abandonment of position or principle; no recantation to make to any man or body of men on earth."

1

The responsibility of leadership imposed upon Jefferson Davis a comparatively guarded expression of his views. But he gave the Senate to understand that the Union would be dissolved in the event of the election of a radical Republican like Seward on the platform of the "irrepressible-conflict" speech. On the 2d of February Davis introduced a series of resolutions to define the position of Southern Democrats. The fourth was the crucial one; it declared that neither Congress nor a territorial legislature, by direct or indirect and unfriendly legislation, had the power to annul the constitutional right of citizens to take slaves into the common territories; but it was the duty of the federal government to afford for slaves, as for other species of property, the needful protection."

These declarations of Douglas and Davis had more than usual significance in view of the approaching national Democratic convention, and seemed to show that the breach in the party was irreconcilable. Davis said, in effect, to Douglas, You must come on to our platform or you will get no Southern support in your candidature for President; while Douglas had declared that he would not yield a jot, and that he was backed by two-thirds of the Democratic party."

Lincoln, on invitation of the Young Men's Central Republican Union of New York city, obtained, to his great delight, a hearing in the East, delivering a speech, February 27th, in the Cooper Institute to a brilliant audience." "Since the days of Clay and Webster," said the Tribune the next morning, "no man has spoken to a larger assemblage of the intellect and mental culture of our city." Lincoln had a

1 Remarks of Jan. 12th.

* Congressional Globe, 1st Sess. 36th Cong., pp. 574, 577.

'These resolutions may be found in the Congressional Globe, 1st Sess. 36th Cong., p. 658. * Ibid., p. 424.

4

long time to prepare his address, and to no previous effort of his life had he devoted so much study and thought. But on appearing before the New York city audience, he was at first a little dazzled, and, moreover, disconcerted at his personal appearance. The new suit of clothes that had seemed so fine in his Springfield home was in awkward contrast with the neatly fitting dress worn by William Cullen Bryant, the chairman of the meeting, and other New York gentlemen who graced the platform.' But the earnest manner and power of expression overcame the effect produced by his ungainly appearance. The speech was a success. "No man," said the Tribune, "ever before made such an impression on his first appeal to a New York audience." The speech is worthy of great praise, and ought to be read entire by him who would fully understand the history of the year 1860. "I do not hesitate to pronounce it," wrote Greeley some years later, "the very best political address to which I ever listened and I have heard some of Webster's grandest."

993

Lincoln showed conclusively that the fathers held and acted upon the opinion that Congress had the power to prohibit slavery in the territories; that the Republican party, therefore, was not revolutionary but conservative, for it maintained the doctrine of the men who had made the Constitution. Addressing himself to the Southern people, he said: "Some of you are for reviving the foreign slave-trade; some for Congress forbidding the territories to prohibit slavery within their limits; some for maintaining slavery in the territories through the judiciary; some for the 'great principle' that if one man would enslave another, no third man should object,' fantastically called popular sovereignty; but never a man among you in favor of federal prohi

1 Herndon, p. 454.

It is given in full in the Life of Lincoln by Howells, and in the Life by Raymond. Liberal extracts are made by Nicolay and Hay.

3 Century Magazine, July, 1891, p. 373. An address of Greeley, written about 1868, and first published in 1891.

bition of slavery in federal territories, according to the practice of our fathers who framed the government under which we live. Not one of all your various plans can show a precedent or an advocate in the century within which our government originated. . . . You say we have made the slavery question more prominent than it formerly was. We deny it. We admit that it is more prominent, but we deny that we made it so. It was not we, but you, who discarded the old policy of the fathers." Alluding to the Southern threats of disunion, he said: "Your purpose, then, plainly stated, is that you will destroy the government unless you be allowed to construe and enforce the Constitution as you please, on all points in dispute between you and us. You will rule or ruin in all events."

