Presidential Candidates:. David W. Bartlett

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СКАЧАТЬ States and the civilized world. Aiding a slave to escape from his master, in his opinion, was no crime, and he did not feel it to be his duty to surrender the accused. A long controversy was the result of this bold decision, and retaliatory measures were tried by the State of Virginia, but Governor Seward remained firm to the end.

      In 1847, Mr. Seward defended John Van Zandt, who was accused of aiding the escape of slaves from their master, at the bar of the Supreme Court of the United States. It was one of the most eloquent arguments he ever made, and he would not accept of a dollar's compensation for his great effort.

      While riding once upon the banks of the beautiful Owasco Lake, the friend who was with us, pointed out a pleasant farmhouse as the scene, a few years before, of a terrible murder, and not far distant, in a lonely churchyard, we saw the graves of the victims. A negro of the name of William Freeman, at the age of sixteen, was sent to the State Prison for five years, for alleged horse-stealing. He declared his innocence of the charge, and it has since been admitted by those who tried him, that he was doubtless an innocent man; but, through the false swearing of the real thief, he was sent to prison. The injustice of his punishment, coupled with barbarous treatment while in prison, resulted in an idiotic insanity, and when, at last, he was set free, his term of imprisonment having expired, he went forth an idiot – a lunatic – with but one idea in his brain – that the outside world had most foully wronged him.

      One night, without a spark of provocation, this wretched negro entered the house of a Mr. Van Nest and killed him, his wife, a child, and his mother, a woman of seventy. He was arrested the next day, and such was the terrible state of excitement in and around Auburn, that it was with great difficulty that the people were restrained from hanging the culprit up to the most convenient tree. The negro, idiot that he was, confessed the murder and laughed over it. This enraged the people still more, and they clamored for his blood. Seward had acquired much popularity in his arguments in criminal cases, and his neighbors became at once alarmed for fear he would defend the negro. He was absent then at the South, and such was the frantic state of the people of Auburn that his law-partners announced that he would not defend the case. But Mr. Seward was his own master still, and though he saw what the feeling was, and that the negro was sure to be brought in guilty, yet as the miserable man was friendless, he examined most carefully into the case and came to the deliberate conclusion that Freeman was insane. Hoping that other counsel would appear, he did not offer his services. The day of trial came, and the villagers hoped that no lawyer dared to defend the criminal. The indictment was read against him, and he was asked if he plead guilty or not guilty. The only reply he made was "Ha!" He was asked if he had counsel – "he didn't know." The poor wretch had no idea of what was transpiring, that he was upon his trial for life. At this juncture, Mr. Seward, who was present, was entirely overcome by his feelings, but he in a moment answered:

      "May it please the court: I shall remain counsel for the prisoner until his death." For two weeks, in the hottest of weather, he conducted the defence, without pay. He was subjected to insult from some of his old friends, and the feeling of the town was strongly against him. The well known John Van Buren was the District Attorney, and with the predetermination of the jury, of course a verdict of "guilty," was rendered. Mr. Seward's argument was one of the finest he ever made. Alluding to the unpopularity which he had brought upon himself by his course, he said:

      "In due time, gentlemen of the jury, when I shall have paid the debt of nature, my remains will rest here in your midst with those of my kindred and neighbors. It is very possible they may be unhonored, neglected, spurned! But perhaps years hence, when the passion and excitement which now agitate this community shall have passed away – some wandering stranger – some lone exile – some Indian, some negro, may erect over them a humble stone, and thereon write this epitaph, 'He was faithful.'"

      An Appellate Court granted a new trial, but before it came on the criminal died. A post mortem examination revealed the fact that his brain was one mass of disease, and nearly destroyed! Mr. Seward was suddenly and unexpectedly set right again before the people, and was restored to the old place in their affections.

      We have noticed this portion of Mr. Seward's life because it effectually disposes of that cry raised against him by certain persons, that he is a demagogue. No demagogue defends the poor and forsaken, at the expense of personal popularity. He flatters the prejudices of the people and does not go across them to his own injury.

      Mr. Seward was elected, in 1849, to the Senate of the United States, where he has remained to this day. His course is everywhere known. He was a Whig, and is of course warmly in favor of a Protective Tariff and other prominent Whig measures, though he subordinates them all to the great question of Human Freedom.

      As a Whig, Mr. Seward was the friend of the slave. He opposed the famous compromise measures of 1850, struggled against the repeal of the Missouri Compromise – came slowly into the Republican movement, but when once in it, no man could excel him, and few equal, in hearty devotion to the party and its cause. From the first, he condemned the great American movement, and has lost popularity in some quarters for doing so. He is in favor of internal improvements and a homestead law, as his votes will show. He objects to any hasty, irritating attempts to buy or take Cuba – no insults – let everything be done fairly and gentlemanly; and, if the pear drops to the ground ripe, eat the fruit. But no fruit-stealing, or buying at ruinous prices!

      A friend of Mr. Seward speaks of Mr. Seward's style in the following language:

      "His rapid idealization, his oriental affluence, though not vagueness of expression, and the Ciceronian flow of his language, proceeding not from the heat of youth or the vapors of wine, but from the exceeding fertility of his imagination, combine to render him an interesting speaker. Yet his enunciation is neither clear nor distinct, and the tones of his voice often grate harshly upon the ear. He is not devoid of grace, however; he is calm and dignified, but earnest.

      "His style is elegant rather than neat; elaborate rather than finished. It possesses a sparkling vivacity, but is somewhat deficient in energetic brevity. It is not always easy, for there is more labor than art; but if the wine has an agreeable bouquet, the connoisseur delights to have it linger. Like young D'Israeli, whose political position, in some respects, resembles his own, he has occasionally a tendency to restore declamation, a natural predilection perhaps for Milesian floridness and hyperbole, and, like Napoleon, a love for gorgeous paradoxes. But, in general, his words are well-chosen and are frequently more eloquent than the ideas. His sentences are all constructed with taste; they have often the brilliancy of Mirabeau, and the glowing fervor of Fox."

      We must notice a few quotations from a very few of Mr. Seward's most prominent speeches. At Detroit, Oct. 2, 1856, he spoke upon "The Slaveholding Class," to a mass convention, in which he first argued that the aggrandizement of the slaveholding class, to the detriment of the rest of the people of the country, is a perversion of the Constitution. He then, in a masterly style, gave a sketch of the condition of the country – showed the organization of the courts, of Congress, of the departments – all – all entirely in the control of the slaveholding class – and closed with the subjoined paragraphs:

      "Mark, if you please, that thus far I have only shown you the mere governmental organization of the slaveholding class in the United States, and pointed out its badges of supremacy, suggestive of your own debasement and humiliation. Contemplate now the reality of the power of that class, and the condition to which the cause of human nature has been reduced. In all the free States, the slaveholder argues and debates the pretensions of his class, and even prosecutes his claim for his slave before the delegate of the Federal Government, with safety and boldness, as he ought. He exhorts the citizens of the free States to acquiesce, and even threatens them, in their very homes, with the terrors of disunion, if that acquiescence is withheld; and he does all this with safety, as he ought, if it be done at all. He is listened to with patience, and replied to with decorum, even in his most arrogant declamations, in the halls of Congress. Through the effective sympathy of other property classes, the slaveholding power maintains with entire safety СКАЧАТЬ