"MR. MAYOR AND FELLOW CITIZENS: The exaggerated terms in which you have spoken of such public services, recent or long past, as I have rendered will not mislead me. I have a stern conscience, the approval of which I must seek, and which must be the guide for my public conduct. But I should be ungracious to you, and ungrateful to my fellow citizens, who have honored me with this magnificent manifestation of their respect and esteem, if I did not freely and openly confess my entire satisfaction with its sincerity and my appreciation of the affection and respect which it testifies. How deeply, how sincerely that respect and affection touch me, there is nobody but myself can know, and I, unfortunately, can never tell. [A voice, Louder!'] I beg pardon, my dear friend, I can speak no louder; I have been speaking for a month. You must take me as I am. If I had possessed the power I should have done more than I have already, elsewhere. Besides I have some duty to perform to-morrow.

MR. MAYOR AND CITIZENS OF CHICAGO: I may say in almost one sentence all that I can claim for myself. From my earliest experience as a citizen of this country, I was not ignorant of the advance of empire across the Alleghany mountains and into the valley of the Mississippi. The number of states, which since my manhood, have been added to the Federal Union, and their location in the west are hardly more certain in my knowledge now than they were in my conjectured anticipation at that early period.

"And I knew another truth, which has been a guide to me throughout my experience as a representative man; I knew that, whereas in other countries: commerce and those engaged in it had been the controlling element and the controlling power of modern civilization; yet that in this country and under the circumstances surrounding us, commerce was not to be the controlling power, but that I have never been ignorant-never for a moment been unconscious-that the political power which directs the destinies of this nation, is exercised by those of our countrymen who cultivate the soil, not those who sell its products in the market. "Even the wayfaring man, though a fool, might know where the mass of those people who should till the soil would be found. They could be found nowhere else but westward from the Alleghany mountains, and eastward from the Pacific ocean, somewhere between British America on the one side and the gulf of Mexico on the other. This being so, it has seemed to me the simplest duty of policy to take care that those people who were to till the soil—this American soil—and in the act of cultivating it become the rulers of the destinies of this mighty nation, should, in the first place, be located, as far as circumstances would allow, not upon slave soil, but upon free soil-that they should not be owned by masters or owners, but that they should own themselves. And if my public life, my present system-that which I commend to the acceptance of my countrymen with such ability as I may have-need any exposition whatever, this is the simple truth and the whole of it.

Neither you nor I have any power to disturb those of our fellow citizens in the southern states who maintain a different system; and having no power there we have no responsibility. We need not fear that right, and justice, and humanity, will not prevail in this world, even though we are not in all the fields where battles are to be fought, or instructions are to be given to secure their triumph. There have been already six of the thirteen original states of this confederacy redeemed by the citizens of those states themselves, without interference or inter

vention from abroad. All the others that remain may be left under the influence -the increasing influence of Christianity, to say nothing of policy, to deliver themselves from that curse from which we have been saved without any interference of our own.

Non-intervention in the states by free men is but half, however, of the motto of the republican party-non-intervention by slaveholders in the territories of the United States is the residue.

"And so, having abused your hospitality and kindness by setting forth a creed, which I had better reserved for another occasion, I beg you to accept my apology for failing to deliver you a longer address now, and to accept my best wishes that you may repose in peace and quiet to-night, and to-morrow, although it is said to be a great loan to ask, I will pray you to lend me your ears and I will try to see how many of them I can fill.”

The trains and steamboats which arrived during the night and early the following morning brought into Chicago, from all the northern portions of Illinois and vicinity, an unprecedented number of people.' At noon, a hundred thousand had filled the city. Mr. Seward spoke, in an open square, to as many as could come within the reach of his voice, while thousands, at the same time, were listening in other places to James W. Nye and Owen Lovejoy. Mr. Seward's speech, which will be found in succeeding pages, is one of the most interesting of the series made by him during the campaign. It touched the hearts of the thousands who heard it, and of the millions who have read it. In the evening Mr. Seward was serenaded by the wide-awakes, in a procession that seemed interminable.

