Rensselaer Union, Volume 2, Number 7, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 11 November 1869 — A Defense of Mr. Seward. [ARTICLE]

A Defense of Mr. Seward.

BY REV. H. W. BELLOWS. It certainly was a very original and bold thing for so great and so old a statesman as Mr. Seward) after eight years at the, helm of the State in its stormiest weather, and tnirty years of strenuous, anxious political life, in the Empire State and the nation, to retire from office, not into the repose of his beloved home at Auburn, nor into the soft and open arms of an idle fonign life, as most weary statesmen do, in all countries, but Me undertake, at the natural term -of human life, a trans continental journey of some thousands of miles, and to penetrate the least known portions’of our vast empire. It shows a persistency of purpose, an intensity of interest, a thirst for information, and a desire for usefulness, most creditable to this great servant of the State. It indicates, too, that love of countrv which no ingratitude or forgetfulness of his co temporaries seems to impair. No man alive in America has done as much lor it as Mr. Seward, either at home or abroad. He fought the dragon of slavery hi the Senate, almost single-handed, and slew it with his sword, while others ran off with the reputation of it. He led the Republican party, and was its real front and brains, when Mr. Lincoln was cruelly quit over his head in the nomination at Chicagoan event overruled by a gracious Providence. to our good, but none the less treacherous and ungrateful to Mr. Seward at the time. He bore the disappointment with gay and unmurmuring fortitude, and became Mr. Lincolri’s own chiefest friend and supporter. He stayed in office (bin unpardonable offense !) under Andrew Johnson, for what common sense and charity require us to believe were disinterested motives—to guide the ship of State, and keep the new President, untried but suspected, from wrecking the national vessel; to perfect his own great policy, and reap the fruits of his miraculous skill and toils, in preventing England and France from coming to the aid of the Rebellion at' a period when, for a short time, it had strength enough to imperil our very existence, even when unrecognized and unassisted. And because his calm, far-seeing, passionless mind could not unite in all the liasty, tentative processes of Congress and public opinion, his great, unequalled services were forgotten, and only his independent yet cautious course remembered against him ! No ingratitude like this has’ever before impugned .the justice and discrimination of the American people. If Mr. Seward had weakly desired to bring into contrast the neglect and misappreciation of IjlK own countrymen with the homw and applause of Other nations, he would have gone st raigbt from this place in the American Cabinet to London, Paris, Berlin, where unexampled attentions, profound respect and public admiration have long awaited him, ami wkene the lofty appreciation of his diplonfauc peers would have attestedhisexalted rank as a statesman and his claims on the love and honor of his own country. But Mr. Seward is too wise and too patient a man to take any such hasty revenge upon the insensibility of his cptemporaries. He quietly and securely waits for the smoke and dust of the late awful commotion to subside. His record is made, Iris services have been rendered, and his work is too largely and inextricably wrought in with the history of the last thirty years of. our American life, to make it possible for posterity to overlook it, or, for more than one generation, to misjudge or underrate it. H WM wise in Mr. Seward, in choosing his route (for no statesman can afford to be < more popular in foreign countries than in,' his own) to shun the ovations of England! and the courts of the Continent. Just as, John Bright is too prudent and too jealous’ of his important influence in England, to come to the United States and be borne on, the shoulders of oui democracy from State to State as a Tribune of the people -al triumph which would cost him dear hdme—eo Mr. Seward seeks Alaska, .ad California, and Oregon, distant pdt wof his own-country, as the acene of his la'zori] ous relaxation, instead of offering himself to the homage of the foreign statesmen he| had enlightened or baffled, and the great nations whose fury, be has restrained or turned into mild hesitation snlaavipg

We have not so many great men and great statesmen left in America that we can well afford to cheapen or neglect the greatest of them all. Let the soHtiservices of Mr. Seward in the Senate of the United States be weighed against those of any man who ever sat in it, and- they would not mount in the balance. He ,was tta mouth-piece of the Constitutional enemies of slavery ; their tongue and sword ! Within the strict boundaries of Constitutional obliention he contended against the extension of Slavery, and practically defeated iff and his .great, brave, calm, prudent, consistent speeches On this subject in the Senate, foe twelve years, Toftn the chief. b|dy of the permanent argument and eloquence of the nation against that gigantic Wil. ' . »" » • • • • It is pleasant to see distance doing something of the work of time for our late iTime Minister, (hi the Pacific coast he his received a welcome and enjoyed a favor long, dqqied him on the AUaiUie shore. Tnc pboplc there arc not t mined aMiliticians and Congressmen in all their owics and hatreds, and they have spoken out their natural feeling of admiration and gratitude towards Mr. lancoln's fijend and Mr. Johnson’s check, the pilot tlrough the war, and the great coast guard tint kept England and France from breaking our blockade and coining to the rescue of our enemy. Here in the North and West, our newspapers have long preserved either an omib ous silt nee or a painful cqld shoulder towards Mr. Seward. ]He left his eight years’ post of uncx ampled labor and success at the Helm of the State with as little public notice as the fauancat saijor in our uniform gets on landing from hit cruise. No banquets, no receptions for him in his native State, and the city he had honored by representing in the Senate; no applauding notices of his speeches; no mention of his services. If he had gone over to tjw enemy, which nearly succeeded in assassinating him aabclnfe, with Mr. Lincoln, their most able foe, he could bardly have been more ignored and neglected Wdchoosoto put on record ouy t<<al dissqnt from -this ungrateful, sfliort-sigfiterf and mcaif-spirited courseflriWards Mr. Seward, mid it is all the more a matter of duty and honor because so few irijl be found to agree with us. , ... . .... .