The election of members of the legislature in the state of New York in the autumn of 1854, was held in view of the fact that they would be called at the coming session to elect a senator of the United States.

The reëlection of Mr. Seward, of course, formed a prominent question in the canvass. The element of "know nothingism" or "Americanism," also greatly influenced the election of the members of the Assembly as well as of the various state officers chosen at the same time. To some extent the issue was, from this cause, confused and the result uncertain. Mr. Seward's whole life had been in opposition to secret societies and to any limitation of the political rights of the people. The new party, now at its height, was founded as he believed, substantially, on ideas directly in conflict with his matured convictions. At a time when other statesmen were courting the new element or being reticent before its influence, Mr. Seward, in the senate, frankly expressed his opposition to these secret political organizations. With such circumstances and antagonisms to overcome, with a combination of democrats and Americans against him, his past services, his devotion to the cause of freedom and humanity, and his fidelity to all the great interests of his native state and the country, were submitted to the people of New York for their verdict.

The election took place on the first Tuesday in November, and was contested with unusual vigor throughout the state. Although the democrats succeeded in electing but forty-two members of the assembly out of one hundred and twenty-eight, loud boasts were made by the opponents of Mr. Seward that he could not be reëlected. The most industrious efforts were made to excite new animosities and revive old prejudices against him in order to defeat his reelection. The authors of these efforts and the character of their weapons were various. One spirit, however, animated the whole. The slave power projected or applauded every shaft of calumny that was directed at the object of its greatest fear.

The legislature met on the first Tuesday in January, 1855. The assembly chose Mr. Littlejohn speaker, eighty to thirty-eight. The senate, which held over from the last year, was divided, whigs eighteen, democrats ten, know nothings four. Before the day appointed for the election of senator, a discussion arose in the assembly, in

which Mr. Seward's public life was subjected to a searching review. As this debate proceeded his friends felt an increasing confidence in his success. At the same time his At the same time his opponents, with apparent sincerity, continued to assert that his election by the present legislature was impossible. Under these circumstances the excitement rose to a great height. Throughout the Union the contest was regarded as one be tween freedom and slavery.

On the first Tuesday in February the election took place. In the senate Mr. Seward received eighteen votes, Daniel S. Dickinson five, W. F. Allen two, Millard Fillmore, Ogden Hoffman, Preston King, Daniel Ullman, George R. Babcock, and S. E. Church one each.

In the assembly the vote stood, for Mr. Seward sixty-nine, Mr. Dickinson fourteen, Horatio Seymour twelve, Washington Hunt nine, John A. Dix seven, Mr. Fillmore four, and eleven others one each.

The senate and assembly then in joint session compared nominations and the lieutenant-governor declared William H. Seward duly elected a senator of the United States for six years from the 4th of March, 1855.

This announcement soon reached every part of the Union, and in all the free states it was received with demonstrations of joy and approval. In Washington the rejoicing among Mr. Seward's political and personal friends, in congress, and among the people of that city, was no less enthusiastic and sincere than in other portions of the country.

On his return to his home in Auburn, Mr. Seward was everywhere greeted with the hearty congratulations of his friends. He, however, declined the various public ovations tendered to him in different places.

During the canvass for the annual state election in the autumn of 1855, Mr. Seward, at the earnest solicitation of his political friends, addressed the people at Albany, Auburn and Buffalo. These speeches are standard political dissertations. They produced a marked effect, not only in his own state but throughout the country. President Pierce in his annual message to congress saw fit to allude to some of the sentiments contained in the one delivered in the capitol at Albany. This speech entitled "The danger of extending slavery," or "The privileged class," and the one delivered at Buffalo,

"The contest and the crisis," were very widely circulated in news papers and pamphlets.

On the 22d of December, 1855, Mr. Seward delivered the annual oration at Plymouth, Massachusetts, in commemoration of the landing of the pilgrims. At the dinner table he also made a brief but eloquent speech in response to a complimentary sentiment. His large and cultivated audience gave repeated expressions of their sympathy and delight, with the sentiments of the oration and the speech.'

The summer of 1855 seemed to be marked by a number of occurrences showing the aggressive and tyrannical spirit of the slave power. On the 27th of July, Passmore Williamson, a respectable and benevolent citizen of Philadelphia, was thrown into prison in that city and confined fourteen weeks. He was charged with a "contempt of court." The facts of the case were, briefly, these: a Mr. Wheeler came from a slave state into Pennsylvania, bringing with him a slave woman, who became, by the laws of Pennsylvania, free on being brought into the state. This fact was communicated to her by Mr. Williamson, and she immediately left her master, never to return. In a suit growing out of these circumstances, Mr. Williamson, in his answer to a writ of habeas corpus, stated what he deemed to be the truth in the case. Judge Kane pronounced his reply a contempt of court, and sent him to prison.

A similar case occurred in New York some time previous, showing the same determination of the south to extend slavery over the free states of the north. A Mr. Lemmon, traveling from Virginia

1 The following notice of the celebration and oration is taken from one of the newspapers of the day: Plymouth was thronged on the 21st of December. The celebration was the most impressive and spirited of any which the descendants of those valiant men have made. The "Rock" was carefully dug out for the occasion. The relics of the Mayflower and the mementoes of her passage across the ocean, and her priceless freight and great mission, were displayed in pilgrims' hall. The streets were filled with strangers, arrived from the vicinity of Plymouth not only, but from remote states.

