might think that in coming to Kansas he came to receive honors, instead of coming to learn what was necessary to enable him to perform his duty to her citizens and their cause, better than he had heretofore been able to do.

"I find," said he, "the territory of Kansas as rich if not richer, in its soil and in its resources of material prosperity, than any state with which I have been acquainted, and I have already visited thirty-one of the thirty-four states of the Union. In climate, I know of none that seems to be so desirable. It is now suffering, in its southern and western counties more especially, the privations of want, falling very heavily on its latest settlers, resulting from the absence of rain for a period of ten or twelve months. I go out of the territory of Kansas with a sadness that hangs over and depresses me, not because I have not found the country far surpassing all my expectations of its improvement and cultivation, not because I have not found here a prosperous and happy people, but because I have found families, some from my own state, some from other states and some from foreign countries, who were induced, and justly and wisely induced, to come to this region within the last year or two, and who, having exhausted all their means and all their resources in establishing homes for themselves, have been disappointed in gaining from their labor, provision for the supply of their wants. And all this the result of a desolating drought which pervades a large portion of the state.

"I

I hope that the tales which I have heard are exaggerated, and that families are not actually perishing for want in some of the western counties of Kansas. I have faith in the complete success of your system, and in the ultimate prosperity and development of the state of Kansas; I have it for the most obvious reason, that if Kansas is a failure my whole life has been worse than a failure; but if Kansas shall prove a success, as I know it will, then I shall stand redeemed, at least in history, for the interest I have taken in the establishment of civilization on the banks of the Missouri river upon the principles and policy which you have laid down. I pray you, you who are rich, you who are prosperous, to appoint active and careful men to make researches in the territory for those who are suffering by this dreadful visitation of Providence; to take care that the emigrant who came in last winter and last spring be not suffered, through disappointment and want, to return to the state whence he came, carrying back a tale of suffering and privation and distress which might retard for years the development of society here. I hope you will not regard this advice of mine as being without warrant. I give it for your own sake, I give it for the sake of the people of Kansas, as well as because my sympathies have been moved by the distress I have seen around If this advice shall be taken in good part, then I am free to tell you, that in my judgment, there is not the least necessity for any person leaving this territory, nothwithstanding the greatness of the calamity that has befallen it. I have seen whole districts that have produced neither the winter wheat, nor the spring wheat, nor the rye, nor the buckwheat, nor the potato, nor the root of any kind; yet I have seen on all your prairies, upland and bottom land, cattle and horses in great numbers, and all of them in perfect condition; and I am sure that there is a surplus supply of stock in this territory which, if disposed of, would produce all that is necessary to relieve every one in the territory. What is required, therefore, is simply that you should seek out want where it exists, and apply your own surplus means to relieve it. If this should fail, and if you should feel it necessary to apply to your countrymen in the east for aid, I will second that appeal, I and the

me.

gentlemen who have been visiting the country with me, and it will not be our fault if we do not send back from the east the material comforts that will cheer and reanimate those who are depressed and suffering. This state, larger than any of the old thirteen states, has not one acre that is unsusceptible of cultivation; not one foot that may not be made productive of the supplies of the wants of of human life, comforts and luxuries.

"The question was propounded to me, not of my seeking; it came before me, because I was in a position where I must meet all questions of this kind; it came some six years ago: Do the interests of human society require that this land of Kansas should be possessed by slaveholders and cultivated with slaves, or possessed and cultivated by free men, every one of whom shall own the land which he cultiyates and the muscles with which he tills the earth? When I look back at that period, only six or seven years ago, it seems strange to me that any man living on this continent, himself a free man and having children who are free, himself a free laborer and having children who must be free laborers, himself earning his own subsistence and having children who must depend on their own efforts for their support, should be willing to resign a portion of this continent so great, a soil so rich, a climate so genial, to the support of African negroes instead of white men.

