f. "Protection is denied to your wool," he said,
"while it is freely given to their sugar." Then he pointed out how
slavery had grasped the territories as each one presented itself for
admission into the Union--Kentucky, Tennessee, Mississippi, and
Alabama, almost at the very outset of the national career; then
Florida, when acquired from Spain; then as much of the Louisiana
Purchase as possible; then Texas and the territory acquired from
Mexico--all the while deluding the North with the specious pretence
that each successive seizure of free soil was a "compromise" and a
final settlement of the slavery question. This opened the way to the
matter in hand--how to meet slavery's aggressiveness. "Shall we take
the American party?" he asked. "It stifles its voice, and suppresses
your own free speech, lest it may be overheard beyond the Potomac. In
the slave-holding States it justifies all wrongs committed against
you. Shall we unite ourselves to the Democratic party? If so, to
which faction? The Hards who are so stern in defending the
aggressions, and in rebuking the Administration through whose agency
they are committed? or the Softs who protest against the aggressions,
while they sustain and invigorate the Administration? What is it but
the same party which has led in the commission of all those
aggressions, and claims exclusively the political benefits? Shall we
report ourselves to the Whig party? Where is it? It was a strong and
vigorous party, honourable for energy, noble achievement, and still
more noble enterprises. It was moved by panics and fears to emulate
the Democratic party in its practised subserviency; and it yielded in
spite of your remonstrances, and of mine, and now there is neither
Whig party nor Whig south of the Potomac. Let, then, the Whig party
pass. It committed a grievous fault, and grievously hath it answered
it. Let it march off the field, therefore, with all the honours....
The Republican organisation has laid a new, sound, and liberal
platform. Its principles are equal and exact justice; its speech open,
decided, and frank. Its banner is untorn in former battles, and
unsullied by past errors. That is the party for us."[463]

[Footnote 463: F.W. Seward, _Life of W.H. Seward_, Vol. 2, p. 256. For
full speech, see _Seward's Works_, Vol. 4, p. 225.]

When the meeting ended the people went out satisfied. The smallness of
the audience had been forgotten in the clear, homely arguments, and in
the glow