LIFE OF SEWARD. subsequently married. His success as a His success as a lawyer was rapid and well assured, and he soon ranked among the most honored members of the profession. His first political step was as a warm partisan of the anti-masonic cause, but in 1823 he appeared as a youthful leader in the canvass for the re-election of John Quincy Adams to the Presidency. Elected senator of his State in 1830, he soon became prominent as an advocate of measures of reform. After four years' service in the Senate of New York, he was nominated the Whig candidate for Governor, but was defeated by his veteran Democratic opponent, William L. Marcy. Again a candidate at the succeeding election, he triumphed over his old competitor, and was elected Governor by the large majority of ten thousand. In 1840 he was a third time a candidate and once more successful, being chosen as a representative of the party which had triumphantly carried the election of President Harrison, of whom he had proved himself in the canvass an energetic supporter. In 1848 he advocated the nomination of General Zachary Taylor, and strove zealously in behalf of his election. The successful Whig party of the New York State Legislature soon after elected Seward senator of the United States. On the death of Taylor and the accession of Fillmore, Seward was suddenly deprived of that leadership upon which he had not unnaturally presumed. His supposed extreme opinions on the subject of slavery were undoubtedly averse to his being accepted, 123 by Fillmore, as an exponent of the policy of his conciliatory administration. Seward opposed emphatically the compromise measures of 1850. "I feel assured," said he, in his speech on the question, "that slavery must give way, and will give way to the salutary instructions of economy and to the ripening influences of humanity; that emancipation is inevitable and is near; that it may be hastened or hindered; that all measures which fortify slavery or extend it tend to the consummation of violence; all that check its extension and abate its strength tend to its peaceful extirpation. But I will adopt none but lawful, constitutional, and peaceful means to secure means to secure even that end; and none such can I or will I forego." In 1852, Seward was an advocate for the election of General Scott as President, though he did not concur with the concessions made to the slave interests of the South in the manifesto of his party. In the Senate he at the same time continued his persistent opposition to the extension of slavery, and emphatically denounced the Kansas-Nebraska bill. After the dissolution of the Whig party, and the formation of the new Republican combination, of which he was one of the prominent founders and leaders, he was a candidate for nomination as President. He, however, was forced to yield to the superior “availability" of Colonel Fremont, for whose election, notwithstanding, he canvassed vigorously. During the summer of 1859, Mr. Sew ard visited Europe, and extended his tour to Syria and Egypt. His reception was everywhere studiously courteous in deference to his recognized position as a distinguished and leading statesman in his own country. In 1860, Seward was forced again to yield his presumed claims to a comparatively obscure man. At the Republican Convention which met at Chicago, Seward was the leading candidate for nomination as President, but after several obstinate ballots gave way to Mr. Lincoln, who was chosen, and whose subsequent triumphant election to office was greatly due to the zealous efforts of his late rival. Notwithstanding his previous persistent resistance to the encroachments of, and his apparent readiness for, the "irrepressible conflict" with slavery, Seward is supposed to be among the most conciliatory of Lincoln's cabinet. Though some may doubt whether he is possessed of the moral grandeur capable of rising to the greatness of the present occasion, none will question the secretary's mental capacity to master the ordinary technical difficulties of his office. A man of refined culture and tact, his speeches and writings possess a dignity of tone and a completeness of literary finish which are rarely to be discovered in the effusions of our extemporized speakers and writers. Judging him from the rapid flashes of speech, struck off in the course of a heated political canvass, there are some, especially in Europe, who affect to think that Seward is more eager to captivate the undiscerning many than to convince the judicious few. In appearance, Mr. Seward, with his slight figure of medium size, his heavy features, and his worn expression, is not imposing. His eyes, however, brighten with excitement, and his face not seldom assumes an attractive vivacity. The secretary of the treasury, Salmon Portland Chase, was born at Cornish, in New Hampshire, on the 13th of January, 1808. Two years after the death of his father, and at the age of twelve, he was placed under the charge of his uncle, Bishop Chase, of Ohio, with whom he removed from Worthington to Cincinnati, and there entered the college of which the bishop had been appointed president. Here, however, he remained but a year, when he returned to his mother's home in Keene, New Hampshire. In 1824 he was admitted a student of Dartmouth College, where he received his degree after two years' study. After graduating, he opened a school at Washington, and numbered among his pupils the sons of Henry Clay, William Wirt, and Samuel L. Southard. In the mean time, he studied law under the direction of Wirt, and in 1829, quitting his school, he was admitted to the bar at Washington. In 1830, Mr. Chase removed to Cincinnati, where he strove to establish himself as a lawyer. While waiting for practice, he published an edition of the Statutes of Ohio, with original notes, and a prefatory sketch of the history of the State. This work served to bring him