As the presidential canvass advanced, a universal apathy seemed to prevail, and the democratic party began to be sanguine of success. Invitations now pressed upon Mr. Seward, chiefly from his most devoted friends, to enter the campaign. Influenced by these appeals, he left home on the last day of August. At Lockport, at Niagara Falls, and at other places, both in New York and in Canada, on his way to Michigan, he met with a variety of public demonstrations, to which he responded in brief acknowledgments. At Detroit, where he arrived on the evening of the 3d of September, great preparations had been made for his reception. He was escorted from the boat to his lodgings by a grand torchlight procession. The display was brilliant and imposing, and the entire population of the city seemed to be in the streets. On reaching the house of Senator Chandler, Mr. Seward was introduced to the people, who had gathered there, by his associate, in a few appropriate remarks. After some playful talk about the absurdity of his requiring any introduction to the citizens of Detroit, Mr. Seward said:

"It is a surprise, fellow citizens, to be received in this city, which I honor and love so much, with demonstrations of kindness-I had almost said affection—such as could not have been surpassed, I think, in the province through which I have passed to-day, on the visit of its hereditary prince and governor. If I do not say how much I am gratified, how deeply this welcome affects me, please to understand that I can find no words in which to express my acknowledgments; so take what the tongue seems to suppress for what the heart confesses. I have said, in my inmost soul, long ago, that the wishes of the republican people of Michigan should be with me, in all practical points, equivalent to a command. You have called me here, not to speak of yourselves nor of myself, but to discuss the great interests of our country involved in the election of Abraham Lincoln to the office of President of the United States. I have come, cheerfully, gladly, proudly, in obedience to your command. To-morrow I will hear from you what you think of that important question, and then I will, to those who may choose to listen to me, explain my view of the condition and prospects and hopes of the republican party of the country. Until then, fellow citizens, I hope that my respected and esteemed brethren of the wide-awake association', who have done me the compliment of electing me a member, will allow me to go to sleep, whatever they may do for the rest of the night; and to-morrow I promise to perform a soldier's duty in their association."

1 The "Wide-Awakes," of whom mention is frequently made in these pages, were an association peculiar to the campaign of 1860, originating early in that year in Hartford, Connecticut. Composed mostly of young men, they organized with uniforms and military discipline, bearing in their evening parades, each man, a torch. Wherever the republican party existed, the wideawakes were a certain element.

On the following day, Mr. Seward delivered an able and elaborate speech to one of the largest audiences ever assembled in the United States. This speech was published simultaneously the next morning in the newspapers of New York, Boston, Philadelphia, Cincinnati, Chicago, and Detroit, and afterward copied into all the principal republican journals in the Union, and, both in tone and argument, gave to the whole canvass its marked characteristics of dignity and patriotism, unknown in any previous presidential election. It will be found in this volume, under the title of "The National Diverg ence and Return."

In the evening of the same day, Mr. Seward was honored with another grand procession of wide-awakes gathered from the interior of the state and the shores of lake Erie. Halting in front of his lodgings, they were addressed by him as follows:

“FELLOW CITIZENS: If I appear in obedience to your call to-night, I hope it will only be a new illustration of an old practice of mine, never to give up an honest and virtuous attempt, though I may fail in it the first time. I tried to-day and utterly failed to make the republicans of Michigan hear, and now, in obedience to your call to-night, renew the effort. The end of a great national debate s at hand. It is now upon us, and the simple reason is that the people have become at last attentive, willing to be convinced, and satisfied of the soundness of the republican faith. It has been a task. We had first to reach the young through the prejudices of the old. I have never expected my own age and generation to relinquish the prejudices in which they and I were born. I have expected, as has been the case heretofore in the history of mankind, that the old would remain unconverted, and that the great work of reformation and progress would rest with the young. That has come at last; for though the democratic party have denied the ascendency and obligations of the 'higher law,' still they bear testimony to it in their persons, if not in their conversation. Democrats die in obedience to 'higher law,' and republicans are born, and will be born, and none but republicans will be born in the United States after the year of 1860. The first generation of the young men of the country educated in the republican faith has appeared in your presence, by a strong and bold demonstrative representation to-night. It is the young men who constitute the wide-awake force. Ten years. ago, and twenty years ago, the young men were incapable of being organized. Four years ago they were organized for the distraction of the country and the republican cause. To-day the young men of the United States are for the first time on the side of freedom against slavery. Go on, then, and do your work. Put this great cause into the keeping of your great, honest, worthy leader, Abraham Lincoln. Believe me sincere when I say, that if it had devolved upon me to select from all men in the United States a man to whom I should confide the standard of this cause-which is the object for which I have lived and labored and for which I would be willing to die-that man would have been Abraham Lincoln."

