William H. Seward
William H. Seward
William Henry Sewardwas United States Secretary of State from 1861 to 1869, and earlier served as Governor of New York and United States Senator. A determined opponent of the spread of slavery in the years leading up to the American Civil War, he was a dominant figure in the Republican Party in its formative years. Although regarded as the leading contender for the party's presidential nomination in 1860, he was defeated by Abraham Lincoln...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionStatesman
Date of Birth16 May 1801
CountryUnited States of America
William H. Seward quotes about
A party with one idea; but that is a noble idea ... the idea of equality - the equality of all men before human tribunals and human laws.
The constitution regulates our stewardship; the constitution devotes the domain to union, to justice, to defense, to welfare, and to liberty. But there is a higher law than the constitution, which regulates our authority over the domain, and devotes it to the same noble purposes. The territory is a part, no inconsiderable part, of the common heritage of mankind, bestowed upon them by the Creator of the universe. We are his stewards, and must so discharge our trust as to secure in the highest attainable degree their happiness.
There is not only no free state which would now establish it, but there is no slave state, which, if it had had the free alternative as we now have, would have founded slavery.
I know and all the world knows, that revolutions never go backwards.
But you answer, that the Constitution recognizes property in slaves. It would be sufficient, then, to reply, that this constitutional recognition must be void, because it is repugnant to the law of nature and of nations.
But the Constitution was made not only for southern and northern states, but for states neither northern nor southern, namely, the western states, their coming in being foreseen and provided for.
Revolutions never go backward.
I have learned, by some experience, that virtue and patriotism, vice and selfishness, are found in all parties, and that they differ less in their motives than in the policies they pursue.
It is the maintenance of slavery by law in a state, not parallels of latitude, that makes its a southern state; and the absence of this, that makes it a northern state.
The whole hope of human progress is suspended on the ever-growing influence of the Bible.
Sir, there is no Christian nation, thus free to choose as we are, which would establish slavery.
There is a higher law than the Constitution.
But there is a higher law than the Constitution, which regulates our authority over the domain, and devotes it to the same noble purposes.
It is an irrepressible conflict between opposing and enduring forces.