A procession with music, religious exercises in a church, an oration, a costly and most generous dinner-feast with toasts and speeches, and a hall in the evening constituted the celebration. Of the oration delivered by Governor Seward, we need but to say that it is the expression of that statesman's philosophy and policy.

Among the incidents of the dinner table, Wendell Phillips declared that he would not acknowledge the right of Plymouth to the "Rock." "It underlies" said he "the whole country and only crops out here. It cropped out where Putnam said " Don't fire, boys, until you see the whites of their eyes." It showed itself where Ingraham rescued Martin Kotsza from Austrian despotism. Jefferson used it for his writing-desk, and Lovejoy levelled his musket across it at Alton. I recognized the clink of it to-day when the great apostle of the higher law laid his beautiful garland upon the sacred altar." [Mr. Seward remarked that he was not a descendant of the pilgrims of the Mayflower.] "He says he is not descended from the Mayflower," resumed Mr. Phillips; "that is a mistake. There is such a thing as pedigree of mind as well as of body."

to Texas, with eight slaves, sailed from Norfolk to the city of New York, intending there to tranship his family and property to Texas. His slaves were, like the woman in Philadelphia, restored to freedom by the laws of the state in which they were domiciled. An expensive litigation was immediately commenced by the state of Virginia against the state of New York, which is not yet concluded.1

The state courts of primary and final resort have confirmed the right of the slaves to their freedom, but an appeal has been entered to the supreme court of the United States. The democratic judges delivered dissenting opinions accepting the new dogma that slaves are property under the constitution. Their ideas were foreshadowed by the counsel for Virginia, who reiterated in the court room the same plea for the justice and beneficence of African slavery which he had a month before presented at a public meeting in New York.

2

But the country was soon agitated by acts of yet greater atrocity and of more public interest. Soon after the adjournment of congress systematic efforts began to be made by the south to make Kansas a slave state. The means adopted, and the outrages, arsons and murders committed in the attempt, are still recent and well impressed on the public mind.

At the first election in the territory (March 30, 1855), large parties of armed intruders from Missouri took possession of the polls and returned such members to the territorial legislature as would carry out the pro-slavery plans. Of the 2,905 voters in the territory *according to the census, only 831 voted, while 4,908 illegal votes were polled by the Missourians.

Governor Reeder, appointed by President Pierce, was removed from his office by the same power that had appointed him, for refusing to countenance the frauds and outrages of the pro-slavery mob.

The legislature, chosen in this fraudulent manner, passed acts, among others, making it a capital offense to assist slaves either in escaping into the territory or out of it; and felony, punishable with imprisonment for from two to five years, to circulate anti-slavery publications or to deny the right to hold slaves in the territory; requiring all voters, officers and attorneys to take an oath to support

1 These cases seem to warrant sufficiently Mr. Seward's apprehension that the result of the slavery aggressions unchecked, will be, the spread of slavery over all the free states, as expressed in his Rochester speech. See present volume. 2 Charles O'Conor, Esq.

the fugitive slave law and all the acts of this pretended legislature; giving the selection of jurors to the sheriff; and admitting any person to vote who should pay one dollar, poll tax, whether a resident of the territory or not. They also adopted, in gross, the Missouri code of laws.

A convention of delegates, chosen by the real inhabitants of the territory, was held at Topeka in October, 1855, which adopted a free state constitution to be submitted to the people for approval. This constitution was subsequently adopted by the almost unanimous vote of the settlers. Under this constitution Charles Robinson was elected governor and a state government organized. President Pierce, however, in a special message to congress in January, 1856, indorsed the fraudulent legislature and denounced the formation of the Topeka government as an act of rebellion.

Innumerable outrages continued to be perpetrated on the persons and property of the free state settlers by Missourians and others, although the president declared in his annual message, on the 28th of December, "that nothing had occurred in Kansas to warrant his interference."

The thirty-fourth congress assembled on its usual day, in December, 1855. The senate was organized without delay. In the house there was a protracted and extraordinary contest in the election of a speaker. Ballotings were continued almost daily, without success, until the 2d day of February, 1856, when the plurality rule, by a vote of one hundred and thirteen to one hundred and four, was adopted.

On the one hundred and thirty-fourth ballot, after ineffectual attempts to rescind the plurality rule, Nathaniel P. Banks, of Massachusetts, was elected speaker, having received one hundred and three votes to one hundred for William Aiken, of South Carolina. There were also eleven scattering votes, nine of which were cast by northern men hitherto counted as opponents of the Nebraska and Kansas measures. Nineteen members were absent or did not vote, and there was one vacancy. Twelve of the nineteen not voting were from northern states. A resolution declaring Mr. Banks duly elected was passed by ayes one hundred and fifty-five, nays forty.

One of the first acts of the house of representatives after its organization, was to appoint a committee to proceed to Kansas to inquire into the validity of the election of the pretended legislature and