From Detroit, Mr. Seward went to Lansing, the capital of the state. At Pontiac, Owosso, and St. Johns, on the route, the people came together in great numbers to greet him. At De Witt he was met by a cavalcade of wide-awakes and citizens, who escorted him into Lansing. As the procession, with music and banners, entered the city, it presented a highly imposing appearance. The citizens had assembled in front of the capitol, awaiting the arrival of their guest. Mr. Seward was there met by the committee of reception, and welcomed to the city. In reply to an eloquent address' from J. M. Longyear, the chairman of the committee, Mr. Seward said:

"That his errand at Lansing was not wholly that of a politician-that he had come among them well knowing that the access must be through a new country. and over rough roads, to enjoy in part the pleasure of looking upon a city, now in its beginning, the capital of a flourishing state, which, within the lives of his children, was destined to become a populous and powerful metropolis. He saw around him the elements and assurances of its growth and ultimate greatness, and he felt that his time had not been wasted, nor his labor lost, in making this visit; he hoped the citizens of Lansing, of all parties, for that day might look upon him as a private man, their personal friend, their invited guest-to-morrow would be soon enough for them to regard him as the politician, or for him to employ his time in talking upon political matters.

In reply to the reminiscence of Mr. Longyear, in reference to Gov. Seward's reception of John Quincy Adams under similar circumstances, Mr. Seward said: "I had arisen that morning at five o'clock, and I found Mr. Adams already up and writing. He asked me who was to address him that day. I answered that that duty had been assigned to me. He said that it would be a favor to him if I could show him the address I proposed to make. I repaired to my library, and having hastily written my speech, I returned and gave the manuscript to him. The 'old man eloquent' read it over by himself; then, handing it back to me, he said: 'Ah, Governor Seward, seeing your speech only increases my embarrassment. I cannot answer that speech.' You will not hesitate to believe me," said Mr. Seward, "when I confess that now, when you have applied the address to myself, I find it, as my own speech, unanswerable, as John Quincy Adams did when it was submitted to him." "

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The next day, the population of that new region gathered to welcome him. Mr. Seward addressed them at length, but only a sketch of his speech has been preserved. He said:

"I know errors, but not enemies. I shall, therefore, speak of principles, and not of men. While you think I have come here to instruct you, I have, in fact, come to complete my own education. I wanted to see for myself how an

American state is planted, organized, perfected-a vigorous American state. I see it all now, and here, before me.

"The founders of Michigan were not all of one state or country, but of many states and countries. They came from Vermont and New York, Virginia and South Carolina, and other American states, as well as from England, Ireland, Holland, Norway, and other European countries. They were of various religious faiths, and of many differing political habits and opinions. The immigrants from Europe were voluntary citizens, not native citizens, like those who came from American states. They, of course, all were free, for only freemen can emigrate. This is just what would have occurred in every state now in this Union, and what must be the case in every state hereafter to come in, if the natural course of events were not, and should not, be overruled by government. But powers foreign from this continent, although ruling in it early, employed themselves in distracting and defeating that natural course of things. Spain, Great Britain and France extended their sway over different parts of the continent, and established aristoracies which were only removed by revolutions. When that political phase had passed away, it left many of the states slave states. Boston and New York continued busily plying the African slave trade. African slavery being thus established and continually enlarged, voluntary white free emigration practically ceased. The states afterwards divided on the two systems of slavery and of freedom. Some have preferred to retain the former. Its consequences are seen in exhausted soils, sickly states, and fretful and discontented peoples. You have chosen the wiser and better system. My policy-that policy which I have maintained so strenuously and, strange to say, through so much opposition-that policy which I have come to commend to your favor-is your own policy of freedom, instead of slavery, as the basis of all future states to be formed on the American continent and admitted into the Union. It is not only most conducive to the general welfare, but is the most conducive to the public safety and virtue. What does a great free state on this continent need a standing army and a navy for? It has no enemies abroad. It can have no enemies within its own borders. Is not our present army (excepting its temporary office of holding the predatory Indian tribes under constraint) chiefly kept up, with our navy, for the protection of the slave states in possible emergencies? Granting its necessity for that purpose, may I not, as a statesman as well as patriot, say I want no increase of army and navy rendered necessary by increasing the area of human bondage?