From Detroit, Mr. Seward went to Lansing, the capital of the state. At Pontiac, Owosso, and St. Johns, on the route, the people came together in great numbers to greet him. At De Witt he was met by a cavalcade of wide-awakes and citizens, who escorted him into Lansing. As the procession, with music and banners, entered the city, it presented a highly imposing appearance. The citizens had assembled in front of the capitol, awaiting the arrival of their guest. Mr. Seward was there met by the committee of reception, and welcomed to the city. In reply to an eloquent address' from J. M. Longyear, the chairman of the committee, Mr. Seward said:

“That his errand at Lansing was not wholly that of a politician-that he had come among them well knowing that the access must be through a new country. and over rough roads, to enjoy in part the pleasure of looking upon a city, now in its beginning, the capital of a flourishing state, which, within the lives of his children, was destined to become a populous and powerful metropolis. He saw around him the elements and assurances of its growth and ultimate greatness, and he felt that his time had not been wasted, nor his labor lost, in making this visit; he hoped the citizens of Lansing, of all parties, for that day might look upon him as a private man, their personal friend, their invited guest-to-morrow would be soon enough for them to regard him as the politician, or for him to employ his time in talking upon political matters.

In reply to the reminiscence of Mr. Longyear, in reference to Gov. Seward's reception of John Quincy Adams under similar circumstances, Mr. Seward said: “I had arisen that morning at five o'clock, and I found Mr. Adams already up and writing. He asked me who was to address him that day. I answered that that duty had been assigned to me. He said that it would be a favor to him if I could show him the address I proposed to make. I repaired to my library, and having hastily written my speech, I returned and gave the manuscript to him. The old man eloquent' read it over by himself; then, handing it back to me, he said: 'Ah, Governor Seward, seeing your speech only increases my embarrassment. I cannot answer that speech.' You will not hesitate to believe me," said Mr. Seward, "when I confess that now, when you have applied the address to myself, I find it, as my own speech, unanswerable, as John Quincy Adams did when it was submitted to him." 2

The next day, the population of that new region gathered to welcome him. Mr. Seward addressed them at length, but only a sketch of his speech has been preserved. He said:

"I know errors, but not enemies. I shall, therefore, speak of principles, and not of men. While you think I have come here to instruct you, I have, in fact, come to complete my own education. I wanted to see for myself how an

American state is planted, organized, perfected—a vigorous American state. I see it all now, and here, before me.

"The founders of Michigan were not all of one state or country, but of many states and countries. They came from Vermont and New York, Virginia and South Carolina, and other American states, as well as from England, Ireland, Holland, Norway, and other European countries. They were of various religious faiths, and of many differing political habits and opinions. The immigrants from Europe were voluntary citizens, not native citizens, like those who came from American states. They, of course, all were free, for only freemen can emigrate. This is just what would have occurred in every state now in this Union, and what must be the case in every state hereafter to come in, if the natural course of events were not, and should not, be overruled by government. But powers foreign from this continent, although ruling in it early, employed themselves in distracting and defeating that natural course of things. Spain, Great Britain and France extended their sway over different parts of the continent, and established aristoracies which were only removed by revolutions. When that political phase had passed away, it left many of the states slave states. Boston and New York continued busily plying the African slave trade. African slavery being thus established and continually enlarged, voluntary white free emigration practically ceased. The states afterwards divided on the two systems of slavery and of freedom. Some have preferred to retain the former. Its consequences are seen in exhausted soils, sickly states, and fretful and discontented peoples. You have chosen the wiser and better system. My policy-that policy which I have maintained so strenuously and, strange to say, through so much opposition-that policy which I have come to commend to your favor-is your own policy of freedom, instead of slavery, as the basis of all future states to be formed on the American continent and admitted into the Union. It is not only most conducive to the general welfare, but is the most conducive to the public safety and virtue. What does a great free state on this continent need a standing army and a navy for? It has no enemies abroad. It can have no enemies within its own borders. Is not our present army (excepting its temporary office of holding the predatory Indian tribes under constraint) chiefly kept up, with our navy, for the protection of the slave states in possible emergencies? Granting its necessity for that purpose, may I not, as a statesman as well as patriot, say I want no increase of army and navy rendered necessary by increasing the area of human bondage?