He left Chicago on the following day, arriving in Cleveland on the morning of the fourth. The day was rainy, but a handsome reception was given to him by the citizens of Cleveland and its neighborhood, who, in large numbers, assembled in the city park, where he was to speak. He commenced with an earnest appeal for the starving population of Kansas:

"We have visited Kansas, and I ask your leave to bring the condition of that territory before you, for your careful and kind consideration. The soil and the skies of Kansas are as propitious as any people on earth ever enjoyed—the people as free, as true, and as brave as any in the world. They are suffering severely from a drought so great that I think it was scarcely exaggerated when they told me they had had no rain in a large portion of the territory for a whole year. We found that whole districts had produced less vegetable support for human life than are to be found in many a garden which we have passed in coming through the state of Ohio. Districts in which the winter wheat, sowed last year, was neces

The number was estimated at over fifty thousand.

sarily plowed up, and sowed in the spring with spring wheat. The spring wheat was plowed up, and the ground planted with corn. The corn proved a failure, and was followed with potatoes. The potatoes were blasted, and followed by buckwheat, which also proved a failure. I think that this is a true description of the condition of tillage in perhaps two-thirds of Kansas. Still, there will be no great famine or distress there.

"The occupants who have been there for two, three, four or five years are comfortable and well-to-do, as appears abundantly from their stock, their fences, their dwelling houses framed of wood, and very often substantially and well built of brick and stone. Large portions of the state are as populous, and exhibit all the signs of comfort and thrift, equal to what are found even in Ohio. But there are emigrants who have resided there for only a year whose whole means have been expended in procuring farms and shelter, and planting their crops, which have successively failed. Many of these are leaving the territory— some say so many as one hundred a day. They ought to be relieved, and a very little assistance would enable them to remain there and retain their possessions and improvements, and resume the culture of their fields, under more favorable auspices, next spring. With much diffidence, I beg to commend this subject to the citizens of Ohio: Perhaps a larger portion of the republicans of Kansas are emigrants from Ohio than from any other state. Do not forget that Kansas is the most important outpost of the republican army; that it is yet, on paper at least, in a state of siege; though the enemy has been driven out, a treaty of peace and independence has not yet been signed."

At Erie, in Pennsylvania, Mr. Seward made a few remarks to the eager crowd; and at various places on the way he met with a friendly and enthusiastic greeting. At Buffalo, where he remained over night, a brilliant display of wide-awakes and a large gathering of citizens called from him the following brief speech:

"FELLOW CITIZENS: I understand this demonstration. [Here there were complaints of disorder.] It is only kindness that makes it turbulent. But in order that you may hear a voice which has been exercised for five weeks, it will be necessary for you to hold your tongues and open your ears. I am now within a hundred and fifty miles of my home, and I remember so much of the Scriptures as this, namely, that 'a prophet is not without honor save in his own country.' So I am not going to prophesy so near my own place of residence. I thank you sincerely for this welcome of myself and of the party with whom I have been traveling in the far west. I have seen, within a year, all the principal peoples who inhabit the shores of the Mediterranean; and within the last five weeks have journeyed among the population dwelling along the Mediterranean coasts of America. I have seen those decayed and desolate countries-the sites of the greatest nations of antiquity—now covered with ruins, and some in a state almost of semi-barbarism. The chief cause of that decay and desolation I believe to have been the existence in those countries of human bondage. The one great evil which could bring down our country to such a level, would be the introduction

of slavery into the lands surrounding the Mediterranean of America. Therefore it is that I have devoted what little talent I possess to prevent the ban of slavery from falling upon the fertile valleys of the Mississippi and Missouri. Having seen many states, I come back to New York, prouder of her, and prouder that I belong to her, than I was when I left. I estimate her so highly, not alone for what she is or has, at home, but also for what she is and has in the great west. While I see around me here, so`many generous and noble men endeavoring to maintain her in her proud position, I have also found, all along the shores of the great lakes, along the banks of the great rivers, and even at the foot of the Rocky mountains, children of the state of New York, almost as numerous as at home. Wisconsin, Michigan, Illinois, and Kansas, are all daughters of New York; so is California; and more states have been formed under her auspices, than there were at the beginning of the Union. Emigrants from Erie county, from Chautauqua, from Cattaraugus, from Oswego, and from all the counties of this great state, people the west. It was a son of New York who first applied steam to locomotion; a citizen of New York, and also its chief magistrate, who began and perfected the Erie canal, and over that canal the stream of emigration has flowed which has founded new states. It has carried, sometimes, in a day, the people of a western town, a county in a few weeks, and a state in two or three years. New York has built the west. But I am, perhaps, speaking in too general terms. Doubtless the spirit which animates you at present, is roused in regard to the coming election. It will gladden you when I say, in relation to the west, that I have had assurances there which leave no doubt that it will give its vote for Lincoln. I have seen him at his own home, and I have now to say, as I said before I went abroad, that he is a man eminently worthy of the support of every honest voter, and well qualified to discharge the duties of the chief magistracy. Above all, he is reliable; and I repeat at the foot of lake Erie what I said at the head of it, that if it had fallen to me to name a man to be elected as next president of the United States, I would have chosen Abraham Lincoln. I have promised out west that the state of New York will give him sixty thousand majority in November.