Addressing himself to the Republicans, he referred to the encroaching demands of the slave power and asked, What will satisfy the South? "This, and this only," he answered: "cease to call slavery wrong and join them in calling it right. And this must be done thoroughly-done in acts as well as in words." The South thinking slavery right and our thinking it wrong is the precise fact upon which depends the whole controversy. Thinking it right, as they do, they are not to blame for desiring its full recognition as being right; but thinking it wrong as we do, can we yield to them? Can we cast our votes with their view and against our own? In view of our moral, social, and political responsibilities, can we do this? Wrong as we think slavery is, we can yet afford to let it alone where it is, because that much is due to the necessity arising from its actual presence in the nation; but can we, while our votes will prevent it, allow it to spread into the national territories, and to overrun us here in these free States? . . . Let us not be slandered," Lincoln continued, " from our duty by false accusations against us, nor frightened from it by menaces of destruction to the government. . . . Let us have faith that right makes might; and in that faith let us, to the end, dare to do our duty as we understand it."

Two days later, Seward spoke in the Senate. Of an unimposing physical figure, with a husky voice, angular gestures, and a dry didactic manner, he held spell-bound for two hours the Senate chamber and galleries, crowded with the distinguished and intellectual men and the graceful women of the nation's capital. It was the pregnant matter of the discourse and the commanding position of the speaker that attracted this profound attention.

...

1

Almost at the outset Seward said: "It will be an overflowing source of shame as well as of sorrow if we, thirty millions,. cannot so combine prudence with humanity, in our conduct concerning the one disturbing subject of slavery, as not only to preserve our unequalled institutions of freedom, but also to enjoy their benefits with contentment and harmony." "Men, States and nations," he continued, "divide upon the slavery question, not perversely, but because, owing to differences of constitution, condition, or circumstances, they cannot agree." He alluded to the encroachments of the slave power, mentioning the governor's veto of the act of the Nebraska legislature dedicating that territory to freedom, the legal establishment of slavery in New Mexico, and he referred to the fact that "savage Africans have been once more landed on our shores." He asked, "Did ever the annals of any government show a more rapid or more complete departure from the wisdom and virtue of its founders? . . . There is not," he declared, "over the face of the whole world to be found one representative of our country who is not an apologist for the extension of slav

1 In connection with this remark and the general drift of Seward's speech, the opinion of Professor Bryce is interesting. "It is possible that a higher statesmanship might have averted" the civil war.-American Commonwealth, vol. ii. p. 201. Bryce also expresses the conjecture that cabinet government might have solved the slavery question without "But it was the function of no one authority in particular to discover a remedy, as it would have been the function of a cabinet in Europe."—Ibid., p. 317. See abstract of Von Holst's criticism of this statement, The Nation, April 24th, 1890.

war.

ery." Now, "we hear menaces of disunion, louder, more distinct, more emphatic than ever," so that, while hitherto the question for the Republican party has been, "How many votes can it cast?" it is now, "Has it determination. to cast them?" Nevertheless, we should "consider these extraordinary declamations [for disunion] seriously and with a just moderation." The motto inscribed on the banner of the Republican party will be "Union and Liberty;" but "if indeed the time has come when the Democratic party must rule by terror, instead of ruling through conceded public confidence, then it is quite certain it cannot be dismissed from power too soon." Yet, "I remain now in the opinion... that these hasty threats of disunion are so unnatural that they will find no hand to execute them."1

This speech, the calm, temperate discussion of an exciting question by a statesman, was one of great power. Seward, of all leading Republicans the most obnoxious to the South, and thought to be assured of the Republican nomination, owed it to his party to allay if possible, without abating a jot of principle, the unnecessary fears of what would happen. should he become President; and for that purpose this speech was calculated. It was likewise a frank exposition of his ideas for the benefit of the Republican national convention soon to assemble at Chicago, and an outline of the spirit and principles in which he would administer the government should he be nominated and elected President.

The speech was severely criticised by the abolitionists, because it was not a vigorous enforcement of the "irrepressible-conflict" doctrine. They appealed from Seward in the Capitol to Seward on the stump. "The temptation which proved too powerful for Webster," wrote Garrison, "is seducing Seward to take the same downward course." "Seward makes a speech in Washington on the tactics of the Republican party," said Wendell Phillips, "but he phrases

1 Seward's Works, vol. iv. p. 619 et seq.

The Liberator, March 9th.