abusive personalities which were often applied to him by his opponents.

In consistency with his former declarations Seward opposed the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850, and in an elaborate speech against Clay's Compromise Bill, he declared, "The love of liberty is a public, universal, and undying affection." He urged the senators to adopt the true policy of conciliation by gradual reform, and then "The fingers of the powers above would tune the harmony of such a peace!" In 1852 Seward voted for General Scott for the Presidency, though not approving the platform which had been adopted by his party to conciliate the South. He opposed the Native American or Know-Nothing party, which was organized about 1854, on what he pronounced a "foreign and frivolous issue." In 1854 Senator Douglas offered a bill to organize Nebraska, with the condition that the citizens of that, and any other territory, should decide whether it should be a free or a slave State. This "squatter sovereignty" was vigorously opposed by Seward; and when, in opposition to this policy, the Republican party was formed, Seward was one of its founders.

The stages of his career are marked by great speeches. In a famous and prophetic speech at Rochester, in 1858, he declared that the autagonism between freedom and slavery 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 free-labor nation." In this declaration he had already been preceded by Lincoln; but as Seward was then prominent in the national councils, his saying attracted greater attention and was a bone of contention between parties in the ensuing conflict. He again crossed the Atlantic, in May, 1859, and spent about eight months in various countries of Europe, and in Egypt and Palestine. His first speech after his return in February, 1860, was in behalf of the admission of Kansas as a free State.

The inevitable disruption of the Democratic party was already foreshadowed when the Republican National Convention met in May, 1860. Thurlow Weed had been active on his friend's behalf, and, on the first ballot, Seward received 173

votes (more than any other candidate). Horace Greeley, the editor of the New York Tribune, who had for many years been the close ally of Weed and Seward, had dissolved that connection and had gone to Chicago to oppose Seward's nomination. He was admitted to the Convention as substitute for a delegate from Oregon Territory. Other influences operated against Seward, and Lincoln was nominated on the third ballot. Seward gracefully submitted and cordially supported the nominee.

In the following winter, when secession and disunion were in the air, Seward declared his position in the Senate: "I avow my adherence to the Union, with my friends, with my party, with my State, with my country, or without either, as they may determine; in every event of peace or war; with every consequence of honor or dishonor, of life or death. Woe! woe! to the man that madly lifts his hand against this Union. It shall continue and endure; and men in after times shall declare that this generation, which saved the Union from such sudden and unlooked-for dangers, surpassed in magnanimity even that one which laid its foundations in the eternal principles of liberty, justice, and humanity."

...

Seward was then naturally regarded as the mouthpiece of the administration and party about to come into power. Still cherishing the hope that the threatened evils might be averted, he favored great concessions to the demands of Southern leaders, and wished little to be done by the Federal Government until it should be under new control. He was unfortunately too optimistic, both with regard to the course of events and his own ability to deal with them. Even after the bombardment of Fort Sumter, he thought the trouble would all be over in ninety days.

Seward was deservedly called by President Lincoln to be Secretary of State, in March, 1861. The special difficulty of his position was, that all the foreign legations and consulates were held by officers appointed by Buchanan's pro-slavery administration, and were for the most part well-affected toward the Southern Confederacy which had already been formed. Yet Seward managed the foreign affairs in that momentous crisis with eminent wisdom and efficiency, and steered clear

of threatening disasters. He did, indeed, at first seek to direct the whole course of the administration, but when he found that President Lincoln had a mind and policy of his own, he gracefully submitted, and thenceforth devoted himself to carrying out that policy with zeal and discretion. To his diplomatic skill and sagacity the country owes its deliverance from perils greater than any it had ever before encountered. Among the most conspicuous and important acts of his ministry was the liberation of Mason and Slidell, Confederate diplomatists, who were arrested on board the British steamer "Trent," in November, 1861, and were vehemently demanded by the British ministry. His dispatch relating to this "Trent" case deserves a world-wide renown; for it turned an act which appeared to be almost a national humiliation into a legitimate triumph, by recalling to the British government that the principle of the inviolability of neutral vessels was a cardinal doctrine of American diplomacy. The invasion of Mexico by the French, in 1862, produced another important subject of diplomacy. Seward asserted the Monroe Doctrine; but, as France claimed only to be endeavoring to collect a just debt, he avoided any offensive attitude, and postponed the decision of the problem to a less critical time. During the Civil War Seward's difficult position in the cabinet required an enormous amount of labor and care, and the results were greatly to the national honor. By his lucid arguments and dispatches, the efforts of the Confederates to obtain recognition by foreign powers were frustrated, and those powers were compelled to acknowledge the strength and justice of the Union cause.

