Footnote 474: New York _Independent_, May 1, 1856, Letters from
Washington.]

[Footnote 475: James F. Rhodes, _History of the United States_, Vol.
2, p. 130.]

[Footnote 476: New York _Times_, April 9, 1856.]

[Footnote 477: F.W. Seward, _Life of W.H. Seward_, Vol. 2, p. 270.]

A month later, on the 19th and 20th of May, came the speech of Charles
Sumner, entitled "The Crime Against Kansas." Whittier called it "a
grand and terrible philippic." Sumner had read it to Senator and Mrs.
Seward, who advised the omission of certain personal allusions to
Senator Butler;[478] but he delivered it as he wrote it, and two days
later the country was startled by Preston S. Brooks' assault. The
North received this outrage with horror as the work of the slave
power. In public meetings, the people condemned it as a violation of
the freedom of speech and a blow at the personal safety of public men
having the courage to express their convictions. "The blows that fell
on the head of the Senator from Massachusetts," said Seward, "have
done more for the cause of human freedom in Kansas and in the
territories of the United States than all the eloquence which has
resounded in these halls since the days of Rufus King and John Quincy
Adams."[479] The events surrounding the assault--Brooks' resignation,
his unanimous re-election, his challenge to Burlingame, and his
refusal to fight in Canada--all tended to intensify Northern feeling.
Close upon the heels of this excitement came news from Kansas of the
burning of Lawrence, the destruction of Osawatomie, the sacking of
free-state printing offices, and the murder of Northern immigrants. To
complete the list of crimes against free speech and freedom, the
commander of a force of United States troops dispersed the Topeka
Legislature at the point of the bayonet.

[Footnote 478: Statement of William H. Seward, Jr., to the Author.]

[Footnote 479: This speech was made on June 24, 1856.]

This was the condition of affairs when the two great political parties
of the country assembled in national convention in June, 1856, to
select candidates for President and Vice President. At their state
convention, in January, to select delegates-at-large to Cincinnati,
the Softs had put themselves squarely in accord with the pro-slavery
wing of their party. They commended the administration of Pierce,
approved the Nebraska Act, and denounced as "treasonable" the Kansas
policy of the Republican party. This was a