in congress and in Kansas, in its persevering efforts to establish slavery in that territory.

During the session, Mr. Seward advocated and voted for the admission of Oregon and Minnesota into the Union. He, at the same time, opposed the proscriptive features contained in the constitution of Oregon, and protested against any indorsement of the prejudice on which the proscriptions rested. Minnesota was admitted, but the bill for the admission of Oregon, after passing the senate, failed in the house of representatives.

One of the most remarkable pages in the history of Mr. Buchanan's administration will be that which relates to his management of affairs in the territory of Utah. Having formally removed Brigham Young from the office of governor and appointed Alfred Cumming as his successor, the president determined to send a body of troops to Utah with the new governor, to act as his posse comitatus. This little army, only three hundred strong, with a train of wagons six miles in length, started on its long and dangerous march in the autumn of 1857. During its tedious journey the train was attacked by the Indians on the route, robbed of its cattle, overtaken by Siberian snows and despoiled of a large portion of its supplies. Five hundred of its animals died in one night of cold and hunger, and fifty wagons were captured and burned by emissaries of Brigham Young. After repeated hardships, and losses amounting to millions of dollars, the train reduced to a fragment of its original proportions, arrived within one hundred miles of Salt Lake city and there went into winter quarters. A serious abridgment of rations was necessary to save the army from starvation. Brigham Young resolutely forbade the entrance of Governor Cumming and his forces into the city, and it was only by a mortifying submission that they were allowed to remain in their encampment without destruction. Thus, for several months, the rebellious people of Utah were suffered to harass and destroy the army of the United States and put its authority at defiance. Fortunately for humanity, an actual conflict was avoided by the interposition of a private gentleman of influence and practical benevolence.' The dishonor of the administration's conduct, however, remains. A bill, introduced in the senate, increasing

1 Thomas L. Kane, of Pennsylvania.

the army of the United States in view of the then threatened rebellion in Utah, was debated at much length and with great vigor.

Mr. Seward, with that patriotic regard for the honor of his country which characterizes all his acts and speeches, supported the bill and advocated the most efficient measures for suppressing the rebellion and restoring the supremacy of law and order. His speeches on the subject in the senate created not a little excitement in that body and among the people. In this instance as in others he did not hesitate, in view of all the circumstances, to separate himself, for the time, from some of his political friends. He believed it to be his duty to sustain the honor and dignity of the government even if he thereby gave aid and comfort to Mr. Buchanan's administration. And already it is generally conceded that Mr. Seward, in merging the partizan in the patriot, has strengthened his position before the country as a

statesman.

An adventurer, named William Walker, during President Pierce's administration, made several expeditions, in violation of our neutrality laws, to the Central American States on the isthmus, with the evident design of revolutionizing their governments and preparing the way for their becoming slaveholding states. President Buchanan, like his predecessor, made a show of preventing these marauding expeditions, and Walker was repeatedly arrested; but his schemes seemed never to be thwarted.

On the 24th of November, 1857, he landed, with four hundred men, on the shores of Nicaragua, at Greytown, in full view of an armed vessel sent there by our government to watch and intercept him. Commodore Paulding, who was in the vicinity, knowing the unlawful nature of Walker's enterprises, soon arrested him and sent him back to the United States, a prisoner. Walker was subsequently indicted and tried at New Orleans, but the jury failed to agree, and the prosecution was abandoned. Commodore Paulding, on the other hand, was treated with marked coldness by the administration, and resolutions were introduced in the senate and in the house, by the president's friends, condemning his course. Mr. Seward defended the arrest, and supported a resolution to present Commodore Paulding with a gold medal.

The first session of the thirty-fifth congress was brought to a close on the 16th of June, 1858.

After the adjournment, Mr. Seward was engaged for several weeks in the circuit court of the United States at New York. His argu

ment before that court, in favor of a bridge over the Hudson river at Albany, is remarkable for its originality and for its extensive knowledge of the subject of navigation.

The elections in the autumn of 1858 resulted in a decided rebuke of the president and his Kansas-Lecompton policy. In the state of New York, only four members of congress favoring that policy were elected; and the republican candidate for governor (Hon. E. D. Morgan) was chosen by nearly twenty thousand majority. The struggle in the state was nevertheless severe, and the result seemed to many to be doubtful. In this emergency, Mr. Seward appeared before the people, and by his speeches at Rochester, Rome, and Auburn, rallied the strength of the republicans, and at the same time destroyed the hopes of the opposition. His speech at Rochester, especially, gave a new aspect to the contest, and turned the tide in favor of the republican party. The following passage has acquired an enduring fame:

แ

'Hitherto, the two systems (slave and free labor) have existed in different states, but side by side, within the American Union. This has happened because the Union is a confederation of states. But, in another aspect, the United States constitute only one nation. Increase of population, which is filling the states out to their very borders, together with a new and extended net-work of railroads and other avenues, and an internal commerce which daily becomes more intimate, are rapidly bringing the states into a higher and more perfect social unity or consolidation. Thus these antagonistic systems are continually coming into closer contact, and collision results.

