the people of Kansas; for, but for the practical trial you have given to the system which I had adopted--but for the vindication, at so much risk and so much cost, of your highest rights under the law, I must have gone to my grave a disappointed man, a false teacher, in the estimation of the American people. Yours is the thirty-first of thirty-four states of the Union which I have visited for the purpose of knowing their soils their skies, and their people. I have visited, in the course of my lifetime, more than three-fourths of the civilized nations of the world; and of all the states and nations which I have seen, that people which I hold to be the wisest, the worthiest, and the best, is the people of this little state. The reason of it is expressed in the old proverb, 'handsome is that handsome does.'. If other nations have higher education and greater refinement, and have cultivated the virtues and accomplishments of civilized life more than you have, I have yet to see any other nation or people that has been able, in its infancy, in its very organization, to meet the shocks of the aristocratic system through which other nations have been injured or ruined, to repel all attacks, overcome all hindrances, and to come out before the world in the attitude of a people who will not, under any form of persuasion, seduction or intimidation, consent, any one of them, to be a slave, any one of them to make a slave, any one of them to hold a slave, or consent that any foot of their territory shall be trodden by a slave, or by a man who is not equal to every other man in the view of the constitution and of the laws."

At Atchison city he was again detained by the people, who had prepared for him a most flattering reception. A triumphal arch formed of oak trees bore the inscription, "Welcome to Seward, the defender of Kansas and of Freedom." The houses in the city were covered with festoons made of oak boughs. He was received by the mayor under a banner, bearing the motto "THE SUBDUERS ARE THEMSELVES SUBDUED." Apparently, the whole population of the city and neighborhood had assembled to meet him. After being introduced to the people, in an appropriate speech by the mayor,' Mr. Seward addressed them as follows:

Referring to the apology made by Mr. Martin, for the inadequacy of the reception, he said that they might judge of what he himself thought of it, when he delared to them that his welcome bore all the impress of those that he had seen given in other countries to hereditary princes. Compared with other demonstrations in the territory, this was unsurpassed. He said he had tried to avoid all such demonstrations which only tend to make him misunderstood, for the world

1 The Mayor was a democrat. General Pomeroy, also made a few remarks, followed by General Nye in an eloquent speech.

2 Atchison was one of the border ruffian " towns on the Missouri river.