"How simple, then, and yet how wise and how felicitous, is the policy of the republican party. All it proposes is that all future states shall be just such free, enlightened, contented, and prosperous states, as Michigan is; and, further, that they shall be made so exactly as Michigan was made such a state. That process is to keep slavery out of the territory while it is a territory, and then it must and will be a free state when it comes to be a state. Let everybody go into a new territory who will, be he native or foreign born. Let nobody be carried by force into a new territory, be he white or black, native or imported from Africa or other tropical or oriental climes. If no slaves are ever carried there, no slaves can ever be born there. To say nothing of the condition of the slaves, are the white men politically equal in a slaveholding state? What is the condition of the non-slaveholding white man in a slave state, contrasted with the slaveholder? Let the codes and politics of the slave states show. Let the great emigration of the non

slaveholding white men to newer regions, while the slaveholder remains in the native state of both, answer

'Many of you profess to accept this policy, and yet refuse to join the one party that maintains it. The Breckinridge party stand on a platform directly opposite. You will not, of course, support that. But the Douglas party, you think, will do, because it offers popular sovereignty in the territories, so that the people there are, at least, left free to choose freedom. If, indeed, a fair trial could be guaranteed, it might, perhaps, be well enough. But what the prospects of a fair trial for freedom under the auspices of a democratic administration are, let the history of oppressed, harassed, and still ostracised Kansas, answer. The Douglas popular sovereignty creed, moreover, must be taken together with the Dred Scott decree of the supreme court, which, if it be allowed to have the virtue of a decree, declares that slavery is the constitutional condition of the territories of the United States, unchangeable by any popular sovereignty within them, or even by the national authority without. The Douglas creed assumes that slavery and freedom are equally just and wise, or, at least, that there is no public interest and no moral right involved in the contest between them. Slavery will never be shut out of a territory by those who are indifferent whether it is voted up or voted down. The republican party, on the contrary, entertain a conscientious conviction that slavery is wrong, and, acting on that conviction, they, and they alone, will save the territories from its blight, and so make sure that they become ultimately free states."

The occasion brought out a grand republican display and mass meeting. The people from all the surrounding country came, in unprecedented numbers. In the immense procession, which formed a part of the ceremonies, were the faculty and students of the state agricultural college, with appropriate emblems. They presented to Mr. Seward the following address, which was said to be the expression of the public sentiment of Michigan:

"In common with the young men of Michigan, we take pride in welcoming you to our state. We have learned to admire you for your talents, love you for your devotion to the cause of truth and humanity, and look to you for instruction in the great principles of civil liberty and equal rights.

We believe in a 'higher law;' we believe that slavery and freedom are incompatible, and that the conflict must be 'irrepressible' so long as they are elements of the same government. We believe that right must finally triumph; that oppression must cease, and we look to the success of republican principles to restore our government to its original purity and foster the true spirit of national prosperity

"We take pleasure in addressing you from the halls of the first State Agricultural College in our land, and as a champion of human progress you cannot fail to be an earnest and sincere friend to the cause of education. We should have re joiced to labor to secure your election to the chief magistracy of the nation, but we honor you none the less as the great expounder of the rights of man, and

!

while, in the past, you have presented so clearly before our minds the truths which are at the foundation of every just and stable government, may you be spared many years to bless our common country with your counsels and efforts for the good of the race. Be assured that you live in the hearts of the freedom-loving young men of America." a."(

In the evening, Mr. Seward was serenaded by a German band, attended by a brilliant parade of wide-awakes.