"Africa was not crowded so as to need that her children should have Kansas. Africa has never sent to this country one voluntry exile or emigrant, and never will. The sons of Africa have lands which for them are more productive, have habits more congenial and skies better tempered than yours are. I have supposed it far better, therefore, to leave the people of Africa where God planted them, on their native shores. But the case was different with men of my own race, the white men, the blue-eyed men, the yellow-haired men of England, of Ireland, of Scotland, of France, of Germany, of Italy. Ever since this continent was discovered, oppression in every form has been driving them from those lands to seek homes for their subsistence and support on this continent. There is no difference between us all except this: that my father was driven out of Europe by want and privation some hundred years ago, and others some hundred years later, and some have just come, and tens of thousands, aye, millions, have yet to come. We are all exiles directly, or represent those who were exiles; all exiles made by oppression, superstition and tyranny in Europe. We are of one family, race and kindred, all here in the pursuit of happiness, all seeking to improve our condition, all seeking to elevate our character. My sympathies have gone with this class of men. My efforts have been, as they must always be, to lay open before them the vast regions of this continent, to the end that we may establish here a higher, a better, and a happier civilization than that from which ourselves or our ancestors were exiled in foreign lands.

“This land should not only be a land of freedom, a land of knowledge and religion, but it should be, above all, a land, which as yet cannot be said with truth of any part of Europe or any other part of the world, a land of civil liberty; and a land can only be made a land of liberty by adopting the principle which has never yet obtained in Europe, and which is only to be attained by learning it from ourselves, that is, that every human being, being necessarily born the subject of a government, is a member of the state, and has a natural right to be a member of the state, and that, in the language of the Declaration of Independence, all men are born equal and have inalienable rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. VOL. IV.

14

Some of the states were not established on this principle. They were established a long time ago, and under circumstances which prevented the adoption of this principle. For those states, members of our Union, who have been unable or even unwilling to adopt this principle, I have only to say that I leave them free to enjoy whatever of happiness, and to attain whatever of prosperity, they can enjoy and attain with their system. But when I am called upon to establish a government for a new state, then I demand the application of the principles of the Declaration of Independence, that every man ought to be and shall be a free man. Society can have but two forms by which the individual can defend himself from oppression. One is that which puts a musket into his hand and tells him as the last resort to defend himself and his liberty. The other The other is that which puts into his hand the ballot, and tells him in every exigency to defend his rights with the ballot. I do maintain that in founding a new state we have the perfect liberty as well as the perfect right to establish a government which shall secure every man in his rights; or rather, I do say that you must put into every man's hand, not the hands of one, the ballot; or put into every man's hand, and not into the hands of a few, the bullet, so that every man shall be equal before the law in his power as a citizen. All men shall have the ballot, or none; all men shall have the bullet, or none."

Having engaged to be in Chicago on the second of October, Mr. Seward was now obliged to pursue his journey with as few delays as possible. He left St. Joseph early in the morning of Saturday, the thirtieth of September, and reached St. Louis about midnight. Here, also, he had hoped to escape any public attention. But the telegraph had reported his coming an hour before his arrival, and the usual demonstrations of a procession, music and fireworks had been quickly prepared for his reception. Notwithstanding the unseasonable hour and the fatigue of a long day's travel, Mr. Seward could not resist the earnest appeals of the multitude to address them. It was one o'clock in the morning when he began to speak. The people were, nevertheless, enthusiastic, and attentive in their listening.

"Mr. Seward said that he had come across the Mississippi, not to see St. Louis or the people of Missouri, but to see Kansas, which was entitled to his gratitude and respect. Missouri could take care of herself: she did not care for republican principles, but warred with them altogether. If, forty years ago, Missouri had chosen to be a free state, she would now have four millions of people, instead of one million. He was a plain-spoken man, and was here talking treason in the streets of St. Louis. He could not talk anything else, if he talked as an honest man; but he found himself out of place here. Here, said he, are the people of Missouri, who ask me to make a speech, and, at the same time, have laws regulating what I shall say. The first duty that you owe to your city and to yourselves is to repeal and abrogate every law on your statute book that prohibits a man from saying what his honest judgment and sentiment and heart tell him is the truth.

Though I have said these hard things about the state of Missouri, I have no hard sentiments about it or St. Louis, for I have great faith and hope-nay, absolute trust-in Providence and the American people. What Missouri wants is courage, resolution, spirit, manhood—not consenting to take only that privilege of speech that slaveholders allow, but insisting on complete freedom of speech.