"Shall I tell you what this collision means? They who think that it is accidental, unnecessary, the work of interested or fanatical agitators, and therefore ephemeral, mistake the case altogether. It is an irrepressible conflict between opposing and enduring forces, and it means that the United States must and will, sooner or later, become either entirely a slaveholding nation, or entirely a freelabor nation. Either the cotton and rice fields of South Carolina and the sugar plantations of Louisiana will ultimately be tilled by free labor, and Charleston and New Orleans become marts for legitimate merchandise alone, or else the rye fields and wheat fields of Massachusetts and New York must again be surrendered by their farmers to slave culture and to the production of slaves, and Boston and New York become once more markets for trade in the bodies and souls of men. It is the failure to apprehend this great truth that induces so many unsuccessful attempts at final compromise between the slave and free states, and it is the existence of thiis great fact that renders all such pretended compromises, when made, vain and ephemeral. Startling as this saying may appear to you, fellow citizens, it is by no

means an original or even a modern one.

Our forefathers knew it to be true, and unanimously acted upon it when they framed the constitution of the United States. They regarded the existence of the servile system in so many of the states with sorrow and shame, which they openly confessed, and they looked upon the collision between them, which was then just revealing itself, and which we are now accustomed to deplore, with favor and hope. They knew that either the one or the other system must exclusively prevail.

"It remains to say on this point only one word, to guard against misapprehension. If these states are to again become universally slaveholding, I do not pretend to say with what violations of the constitution that end shall be accomplished. On the other hand, while I do confidently believe and hope that my country will yet become a land of universal freedom, I do not expect that it will be made so otherwise than through the action of the several states co-operating with the federal government, and all acting in strict conformity with their respective constitutions.

"The strife and contentions concerning slavery, which gently-disposed persons so habitually deprecate, are nothing more than the ripening of the conflict which the fathers themselves not only thus regarded with favor, but which they may be said to have instituted."

Congress again assembled on the first Monday in December, 1858. On the first day of the session, Mr. Mason, of Virginia, in the senate, called up the bill to indemnify the owners of the Spanish schooner Amistead for the loss of its cargo of slaves. Mr. Seward remarked that he did not consider it a meritorious bill, and moved a postponement of its consideration. The subject was suffered to rest during the remainder of the thirty-fifth congress

Mr. Seward's speeches during the session were upon the Pacific railroad bill; the expenses and revenues of government; the bill to facilitate the acquisition of Cuba; the Indiana senatorial question ; the consular and diplomatic appropriations; the homestead bill; the protection of American citizens abroad; and the post office, civil and naval appropriations. In the discussion of one of the latter bills, the affairs of Kansas were briefly alluded to by Mr. Seward. He expressed his satisfaction with the prospect that Kansas was soon to be admitted into the Union as a free state; and hailed the approach of the time when no successful attempt would be made in congress to bind down any future territory to come into the Union as a slaveholding state.

In the debate on the Pacific railroad bill, Mr. Seward advocated an amendment providing that preference should be given, in the

construction of the road, to iron of American manufacture. He gave his assent to the route proposed by the committee, although he preferred one less southern. He discarded the policy of giving the public lands to a company to build the road, preferring that the land in its vicinity should be surrendered to actual settlers, so as to secure the speediest possible production of revenue from it. He would directly employ the capital and credit of the United States, increasing the tariff on foreign importations for the purpose of defraying the cost and providing a sinking fund for the extinguishment of the debt created in the construction of the road. These views are very ably set forth in his speeches, with many practical suggestions, most of which were incorporated into the bill prepared by the committee.

Mr. Seward, in discussing the act making appropriations for the civil and diplomatic service of the United States, urged several important reforms in both departments. He believed that greater economy might be secured in their administration, without impairing their efficiency. He named a number of foreign missions that might be combined, and several that might be safely abolished.

Probably no more important subject occupied the attention of congress than that of the disposition of the public lands. "A bill to secure homesteads to actual settlers on the public domain" passed the house, one hundred and twenty to seventy-six. The republicans voted for the measure. Six northern democrats voted against, and only three southern members for it. Of the democratic votes in the house, a large majority were cast against the bill. It having thus passed the house, early in February, 1859, Mr. Wade, in the senate, on the 17th of that month, moved to take it up. His motion prevailed.'

All that was now desired by the friends of the bill was a vote upon its final passage, which its opponents were determined to prevent. Mr. Seward, in brief but energetic terms, urged its friends to stand firm and insist upon its consideration. But after a desultory debate, which Senator Mason threatened should be "extended," a motion to lay aside the bill was carried by the casting vote of the vice-presilent. During the contest, Mr. Gwin left the friends of the bill and roted with its enemies. As in the house, a large majority of the

1 The vote stood as follows (republicans in italics): Yeas-Messrs. Bright, Broderick, Chandler, Collamer, Dixon, Doolittle, Fessenden, Foot, Foster, Gwin, Hale, Hamlin, Harlan, Johnson of Tennessee, King, Pugh, Rice, Seward, Shields, Simmons, Smith, Stuart, Trumbull, Wade, and Wilson-26. Nays-Messrs. Allen, Bayard, Benjamin, Bigler, Brown, Chesnut, Clay, Cling man, Davis, Fitch, Fitzpatrick, Green, Hammond, Hunter, Iverson, Lane, Mallory, Mason, Pearce, Reid, Slidell, Toombs, and Ward-23.