WORKS

OF

WILLIAM H. SEWARD

EDITED BY

GEORGE E. BAKER

"Fature and Laws would be in an ill case, if Slavery should find what to say for itself, and Liberty be mute: and if tyrants should find men to plead for them, and they that can waste and vanquish tyrants, should not be able to find advocates."

MILTON.

1887

Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1858,

BY J. S. REDFIELD,

n the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States in and for the

Southern District of New York.

371258

PREFACE TO VOLUME III

THE FIRST VOLUME of these Works contains a Biographical Me moir of Mr. SEWARD, his Speeches and Debates in the Senate of New York, his Speeches and Debates in the Senate of the United States, and his Forensic Arguments.

The SECOND VOLUME comprises all his STATE PAPERS-Messages, Official Correspondence, and Pardon Papers.

The contents of the PRESENT VOLUME have been classified under the following heads, viz.: ORATIONS AND DISCOURSES, OCCASIONAL SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES, EXECUTIVE SPEECHES, POLITICAL WRITINGS, GENERAL CORRESPONDENCE, and SPEECHES IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES, continued from Vol. I.

The ORATIONS AND DISCOURSES on various subjects, with which the volume commences, embrace the more elaborate productions of Mr. SEWARD, including his Eulogies on Lafayette, O'Connell, John Quincy Adams, Daniel Webster, and Henry Clay.

The OCCASIONAL SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES, which follow, have been selected, not with reference to their literary or rhetorical merits chiefly, but, as has been remarked in another place, because they contain opinions and sentiments that are important in presenting a faithful record of Mr. SEWARD's public life.

During Governor SEWARD's administration, he had several official interviews with the chiefs of the few remaining Indian tribes