But I have full trust that it will all come right in the end; that, in ten years, you will double your population, and that, in fifteen or twenty years, you will have four millions of people. To secure that, you have but to let every man who comes here, from whatever state or nation, speak out what he believes will promote the interests and welfare of mankind. What surprised me in Kansas was to see the vast improvements made there within six years, with so little wealth or strength among the people; and what surprises me most in Missouri is, that, with such a vast territory and with such great resources, there is, after so long a settlement, so little of population, improvement and strength to be found. I ought not, perhaps, to talk these things to you. I should have begun at the other end of the story. But how could I? It is true, a citizen of any other state has as much liberty here as the citizens of Missouri; but he has less liberty than I like. I want more than you have. I want to speak what I think, instead of what a Missourian thinks. I certainly want to speak for myself, or else not to speak at all. Is not that fair? I think you are in a fair way of shaming your government into an enlightened position on this subject of slavery. You are in the way of being Germanized into it. I would much rather you had got into it by being Americanized instead of Germanized; but it is better to come to it through that way than not to come to it at all.

It was through the Germans Germanizing Great Britain that Magna Charta was obtained, and that that great charter of English liberty came to be the charter of the liberties of the sons of England throughout the whole world. What-, ever lies in my power to do to bring into successful and practical operation the great principle that this government is a government for free men and not for slaves or slaveholders, and that this country is to be the home of the exile from every land, I shall do. This, however, can only be done by the exercise of free speech. You can do little yourselves in the same direction until you have secured free debate. Therefore, I finish, as I began, by exhorting you to secure freedom of speech. That once gained, all other freedoms shall be added thereto." 1

Mr. Seward resumed his journey early on Monday morning. Springfield, Illinois, the home of Abraham Lincoln, the train stopped for twenty minutes. Mr. Seward was cordially greeted here by a great crowd of the citizens, among whom were Mr. Lincoln and Senator Trumbull. Mr. Seward, in response to the general desire, made a few remarks to the people assembled. Standing on the platform of the car, in company with his distinguished friends, after the cheers of the multitude and the firing of cannon had ceased, he said:

1 Mr. Seward's remarks were loudly cheered. It was replied that the laws against free speceb were a dead letter, and that St. Louis was already a free city-" as free as Boston."

"I am happy to express, on behalf of the party with whom I am traveling, our gratitude and acknowledgments for this kind and generous reception at the home of your distinguished fellow citizen, our excellent and honored candidate for the chief magistracy of the United States. If there is in any part of the country a deeper interest felt in his election than there is in any other part, it must of course be here, where he has lived a life of usefulness; where he is surrounded by the companions of his labors and of his public services. We are happy to report to you, although we have traveled over a large part of the country, we have found no doubtful states.

“You would naturally expect that I should say something about the temper and disposition of the state of New York. The state of New York will give a generous and cheerful and effective support to your neighbor Abraham Lincoln. I have heard about combinations and coalitions there, and I have been urged from the beginning to abandon this journey and turn back on my footsteps. Whenever I shall find any reason to suspect that the majority which the state of New York will give for the republican candidate will be less than sixty thousand votes, I may do so. The state of New York never fails-never flinches. She has been committed from the beginning, as she will be to the end, under all circumstances, to the great principles of the republican party.

"She voted to establish this a land of freedom for you in 1787. She sustained the ordinance of '87 till you were able to take care of yourselves. Among the first acts of her government, she abolished slavery for herself. She has known nothing of compromises, nothing of condition or qualification in this great principle, and she never will. She will sustain your distinguished neighbor because she knows he is true to this great principle, and when she has helped to elect him, by giving as large a majority as can be given by any half dozen other states, then you will find that she will ask less, exact less, from him, and support him more faithfully than any other state can do. That is the way she did with John Quincy Adams, that is the way she sustained General Taylor, and that is the way she will sustain Abraham Lincoln.

Mr. Seward reached Chicago about seven o'clock in the evening. The depot, and the streets around, were crowded with people. An imposing escort accompanied him to the hotel. The streets through which the procession passed were thronged with enthusiastic multitudes. Fireworks were displayed from many of the public and private buildings, and the whole scene was a grand ovation. At the hotel, Mr. Seward, alighting from the carriage, reached the house only by the efficient intervention of the police, returning the salutations of the people as he passed. He soon appeared on the balcony in company with John Wentworth, the mayor of Chicago. After an introductory speech' from the mayor, Mr. Seward addressed the large assemblage as follows:

See Appendix.