Mr. Seward's next appointment was at Kalamazoo. Proceeding there by private conveyance, he received at Jackson and other places on the road the hearty salutations of the people. His stay in Kalamazoo was necessarily brief. A meeting had been called, which, notwithstanding a heavy rain, was large and full of enthusiasm. He spoke substantially as follows:

"FELLOW CITIZENS: I am here in obedience to the command of the people of Michigan, and yet I am inclined to think that your commands and my compliance were a great mistake. You summoned me here because you thought that your courage or your patience were flagging in the cause of freedom, and yet at every step of my progress from the time that I landed at Detroit, I have found nothing but enthusiasm unexampled and unanimity unsurpassed. I have not long to speak to you, and I will tell you why I want to go to Kansas. I want to go to Kansas before I die; I want to see the Saratoga in the cause of freedom. I am on my way there now, and unless I leave at half-past two I shall fail of that purpose. Have I your leave to go? [Aye, Aye, go to Kansas.] Thank you friends; I know how to win your consent.' After paying a handsome compliment to the wide-awakes, Mr. S. proceeded: "I have been much affected by the kind and cordial greetings of my old democratic friends and neighbors, emigrants from the banks of the Cayuga, the Seneca, and the Genesee. But I am struck with the fact, that while they have lost none of their kindness or respect for me, they yet seem to persevere in a hopeless, desperate, useless, unworthy cause.

"There is indeed no end to their kindness to an old friend when he comes among them. I thank them with all my heart. Nevertheless, I confess that it excites my sorrow and sympathy to see so many, and such good men, wasting themselves in a cause which can neither bring them nor their country safety, honor or renown. "I meet them on the by-ways and pathways and in an honest, outspoken, hearty manner, they greet me, as they pass, with 'Hurrah for Douglas!' I think that nearly every Douglas man in town has come to tender me his hand, and to express at the same time his determination to vote for Douglas.

Well, now, fellow citizens, it is honorable to Mr. Douglas that he has such friends, and honorable to them that they persevere in their fidelity to him. Still, it is not wise for mere personal attachments or pride of consistency, to waste our votes, because every vote tells, or ought to tell, on the happiness, the honor and the prosperity of the country for centuries to come.

"Of the four candidates in the field, the only man who, in any possible case, and after every combination, cannot be elected president of the United States, is VOL. IV.

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my excellent friend Stephen A. Douglas; because every vote given for him in the north is a vote for Breckinridge, and every vote given for him in the south is a vote for Lincoln or for Bell, to be counted in the canvass. If you ask your own heart, or inquire of your neighbor, you will find the reason why you republicans are going to vote for Abraham Lincoln, is simply and exclusively because he is, as you understand it, the representative of human liberty. If you go to the south, the great question is brought by the irrepressible conflict of debate to the issue between freedom and slavery, and every man in the south is going to vote, not for Lincoln and liberty, but for the man who can most effectually protect, defend and extend human slavery! On that great issue the republican party occupies the side of liberty, while the democratic party no side, or, if any, the side of slavery. The democratic party is indeed divided into two, one holding that slavery is right, and the other attempting to compromise, and saying that they are indifferent whether it is voted up or voted down. Indifference to liberty is toleration of slavery. There is no neutrality of this kind practicable now. When this election shall have closed you will find this out, because you will then find that the only other man in the universe who was further from the presidency than Mr. Douglas was the man in the moon."

On leaving Kalamazoo, Mr. Seward learned that the steamboat Lady Elgin, with nearly three hundred passengers on board, had been lost the night before, on lake Michigan, on her way from Chicago to Milwaukee. This sad event cast a deep gloom over those two cities, whose citizens were engaged in inquiries and searches for the dead. Mr. Seward, with his party, passed through Chicago, avoiding all observation, and arrived in Milwaukee on the evening of the eighth. In consequence of the melancholy disaster, he declined to deliver any speech, or to allow any demonstration whatever to be made, or even to receive any public visits, during his stay in the city. He remained quietly, at a private house, until Tuesday morning, when he proceeded to Madison, the capital of Wisconsin.

At Madison, a reception more flattering, if possible, than any he had yet met, awaited him. Without distinction of party the authorities of the state, the authorities of the city, the military, the fire department and the civic societies met him and escorted him from the cars to his lodgings. Governor Randall, on the part of the state, and Chauncey Abbott for the city, in brief but eloquent speeches,' welcomed his appearance among them. The following remarks by Mr. Seward, in response, were uttered with deep feeling. The sentiments he then uttered, the essence of his political philosophy, were received with a

1 See Appendix.