the hard feelings her people entertained toward us Free-soilers, who were their most earnest advocates. We gave her ten years of proslavery, democratic rule. The ten years are now up, and she is calm, perhaps distrustful of some of us yet, because we are willing to admit the states that have sinned and repented as she did. If ever this thing of keeping out states by Joint Resolution of Congress could have had any chance of permanent success, that time has passed away. No state has ever been hindered in coming into the Union except upon questions growing out of the system of African bondage. But African bondage has now gone to the dogs, and they have made a sure finish of it. Not even enough of its shriveled skin or disjointed limbs remains to sharpen the cupidity of the race that were once called slaveholders, or of that other race which was known to the country as "doughfaces." No state, therefore, will ever, hereafter, be hindered or delayed in coming back into the Union upon the ground of slavery.

You may think that the irresistible tendency to Union which I have described may have something alarming in it. This would be a grave error. I think no such thing. The people in any territory want to be a state, because it is a pleasant thing and a good thing to have the municipal powers and faculties which belong to a state within the American Union, and to provide by its own laws for the maintenance and security of life, liberty, and property. A territory wants to be a state and a member of the Federal Union, because it is a pleasant thing and a good thing to have its protection against foreign enemies, and to possess the privileges and immunities guaranteed to a state by the national Constitution. I therefore would not consent to hold a state in a territorial condition, or to deny it the advantages of fellowship in the Union a day longer than I should be compelled. Nor do I see anything calculated to excite alarm, anything transcending the political ability of our statesmen, in the present situation of the freedmen. In the beginning, practically, every state in the Union had slavery. We abolished it in several states without disorder or civil commotion, until slavery raised itself in rebellion against the government of the Union. When it took that attitude, we abolished it out and out, through and through, completely and effectually forever. This is what the American people have had the sagacity and the courage to do in a period of ninety years. These American people are a great deal better and a great

deal wiser to-day than they were ninety years ago. Those of the generation that is now crowding us, will be a great deal wiser and a great deal better than we who are on the stage to-day. Do I think, therefore, that we shall lack the wisdom or the virtue to go right on and continue the work of melioration and progress, and perfect in due time the deliverance of labor from restrictions, and the annihilation of caste and class. We have accomplished what we have done, however, not with an imperial government - not with a proconsular or territorial system. We have done it in states, by states, and through states, free, equal, untrammeled, and presided over by a Federal, restricted government, which will continue to the end the constitutional progress with which we so wisely began. They are settling the whole case of the African in the West Indies just as we are, and it will be done with the same results and the same beneficent effects.

I have not given prominence in these remarks to the conflict of opinion between the President and Congress in reference to the bureau for the relief of freedmen and refugees. That conflict is, in its consequences, comparatively unimportant, and would excite little interest and produce little division if it stood alone. It is because it has become the occasion for revealing the difference that I have already described that it has attained the importance which seems to surround it. Both the President and Congress agree that, during the brief transition which the country is making from civil war to internal peace, the freedmen and refugees ought not to be abandoned by the nation to persecution and suffering. It was for this transition period that the Bureau of Freedmen was created by Congress, and was kept and is still kept in effective operation. Both the President and Congress, on the other hand, agree that when that transition period shall have been fully passed, and the harmonious relations between the states and the Union fully restored, that Bureau would be not only unnecessary but unconstitutional, demoralizing, and dangerous, and therefore it should cease to exist.

The President thinks that the transition stage has nearly passed, and that the original provision for the Bureau is all that is necessary to secure the end in view, while the bill submitted by Congress seems to him to give it indefinite extension in time of peace and restoration. He vetoed it for that reason. He declines to accept,

as unnecessary and uncalled for, the thousand or ten thousand agents, the increased powers and the augmented treasure which Congress insists on placing in his hands. Congress, on the other hand, thinks that the Freedmen's Bureau is not adequate, and that more patronage, more money, and more power would, like Thompson's door-plate, purchased at auction by Mrs. Toodles, be a good thing to have in a house. I agree with the President in the hope that the extraordinary provision which the bill makes will not be necessary, but that the whole question may be simplified by a simple reference to the existing law. The law of March 3, 1865, which created the Freedmen's Bureau, provides that it shall continue in force during the war of rebellion and one full year thereafter. When does that year expire? In the President's judgment, as I understand the matter, the war of the rebellion has been coming and is still coming to an end, but is not yet fully closed. It is on this ground that he maintains an army, continues the suspension of the writ of habeas corpus, and exercises martial law, when these things are found to be necessary in rebel states. The existence of the rebellion was legally announced by executive proclamation in 1861. The end of the rebellion ought to be, and may be expected to be, announced by competent declaration of the President or of Congress, or of both. For all practical purposes, the rebellion will, in law, come to an end if the President or Congress, one or both, officially announces its termination. Now, suppose this announcement to be made by the President and by Congress, or by either of them, to-morrow. In that case, the Freed