into notice, and add to his legal business. He now became a thriving resisted all national recognition of practitioner, and was appointed solicitor slavery. of two of the banks. Being employed in 1837 in behalf of a negro woman who was claimed to be a fugitive slave, Mr. Chase argued that Congress had not the right to impose upon State magistrates any duty or confer any power in such cases. Again, soon after, while defending James E. Birny, who had been arrested for harboring a negro slave, he held that slavery is local, and dependent for its legality upon State law, and that therefore a slave who made his escape into Ohio became free, and might be harbored with impunity. In 1846, Mr. Chase, together with William H. Seward, was defendant's counsel in the Van Zandt case, before the Supreme Court of the United States. In an elaborate argument, he contended that, by the ordinance of 1787, no fugitive from service could be reclaimed from Ohio unless there had been an escape from one of the original States; that it was the clear understanding of the framers of the Constitution, and of the people who adopted it, that slavery was to be left exclusively to the disposal of the several States, without sanction or support from the National Government; and that the clause in the Constitution relating to persons held to service was one of compact, and conferred no power of legislation on Congress. Other cases ensued in which Mr. Chase defended the same positions, and thus became identified with those who Devoted to his professional pursuits, Mr. Chase avoided for a long time all positive alliances with political parties, but had voted sometimes with the Democrats, and at other times and more frequently with the Whigs In 1841, however, he became one of the originators. of the "Liberty" party of Ohio, and was the author of their address to the people. In 1843 he was a member of the convention of this party which met at Buffalo. While one of a committee nominated by said convention, he opposed the resolution, "to regard and treat the third clause of the Constitution, whenever applied to the case of a fugitive slave, as utterly null and void, and consequently as forming no part of the Constitution of the United States, whenever we are called upon or sworn to support it." This resolution was accordingly rejected by the committee, and not reported, although it was afterward renewed by its original mover, and adopted by the convention. When twitted in the United States Senate by Senator Butler, of South Carolina, for the mental reservation seemingly sanctioned by this resolution, Chase responded: "I have only to say, I never proposed the resolution; I never would propose or vote for such a resolution. I hold no doctrine of mental reservation. Every man, in my judgment, should speak just as he thinks, keeping nothing back, here or elsewhere."* The New American Cyclopedia. New York: D. Appleton & Co until 1852, when, upon the nomination of Pierce, they accepted the platform of the Baltimore Convention, approving of the compromise acts of 1850, and denouncing the further agitation of the question of slavery extension. Having abandoned his old allies, he gave in his adherence to the Independent Democratic Convention, assembled at Pittsburg in 1852, which adopted a manifesto mainly prepared by Mr. Chase. When the Nebraska bill agitated the country, and induced the formation of the Republican party, Mr. Chase, finding its principles in consonance with his In 1845, a convention, at the suggestion of Mr. Chase, met in Cincinnati, of "all who, believing that whatever is worth preserving in republicanism can be maintained only by uncompromising war against the usurpations of the slave power, and are therefore resolved to use all constitutional and honorable means to effect the extinction of slavery within their respective States, and its reduction to its constitutional limits in the United States." The gathering was large, consisting of two thousand delegates and four thousand interested visiters. The address the main burden of which was opposition to the extension of slavery-long established views, eagerly joined was written by Mr. Chase, and was widely circulated. When the second convention met, in 1847, Mr. Chase opposed the making of Federal nominations, believing that the general agitation throughout the country in regard to the Wilmot proviso would extend the basis of the movement against slavery extension, and afford a less restricted foundation for a party. In 1848, however, distrusting the Whig and Democratic parties, Mr. Chase again called a convention in favor of free territory. It was largely attended, but it merged itself in the National Convention, which met at Buffalo in August of the same year, and nominated Martin Van Buren for President. The Democratic party of Ohio having now adopted the free-soil views of Mr. Chase, he accepted their nomination for the United States Senate, and in 1849 was elected. He continued to act with the Democrats of his State it, and became one of its leaders. In 1855, Mr. Chase was nominated as Governor of Ohio, and being elected, was inaugurated in January of the succeeding year. He gave proof, in his new office, of a moderation and discretion which many were disposed to question, in consequence of his supposed extreme opinions on slavery. At the close of his first term he was disposed to retire, but was so urgently pressed to accept a re-nomination, that he was prevailed upon and re-elected Governor. After the expiration of his second term he was again elected senator of the United States, but resigned his seat to accept his present position in the cabinet of Mr. Lincoln, of which he is considered not only one of the ablest, but firmest members. Simon Cameron, a man of humble origin, successively a printer's apprentice, printer, journalist, a local politician, a United States senator, and now the |