Just after President Lincoln entered on his second term in the spring of 1865, Seward being thrown from his carriage had his arm and jaw broken. On the 14th of April, 1865, at the very time when Lincoln was assassinated, one of the conspirators entered the house of Mr. Seward, who was still disabled by the fractures, and inflicted with a knife severe wounds on his neck and face. The assassin also wounded his son and others of the household. Vice-President Johnson, having escaped assassination, became President, and retained Seward in the office of Secretary of State. In November, 1865, Sew

ard, feeling that the time had come to remove the French from Mexico, sent to Paris a dispatch in these terms: "The United States regard the effort to establish permanently a foreign and imperial government in Mexico as disallowable and impracticable." The French army evacuated Mexico in 1866. Another notable act of Seward's diplomacy was the purchase of Alaska from Russia in 1867. In this he was strongly supported by Senator Sumner. This senator, however, successfully opposed the treaty which Seward had negotiated with England, because the claims of the United States Government for damages inflicted during the Civil War were not recognized in it. Yet this treaty served as a basis for the one concluded under President Grant's administration.

In these measures, except the last, Seward retained the support of the leaders of the great party with which he had long been identified, but the general policy of the administration carried him away from them. President Johnson was desirous of hastening the restoration of the Southern States and their leaders to their former place in the Union, without exacting the guarantees which the Republican leaders thought necessary to secure the legitimate results of the war. This became the burning question of the time. By approving Johnson's policy for the immediate full recognition of the Southern States, Seward offended the majority of the Republicans, and was therefore doomed to banishment from public life. Yet he still retained his allegiance to this party, and voted for General Grant, its presidential candidate, in 1868. His public services closed in March, 1869. He afterwards visited Alaska and Mexico, and in August, 1870, he set out on a tour around the world, his account of which was published in 1873. He died at Auburn, October 10, 1872.

Seward's career lay in stormy times, yet personally he was distinguished for his suavity of manner and philosophic temper. His private character was excellent. His great presence of mind and sagacious foresight fitted him especially for the field of diplomacy, in which he attained his greatest triumphs.

THE ADMISSION OF CALIFORNIA.

A year ago, California was a mere military dependency of our own. To-day, she is a State, more populous than the least, and richer than several of the greatest of our thirty States. This same California, thus rich and populous, is here asking admission into the Union, and finds us debating the dissolution of the Union itself. No wonder if we are perplexed with ever-changing embarrassments! No wonder if we are appalled by ever-increasing responsibilities! No wonder if we are bewildered by the ever-augmenting magnitude and rapidity of national vicissitudes!

Shall California be received? For myself, upon my individual judgment and conscience, I answer-yes. Let California come in. Every new State, whether she come from the east or the west-every new State, coming from whatever part of the continent she may, is always welcome. But, California, that comes from the clime where the west dies away into the rising east-California, that bounds at once the empire and the continent-California, the youthful queen of the Pacific, in her robes of freedom, gorgeously inlaid with gold, is doubly welcome.

The question now arises, Shall this one great people, having a common origin, a common language, a common religion, common sentiments, interests, sympathies, and hopes, remain one political state, one nation, one republic; or shall it be broken into two conflicting, and, probably, hostile nations or republics? Shall the American people, then, be divided? Before deciding on this question, let us consider our position, our power and capabilities.

The world contains no seat of empire so magnificent as this; which, embracing all the varying climates of the temperate zone, and traversed by wide-expanding lakes and long branching rivers, offers supplies on the Atlantic shores to the over-crowded nations of Europe, and, on the Pacific coast, intercepts the commerce of the Indies. The nation thus situated, and enjoying forest, mineral, and agricultural resources unequalled, if endowed, also, with moral energies adequate to the achievement of great enterprises, and favored with a gov