men's Bureau is continued by virtue of the limitation prescribed in the Act of March 3, 1865, one year after such proclamation shall have been made. Thus the Freedmen's Bureau would continue, by the original limitation, until the 22d day of February, 1867-a very proper day on which to bring it to an end. If Congress should then find it necessary to prolong its existence, Congress can at once take the necessary steps, for it will at that date have been in session nearly three months. Ought the President of the United States to be denounced in the house of his enemies much more ought he to be denounced in the house of his friends, for refusing, in the absence of any necessity, to occupy or retain, and to exercise powers greater than those which are exercised by any imperial magistrate in the world? Judge ye! I trust that this fault of declin

ing imperial powers, too hastily tendered by a too confiding Congress, may be forgiven by a generous people. It will be a sad hour for the Republic when the refusal of unnecessary powers, treasure, and patronage by the President shall be held to be a crime. When it shall be so considered, the time will have arrived for setting up at the White House an imperial throne, and surrounding the Executive 7 with imperial legions.

NOTE. - Among the officers of this meeting were Hamilton Fish, E. D. Morgan, William M. Evarts, Moses H. Grinnell, Daniel S. Dickinson, Chas. P. Daly, George Opdyke, Francis B. Cutting, A. A. Low, R. M. Blatchford, Shepherd Knapp, II. B. Claffin, Wm. H. Webb, Marshall O. Roberts, Thurlow Weed, Wm. E. Dodge.

THE SITUATION AND THE DUTY.

Auburn, October 31, 1868.

"Secretary Seward," said the "Auburn Daily Advertiser" of October 31, 1868, "this afternoon addressed one of the largest audiences ever convened in Corning Hall. The bare announcement yesterday that he was to speak to-day created an intense anxiety in the public mind to hear him, and when the doors of the hall were thrown open at half-past one o'clock, it was immediately filled to overflowing, many hundreds being unable to gain admittance. Secretary Seward was introduced by Rev. Dr. Hawley in the following words :

"In the performance of an agreeable duty, fellow-citizens, I was about to extend, on your behalf, a cordial greeting to our distinguished neighbor and personal friend on this occasion. But your prompt and hearty response to his presence once more on this platform, on the eve of a great popular decision, is of deeper significance than any words of welcome. The desire to hear what, from his position, he may counsel at this time is not less earnest and sincere than at other periods of public concern, when he has spoken to his townsmen, and thus to the whole country, and indeed to the whole world. It only remains for me, in interpreting this desire, to say that it springs from recollections and associations which can neither be forgotten nor obscured in the ever-varying phases of political action or popular judgment. And that whatever of merited honor or fame may attach to the career of a public servant, it can never cease to be with him a grateful consciousness that he also holds fast the esteem and affection of those who know him best, among whom stands his home, and with whom, when public service ceases, he expects to mingle in the scenes and duties of ordinary life to its destined close.'"

MY FRIENDS AND NEIGHBORS: My long absence on political occasions and my present appearance here are proper subjects of inquiry on your part. In explaining both, I may be able to say

all that is proper or necessary to be said in this pleasant inter

view.

Upon the first point, I might well enough plead official occupation. Official obligations necessarily and justly take precedence over those of private citizenship. The public may properly say to its appointed servants, "These ought ye to have done, and not to leave the others undone." Government occupation is increased by civil war, and necessarily increased by returning peace. It increases with ever-increasing population, territory, and commercial and political connections. But, for all this, you are not to suppose, as many assume, that I am purchasing on government account all the outlying territories in the universe,1 or indeed proposing to acquire dominion anywhere beyond the magic circle of the Monroe _doctrine.

I might plead inadequate strength. I have reason to thank God, indeed, that neither age, nor indulgence, nor casualty, has brought so great decrepitude as persons have sometimes imagined. Nevertheless, I certainly have some years, perhaps enough for a place on the retired list; and some wounds, perhaps enough for a pension, if I were in the military or naval service.

Moreover, every opinion or sentiment of mine, that has a bearing upon the present hour, was spoken long ago; spoken, as I thought, in due time; spoken, either concurrently with, or in advance of political events. So true is this, that no one has mistaken my abiding attitude, or pretends now to doubt either my official views or my political relations.

The case, however, is now somewhat changed. I am at home for indispensable private business. I find you in an election to constitute a new administration of the government of the United States.2 A theory obtained in the early revival of science that an elixir could be compounded, by the use of which the human constitution could be renewed at the end of every hundred years, and so man become immortal. The quadrennial national election of President and Congress in the United States is just such a periodical renewal as this of the national life, whereby the nation in fact becomes immortal.

The casting of my vote in great elections of this sort is equally

1 Alluding to the recent purchase of Alaska and the proposed annexation of certain West India islands.

2 General Grant and Horatio Seymour were the opposing candidates for President.