sses were made in New York alone, and that the
number in the country equalled all that had been made in previous
presidential canvasses since 1789. It is likewise true that at no time
in the history of the State did so many distinguished men take part in
a campaign. Though the clergy were not so obtrusive as in 1856, Henry
Ward Beecher and Edwin H. Chapin, the eminent Universalist, did not
hesitate to deliver political sermons from their pulpits, closing
their campaign on the Sunday evening before election.

But the New Yorker whom the Republican masses most desired to hear and
see was William H. Seward. Accordingly, in the latter part of August
he started on a five weeks' tour through the Western States, beginning
at Detroit and closing at Cleveland. At every point where train or
steamboat stopped, if only for fifteen minutes, thousands of people
awaited his coming. The day he spoke in Chicago, it was estimated that
two hundred thousand visitors came to that city. Rhodes suggests that
"it was then he reached the climax of his career."[584]

[Footnote 584: "Seward filled the minds of Republicans, attracting
such attention and honour, and arousing such enthusiasm, that the
closing months of the campaign were the most brilliant epoch of his
life. It was then he reached the climax of his career."--James F.
Rhodes, _History of the United States_, Vol. 2, p. 493.]

Seward's speeches contained nothing new, and in substance they
resembled one another. But in freshness of thought and kaleidoscopic
phraseology, they were attractive, full of eloquence, and of
statesmanlike comment, lifting the campaign, then just opening, upon
a high plane of political and moral patriotism. He avoided all
personalities; he indicated no disappointment;[585] his praise of
Lincoln was in excellent taste; and without evasion or concealment,
but with a ripeness of experience that had mellowed and enlightened
him, he talked of "higher law" and the "irrepressible conflict" in
terms that made men welcome rather than fear their discussion. "Let
this battle be decided in favour of freedom in the territories," he
declared, "and not one slave will ever be carried into the territories
of the United States, and that will end the irrepressible
conflict."[586]

[Footnote 585: "Seward charged his defeat chiefly to Greeley. He felt
toward that influential editor as much vindictiveness as was possible
in a man of so amiable a nature. But he did not retire to hi