ity, and is, therefore, organised, defensive, active, and
perpetually aggressive. Freedom insists on the emancipation and
elevation of labour. Slavery demands a soil moistened with tears and
blood. These elements divide and classify the American people into two
parties. Each of these parties has its court and sceptre. The throne
of the one is amid the rocks of the Allegheny Mountains; the throne of
the other is reared on the sands of South Carolina. One of these
parties, the party of slavery, regards disunion as among the means of
defence and not always the last to be employed. The other maintains
the Union of the States, one and inseparable, now and forever, as the
highest duty of the American people to themselves, to posterity, to
mankind. It is written in the Constitution that five slaves shall
count equal to three freemen as a basis of representation, and it is
written also, in violation of the Divine Law, that we shall surrender
the fugitive slave who takes refuge at our fireside from his
relentless pursuers. 'What, then,' you say; 'can nothing be done for
freedom because the public conscience is inert?' Yes, much can be
done--everything can be done. Slavery can be limited to its present
bounds; it can be ameliorated; it can and must be abolished, and you
and I can and must do it."[383]

[Footnote 383: F.W. Seward, _Life of W.H. Seward_, Vol. 2, p. 86.]

This presented an epitome of Seward's views when spoken without
restraint. His friends thought them "bold" and his opponents denounced
them as "most perverse and dogmatic," but, whether bold or perverse,
he devoted the chief part of every speech to them. He was not without
humour, man's highest gift, but he had more of humanity; he spoke
seriously and solemnly, usually to grave, sober, reflecting men of all
professions and parties; and, at the end of two hours, dismissed them
as if from an evening church service. At Boston, a Whig member of
Congress from Illinois spoke with him, principally upon the
maladministration of the Democrats and the inconsistencies of Lewis
Cass. After the meeting, while sitting in their hotel, the
congressman, with a thoughtful air, said to Seward: "I have been
thinking about what you said in your speech to-night. I reckon you are
right. We have got to deal with this slavery question, and got to give
much more attention to it hereafter than we have been doing."[384]
This was Seward's first meeting with Abraham Lincoln. The former was
th