sarily plowed up, and sowed in the spring with spring wheat. The spring wheat was plowed up, and the ground planted with corn. The corn proved a failure, and was followed with potatoes. The potatoes were blasted, and followed by buckwheat, which also proved a failure. I think that this is a true description of the condition of tillage in perhaps two-thirds of Kansas. Still, there will be no great famine or distress there.

The occupants who have been there for two, three, four or five years are comfortable and well-to-do, as appears abundantly from their stock, their fences, their dwelling houses-framed of wood, and very often substantially and well built of brick and stone. Large portions of the state are as populous, and exhibit all the signs of comfort and thrift, equal to what are found even in Ohio. But there are emigrants who have resided there for only a year whose whole means have been expended in procuring farms and shelter, and planting their crops, which have successively failed. Many of these are leaving the territorysome say so many as one hundred a day. They ought to be relieved, and a very little assistance would enable them to remain there and retain their possessions and improvements, and resume the culture of their fields, under more favorable auspices, next spring. With much diffidence, I beg to commend this subject to the citizens of Ohio. Perhaps a larger portion of the republicans of Kansas are emigrants from Ohio than from any other state. Do not forget that Kansas is the most important outpost of the republican army; that it is yet, on paper at least, in a state of siege; though the enemy has been driven out, a treaty of peace and independence has not yet been signed." [

At Erie, in Pennsylvania, Mr. Seward made a few remarks to the eager crowd; and at various places on the way he met with a friendly and enthusiastic greeting. At Buffalo, where he remained over night, a brilliant display of wide-awakes and a large gathering of citizens called from him the following brief speech:

"FELLOW CITIZENS: I understand this demonstration. [Here there were complaints of disorder.] It is only kindness that makes it turbulent. But in order that you may hear a voice which has been exercised for five weeks, it will be necessary for you to hold your tongues and open your ears. I am now within a hundred and fifty miles of my home, and I remember so much of the Scriptures as this, namely, that 'a prophet is not without honor save in his own country.' So I am not going to prophesy so near my own place of residence. I thank you sincerely for this welcome of myself and of the party with whom I have been traveling in the far west. I have seen, within a year, all the principal peoples who inhabit the shores of the Mediterranean; and within the last five weeks have journeyed among the population dwelling along the Mediterranean coasts of America. I have seen those decayed and desolate countries--the sites of the greatest nations of antiquity-now covered with ruins, and some in a state almost of semi-barbarism. The chief cause of that decay and desolation I believe to have been the existence in those countries of human bondage. The one great evil which could bring down our country to such a level, would be the introduction

the west.

of slavery into the lands surrounding the Mediterranean of America. Therefore it is that I have devoted what little talent I possess to prevent the ban of slavery from falling upon the fertile valleys of the Mississippi and Missouri. Having seen many states, I come back to New York, prouder of her, and prouder that I belong to her, than I was when I left. I estimate her so highly, not alone for what she is or has, at home, but also for what she is and has in the great west. While I see around me here, so many generous and noble men endeavoring to maintain her in her proud position, I have also found, all along the shores of the great lakes, along the banks of the great rivers, and even at the foot of the Rocky mountains, children of the state of New York, almost as numerous as at home. Wisconsin, Michigan, Illinois, and Kansas, are all daughters of New York; so is California; and more states have been formed under her auspices, than there were at the beginning of the Union. Emigrants from Erie county, from Chautauqua, from Cattaraugus, from Oswego, and from all the counties of this great state, people It was a son of New York who first applied steam to locomotion; a citizen of New York, and also its chief magistrate, who began and perfected the Erie canal, and over that canal the stream of emigration has flowed which has founded new states. It has carried, sometimes, in a day, the people of a western town, a county in a few weeks, and a state in two or three years. New York has built the west. But I am, perhaps, speaking in too general terms. Doubtless the spirit which animates you at present, is roused in regard to the coming election. It will gladden you when I say, in relation to the west, that I have had assurances there which leave no doubt that it will give its vote for Lincoln. I have seen him at his own home, and I have now to say, as I said before I went abroad, that he is a man eminently worthy of the support of every honest voter, and well qualified to discharge the duties of the chief magistracy. Above all, he is reliable; and I repeat at the foot of lake Erie what I said at the head of it, that If it had fallen to me to name a man to be elected as next president of the United States, I would have chosen Abraham Lincoln. I have promised out west that the state of New York will give him sixty thousand majority in November

