position he had sought to sugar-coat
with much rhetoric, and, in reply, he pushed bloodshed into the
far-off future by restating what he had already declared in fine
phrases, closing as follows: "Does not the honourable senator know
that when all these [suggestions for compromise] have failed, then the
States of this Union, according to the forms of the Constitution,
shall take up this controversy about twenty-four negro slaves
scattered over a territory of one million and fifty thousand square
miles, and say whether they are willing to sacrifice all this liberty,
all this greatness, and all this hope, because they have not
intelligence, wisdom, and virtue enough to adjust a controversy so
frivolous and contemptible."[706]

[Footnote 706: W.H. Seward, _Works of_, Vol. 4, p. 670. _Congressional
Globe_, 1861, p. 657.]

Seward's speech plainly indicated a purpose to fight for the
preservation of the Union, and his talk of first exhausting
conciliatory methods was accepted in the South simply as a "resort to
the gentle powers of seduction,"[707] but his argument of the few
slaves in the great expanse of territory sounded so much like Weed,
who was advocating with renewed strength the Crittenden plan along
similar lines of devotion to the Union, that it kept alive in the
North the impression that the Senator would yet favour compromise, and
gave Greeley further opportunity to assail him. "Seward, in his speech
on Thursday last," says the _Tribune_, "declares his readiness to
renounce Republican principles for the sake of the Union."[708] The
next day his strictures were more pronounced. "The Republican party
... is to be divided and sacrificed if the thing can be done. We are
boldly told it must be suppressed, and a Union party rise upon its
ruins."[709] Yet, in spite of such criticism, Seward bore himself with
indomitable courage and with unfailing skill. Never during his whole
career did he prove more brilliant and resourceful as a leader in what
might be called an utterly hopeless parliamentary struggle for the
preservation of the Union, and the highest tributes[710] paid to his
never-failing tact and temper during some of the most vivid and
fascinating passages of congressional history, attest his success. It
was easy to say, with Senator Chandler of Michigan, that "without a
little blood-letting this Union will not be worth a rush,"[711] but it
required great skill to speak for the preservation of the Union and
the