Now, my friends, I wish to know what you can say for Erie county. What majority will Erie county give? [Twenty-five hundred out of the city of Buffalo.] Aye, you count majorities in the rural districts. That is right and safe toc. It is very fortunate that, whatever may be the case with the population on the sidewalks, the rural districts are safe for freedom. Why, gentlemen, you couldn't take any man three months from Main street, out into the free, open country, without converting him from democracy and making him so that he would never think of voting for a democratic candidate, or a two-faced candidate, or a candidate with half-a-dozen principles. Well! we'll see what we can do with the cities this time. When the cities begin to find out that they are not going to rule the country, they will conclude, perhaps, that it is better that they agree with the country. It is very strange that Irishmen and Germans and Swedes, so long as they remain on the sidewalks, should wish to be ruled by men in the interest of the slave power. But you say, it is not so here. I have been west, and have seen foreigners there also who did not wish to be ruled by slaveholders. But I have already talked more than I had intended, and must stop. You wish to hear about Kansas? I will tell you. Whenever the city of Buffalo shall have come to be inhabited by one hundred thousand, or one hundred and nine thousand-which is just the

population of Kansas-as virtuous, as wise, as brave, as fearless as the one hundred and nine thousand of Kansas, there will be an end of the 'irrepressible conflict' here, as there is there."

Mr. Seward reached his home, in Auburn, on Saturday, October 6th, having been absent just five weeks. In a speech to his neighbors and fellow citizens of Auburn, on the 5th of November following, he says:

"I have been a wanderer of late. From our own laughing home here on the banks of the Owasco, to where the Green mountains cast their lengthened shadows over the Connecticut at Windsor. After a stay there too short for rest, but not for happiness, to the springs of the Penobscot. From the Penobscot escaping or breaking through nets set for me by not unfriendly hands, to renew my oath of fealty at the tombs of the elder and the younger Adams, at Quincy. From Massachusetts Bay across green hills and greener valleys, over the Hudson, across the Seneca, up and down the Genesee, and coasting the lakes of Ontario, Erie, Huron and Michigan, down the Illinois to its confluence with the Mississippi, up the shriveled river to where it breaks into rapids; and above them where the fountains which supply equally the St. Lawrence and the Mississippi, gush from the earth. Across Minnesota and Iowa, down to Nebraska and Kansas, where American civilization, on its verge, is scaling the Rocky mountains, and bringing forth their precious treasure of silver and gold; and thence back again with an eager returning spirit to the Metropolis where sits the soul that sends forth all the mighty energy of that civilization; and then by a hurried flight back again in the night to find my home leafless under the winds of autumn, but already gathering force to put forth a greener and broader foliage in the coming year.

"These are my travels. You will ask me 'what have you seen; what have you learned?' Rather, my friends, ask me what I have not seen, and what unknown, or but imperfectly understood before, I have not learned now and fully understand. I have seen a great nation, a greater nation than I saw last year, although then I traveled the Old World from the Dead sea to the pillars of Hercules; a greater nation than has existed in ancient or in modern times. I saw not only the country, its forests, its mountains, its rivers, its lakes, and its prairies, but I saw its people, men, women and children, many, many millions of every nation and of every derivation."

As the day of election approached it became evident that the result depended upon the vote of the state of New York. The October elections in Pennsylvania and Indiana indicated a republican triumph in November, unless the electoral vote of New York could be wrested from Lincoln. The whole contest, therefore, at once, centered upon the Empire State. The three branches of the opposition, the supporters of Douglas, Bell and Breckinridge, united upon one electoral ticket. The alarm of disunion was raised. The city VOL. IV.

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