Now, my friends, I wish to know what you can say for Erie county. What majority will Erie county give? [Twenty-five hundred out of the city of Buffalo.] Aye, you count majorities in the rural districts. That is right and safe too. It is very fortunate that, whatever may be the case with the population on the sidewalks, the rural districts are safe for freedom. Why, gentlemen, you couldn't take any man three months from Main street, out into the free, open country, without converting him from democracy and making him so that he would never think of voting for a democratic candidate, or a two-faced candidate, or a candidate with half-a-dozen principles. Well! we'll see what we can do with the cities this time. When the cities begin to find out that they are not going to rule the country, they will conclude, perhaps, that it is better that they agree with the country. It is very strange that Irishmen and Germans and Swedes, so long as they remain on the sidewalks, should wish to be ruled by men in the interest of the slave power. But you say, it is not so here. I have been west, and have seen foreigners there also who did not wish to be ruled by slaveholders. But I have already talked more than I had intended, and must stop. You wish to hear about Kansas? I will tell you. Whenever the city of Buffalo shall have come to be inhabited by one hundred thousand, or one hundred and nine thousand-which is just the

population of Kansas-as virtuous, as wise, as brave, as fearless as the one hundred and nine thousand of Kansas, there will be an end of the 'irrepressible conflict' here, as there is there"

Mr. Seward reached his home, in Auburn, on Saturday, October 6th, having been absent just five weeks. In a speech to his neighbors and fellow citizens of Auburn, on the 5th of November following, he says:

"I have been a wanderer of late. From our own laughing home here on the banks of the Owasco, to where the Green mountains cast their lengthened shadows over the Connecticut at Windsor. After a stay there too short for rest, but not for happiness, to the springs of the Penobscot. From the Penobscot escaping or breaking through nets set for me by not unfriendly hands, to renew my oath of fealty at the tombs of the elder and the younger Adams, at Quincy. From Massachusetts Bay across green hills and greener valleys, over the Hudson, across the Seneca, up and down the Genesee, and coasting the lakes of Ontario, Erie, Huron and Michigan, down the Illinois to its confluence with the Mississippi, up the shriveled river to where it breaks into rapids; and above them where the fountains which supply equally the St. Lawrence and the Mississippi, gush from the earth. Across Minnesota and Iowa, down to Nebraska and Kansas, where American civilization, on its verge, is scaling the Rocky mountains, and bringing forth their precious treasure of silver and gold; and thence back again with an eager returning spirit to the Metropolis where sits the soul that sends forth all the mighty energy of that civilization; and then by a hurried flight back again in the night to find my home leafless under the winds of autumn, but already gathering force to put forth a greener and broader foliage in the coming year.

"These are my travels. You will ask me 'what have you seen; what have you learned?' Rather, my friends, ask me what I have not seen, and what unknown, or but imperfectly understood before, I have not learned now and fully understand. I have seen a great nation, a greater nation than I saw last year, although then I traveled the Old World from the Dead sea to the pillars of Hercules; a greater nation than has existed in ancient or in modern times. I saw not only the country, its forests, its mountains, its rivers, its lakes, and its prairies, but I saw its people, men, women and children, many, many millions of every nation and of every derivation."

As the day of election approached it became evident that the result depended upon the vote of the state of New York. The October elections in Pennsylvania and Indiana indicated a republican triumph in November, unless the electoral vote of New York could be wrested from Lincoln. The whole contest, therefore, at once, centered upon the Empire State. The three branches of the opposition, the supporters of Douglas, Bell and Breckinridge, united upon one electoral ticket. The alarm of disunion was raised. The city VOL. IV.