"How simple, then, and yet how wise and how felicitous, is the policy of the republican party. All it proposes is that all future states shall be just such free, enlightened, contented, and prosperous states, as Michigan is; and, further, that they shall be made so exactly as Michigan was made such a state. That process is to keep slavery out of the territory while it is a territory, and then it must and will be a free state when it comes to be a state. Let everybody go into a new territory who will, be he native or foreign born. Let nobody be carried by force into a new territory, be he white or black, native or imported from Africa or other tropical or oriental climes. If no slaves are ever carried there, no slaves can ever be born there. To say nothing of the condition of the slaves, are the white men politically equal in a slaveholding state? What What is the condition of the non-slaveholding white man in a slave state, contrasted with the slaveholder? Let the codes and politics of the slave states show. Let the great emigration of the non

slaveholding white men to newer regions, while the slaveholder remains in the native state of both, answer.

"Many of you profess to accept this policy, and yet refuse to join the one party that maintains it. The Breckinridge party stand on a platform directly opposite. You will not, of course, support that. But the Douglas party, you think, will do, because it offers popular sovereignty in the territories, so that the people there are, at least, left free to choose freedom. If, indeed, a fair trial could be guaranteed, it might, perhaps, be well enough. But what the prospects of a fair trial for freedom under the auspices of a democratic administration are, let the history of oppressed, harassed, and still ostracised Kansas, answer. The Douglas popular sovereignty creed, moreover, must be taken together with the Dred Scott decree of the supreme court, which, if it be allowed to have the virtue of a decree, declares that slavery is the constitutional condition of the territories of the United States, unchangeable by any popular sovereignty within them, or even by the national authority without. The Douglas creed assumes that slavery and freedom are equally just and wise, or, at least, that there is no public interest and no moral right involved in the contest between them. Slavery will never be shut out of a territory by those who are indifferent whether it is voted up or voted down. The republican party, on the contrary, entertain a conscientious conviction that slavery is wrong, and, acting on that conviction, they, and they alone, will save the territories from its blight, and so make sure that they become ultimately free states."

The occasion brought out a grand republican display and mass meeting. The people from all the surrounding country came, in unprecedented numbers. In the immense procession, which formed a part of the ceremonies, were the faculty and students of the state agricultural college, with appropriate emblems. They presented to Mr. Seward the following address, which was said to be the expres sion of the public sentiment of Michigan:

"In common with the young men of Michigan, we take pride in welcoming you to our state. We have learned to admire you for your talents, love you for your devotion to the cause of truth and humanity, and look to you for instruction in the great principles of civil liberty and equal rights.

"We believe in a 'higher law;' we believe that slavery and freedom are incompatible, and that the conflict must be 'irrepressible' so long as they are elements of the same government. We believe that right must finally triumph; that oppression must cease, and we look to the success of republican principles to restore our government to its original purity and foster the true spirit of national prosperity.

"We take pleasure in addressing you from the halls of the first State Agricultural College in our land, and as a champion of human progress you cannot fail to be an earnest and sincere friend to the cause of education. We should have rejoiced to labor to secure your election to the chief magistracy of the nation, but we honor you none the less as the great expounder of the rights of man, and