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In sentiment, motive, and civilization the two "Sections" were as far
apart as the poles. New England, Puritan, Roundhead civilization could
not fellowship the Cavaliers of the South. There were not only two
sections and two political parties in the United States;--there were
two antagonistic governmental ideas. John C. Calhoun and Alexander H.
Stephens, of the South, represented the idea of the separate and
individual sovereignty of each of the States; while William H. Seward
and Abraham Lincoln, of the North, represented the idea of the
centralization of governmental authority, so far as it was necessary
to secure uniformity of the laws, and the supremacy of the Federal
Constitution. On the 25th of October, 1858, in a speech delivered in
Rochester, N. Y., William H. Seward said:

"Our country is a theatre which exhibits, in full operation, two
radically different political systems: the one resting on the
basis of servile or slave labor; the other on the basis of
voluntary labor of freemen.

* * * * *

"The two systems are at once perceived to be incongruous. They
never have permanently existed together in one country, and they
never can.

... "These antagonistic systems are continually coming in closer
contact, and collision ensues.

"Shall I tell you what this collision means? It is an
irrepressible conflict between opposing and enduring forces, and
it means that the United States must, and will, sooner or later,
become entirely a slave-holding nation, or entirely a free labor
nation. Either the cotton and rice fields of South Carolina, and
the sugar plantations of Louisiana, will ultimately be tilled by
free-labor, and Charleston and New Orleans become marts for
legitimate merchandise alone, or else the rye fields and wheat
fields of Massachusetts and New York must again be surrendered by
their farmers to the slave culture and to the production of
slaves, and Boston and New York become once more markets for
trade in the bodies and souls of men."

Upon the eve of the great Rebellion, Mr. Seward said in the United
States Senate:

"A free Republican government like this, notwithstanding all its
constitutional checks, cannot long resist and counteract the
progress of society.

"Free labor has at last apprehended its rights and