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of New York was convulsed with a financial panic; and no efforts were spared to extend the alarm into all parts of the state. It was every where proclaimed that only the defeat of Lincoln could save the country from ruin. In this crisis, as heretofore, the people turned to Mr. Seward. He was pressed to speak in almost every county in the state. In one of his letters declining an invitation, he says:

"My friends will ultimately excuse the delinquency I am sure, when they reflect that since the 25th of November, 1858, I have had only eighty-five days, all told, for the occupations and duties of home, while I not only enjoy no exemption, but on the contrary have more than an ordinary burden of domestic cares and responsibilities."

He found time, however, to address immense assemblages at several places within the state. At the earnest request of the republicans of the city of New York, he visited that city a few days before the election, and spoke in Palace Garden, to one of the largest and most enthusiastic audiences ever seen in New York. His reception in the metropolis was flattering, indeed. At Binghamton, Fredonia, Seneca Falls, Lyons, and wherever he appeared, the people gathered to hear him, in unusual numbers.

On the night before the election, as it was his custom, he addressed the people of Auburn. His speech on this occasion, although partaking of the character of a familiar counsel with neighbors and friends, was full of his usual broad and statesmanlike views. It fittingly closed the great debate.'

The result of the election is too recent to need remark. Every free state gave its electoral vote for Abraham Lincoln, except New Jersey, which voted four for Lincoln, three for Douglas. The republican majority in the state of New York was over fifty thousand. In Michigan, Wisconsin and Minnesota, as in the New England states the opposition seemed to have abandoned the field. In Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois and Iowa the pluralities for Mr. Lincoln were unexpectedly large. Equally unexpected were the favorable results in Oregon and California. In the slave states nearly thirty thousand votes were cast in favor of Lincoln and Hamlin. As the tidings of the result spread over the free states, joyous

1 This speech, with those at New York, Seneca Falls, and other places, will be found in subsequent pages of this volume.

demonstrations, in almost every city and town, burst forth, spontaneously.

At Auburn the republicans celebrated the national triumph in an appropriate manner. The enthusiastic procession which paraded the streets, lighted up with fireworks and illuminations, called upon Mr. Seward. Gathering within his beautiful grounds in front of his house they insisted upon his addressing them. The demonstrations of secession, soon so flagrant, were just then revealing themselves. After a few humorous remarks in allusion to local incidents and the result of the election in their city and county,' he spoke as follows:

"FELLOW CITIZENS: You have a right to rejoice. I remember that I thought it an occasion for rejoicing when the good cause we now maintain carried one ward in the city, one or two, or three towns in the county, and the state of Vermont alone in the whole country. Who then will deny our right to rejoice now when it carries all the wards in the city, all the towns in the county, all the counties in the state where its argument is fairly heard, and practically all the states in the Union which allow in law and in fact, free speech, free debates, free mails, and free and universal suffrage. It is the earnest of its universal acceptance.

"But there is still greater reason to rejoice in the manner in which this success has been won. It is the verdict of the people for a principle-the republican principle-the true democratic principle of equal and exact justice to all men. It is a verdict rendered purely on conviction, without passion or interest. Not a republican vote in the United States has been procured through terror, not one by bribery or corruption. Nay, every vote has been given in resistance of intimidation and corruption. I do not charge that the fusion votes or other opposition votes were largely given under such appliances. But the record of the canvass remains, and bears its testimony that the main argument of those parties was their menace of disunion, and the last reliance was money at the polls. Who will now libel the American people? Who will deny their virtue?

"But this demonstration of yours has its meaning--its meaning in various relations. It recalls the past, and tells that the erroneous national policy of forty years has been retraced, reconsidered, reversed, condemned and renounced. Let, then, the passions and the prejudices be buried with the errors of the past. It bears on the future. It assures us that hereafter the policy of the country will be the development of its resources, the increase of its strength and its greatness, by the agencies of freedom and humanity. Dismiss we, then, the future, until some new election call you again to your council chambers, to renew your efforts in obedience to the principle that eternal vigilance is the tax we pay for enduring liberty.

The immediate question is the bearing of the occasion on the present. What is our present duty? It is simply that of magnanimity. We have learned, heretofore, the practice of patience under political defeat. It now remains to show

1 Cayuga county gave Mr. Lincoln 4,000 majority; and Auburn 450-an increase over any previous election. The gain in the state, from 1856, was nearly one hundred thousand.