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1 William H. Seward, The Irrepressible Conflict: A Speech by William H. Seward, Delivered at Rochester, Monday Oct. 25, 1858 1 (1860)

handle is hein.slavery/irrconflt0001 and id is 1 raw text is: '-4he Irrepressible 6onfuf WILLIAM H. SEWARD, DELIVERED AT ROCHESTER, MOINDAY. OCT 25, 1858. FELLOW-CITIZENS: The unmistakable out- brepks of zeal which occur all around me, show thfit you are earnest men-and such a man am [. Let us therefore, at least for a time, pass by all secondary and collateral questions, whether of a personal or of a general nature, and consider the main subject of the present canvass. The Democratic party-or, to speak more accurately-the party which wears that attractive name, is in possession of the Federal Government. The Republicans propose to dis- lodge that party, and dismiss it from its high trust. The main subject, then, is, whether the De- mocratic party deserves to retain the confi- dence of the American People. In attempting to prove it unworthy, I think that I am 'not actuated by prejudices against that party, or by prepossessions in favor of its adversary; for [ have learned, by some experience, that vir- ue and patriotism, vice and selfishness, are round in all parties, and that they differ less in bheir motives than in the policies they pursue. Our country is a theatre, which exhibits, in rull operation, two radically different political 3ystems ; the one resting on the basis of servile Dr slave labor, the other on the basis of volun- Lary labor of freemen. The laborers who are enslaved are all ne- groes, or persons more or less purely of Afri- can derivation. But this is only accidental. The principle of the system is, that labor in every society, by whomsoever performed, is necessarily unintellectual, grovelling and base; and that the laborer, equally for his own good and for the welfare of the State, ought to be enslaved. The white laboring man, whether native or foreigner, is not enslaved, only be- cause he cannot, as yet, be reduced to bon- dage. You need not be told now that the slave system is the older of the two, and that once it was universal. The emancipation of our own ancestors, Caucasians and Europeans as they were, hardly dates beyond a period of five hundred years. The great melioration of human society which modern times exhibit, is mainly due to the incomplete substitution of the system of volun- tary labor for the old one of servile labor, which has already taken place. This African slave system is one which, in its origin and in its growth, has been altogether foreign from the habit's of the races which colonized these States, and established civilization here. It was introduced on this new continent as an engine of conquest, and for the establishment of monarchical power, by the Portuguese and the Spaniards, and was rapidly extended by them~all over South America, Central Ame- rica, Louisiana, and Mexico. Its legitimate fruits are seen in the poverty, imbecility, and anarchy, which now pervade all Portuguese and Spanish America. The free-labor system is of German extraction, and it was establish- ed in our country by emigrants from Sweden, Holland, Germany, Great Britain, and Ire- land. We justly ascribe to its influences the strength, wealth, greatness, intelligence, and freedom, which the whole American people now enjoy. One of the chief elements of the value of human life is freedom in the pursuit of happiness. The slave system is not only in- tolerant, unjust, and inhuman, toward the la- borer, whom, only because he is a laborer, it loads down with chains and converts into m er- chandise, but is scarcely less severe upon the freeman, to whom, only because he is a laborer from necessity, it denies facilities for employ. ment, and whom it expels from the commu- nity because it cannot enslave and convert him into merchandise also. It is necessarily improvident and ruinous, because, as a gene- ral truth, communities prosper and flourish or droop and decline in just the degree that they practise or neglect to practise the primary duties of justice and humanity. The free- labor system conforms to the divine law of equality, which is written in the hearts and FoR SALE AT THE OFFICE OF THE NEw YoRx T~aumN. PIOE, PER SINGLE Copy, 4o.; DOZEN CoPiEs, 30c.; PER HuNDRED, $2; PER THOT sAND, $15.

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