de such an impression on his first
appeal to a New York audience. He is one of Nature's orators."[512]

[Footnote 512: New York _Tribune_, March 1, 1860.]

Two days later, Seward addressed the United States Senate. There is no
evidence that he fixed this date because of the Cooper Institute
lecture. The gravity of the political situation demanded some
expression from him; but the knowledge of the time of Lincoln's speech
gave him ample opportunity to arrange to follow it with one of his
own, if he wished to have the last word, or to institute a comparison
of their respective views on the eve of the national convention.
However this may be, Seward regarded his utterances on this occasion
of the utmost importance. He was the special object of Southern
vituperation. A "Fire-Eater" of the South publicly advertised that he
would be one of one hundred "gentlemen" to give twenty-five dollars
each for the heads of Horace Greeley, Henry Ward Beecher, and forty
other prominent Northern leaders in and out of Congress, but for the
head of Seward his proposed subscription was multiplied twenty fold.
It is noticeable that in this long list of "traitors" the name of
Abraham Lincoln does not appear. It was Seward whom the South expected
the Republican party would nominate for President, and in him it saw
the narrow-minded, selfish, obstinate Abolitionist who hated them as
intensely as they despised him. To dispossess the Southern mind of
this feeling the Auburn statesman now endeavoured to show that if
elected President he would not treat the South unfriendly.

Seward's speech bears evidence of careful preparation. It was not only
read to friends for criticism, but Henry B. Stanton, in his _Random
Recollections_, says that Seward, before the day of its delivery,
assisted him in describing such a scene in the Senate as he desired
laid before the public. On his return to Washington, Seward had not
been received with a show of friendship by his associates from the
South. It was remarked that while Republican senators greeted him
warmly, "his Southern friends were afraid to be seen talking to him."
On the occasion of his speech, however, he wished the record to show
every senator in his place and deeply interested.

Visitors to the Senate on the 29th of February crowded every available
spot in the galleries. "But it was on the floor itself," wrote Stanton
to the _Tribune_, "that the most interesting spectacle presented
itself. Every se