The Sun.
London, England, 1861-01-09 00:00:00

ftli.moil.
SENATOR SE RD'S OPINIONS.

The first expression of deliberate opinion by Mr.
Seward on the present crisis was made at a
dinner of the New England Society, at New
York, on the 23d of December.
Mr. Seward said,—And now, fellow citizens, I
will speak one word concerning the anomalous con-
dition of our affairs, produced by this disposition
of some of the American States to secede from the
Union: It has taken, as it ought to have taken,
the American people and the world by surprise.
Why has it taken them by surprise ? Because it
is unwise and unnatural. It is wise that all the
Republican States of this continent should be con-
federated. It is unwise that any of them should
attempt to separate. And yet it ought not to have
taken us by surprise. Who ever could have ima-
gined that a machine so complicated, so vast, se
new, so untried as this confederated system of Re-
publican States should be exempt from the common
lot of States which have figured in the history of
the world ? A more complex system of govern-
ment was never devised--never conceived of among
men. low strange it is, how unreasonable it is,
that we should be surprised that a pin may drop
out of this machinery and that the wheel should
drag, or that the gudgeon should be worn until the
wheel should cease to play with regular action !
How could we expect to subsist for a period of 70
years exempt from the necessity of repairing our
political system of government ? Every State in
this Union is just like the Federal Union--a repub-
lic. It has its constitution and its regular system
of action. No State is more than 70 years old, and
there is not in any one State of flab?. Union a con-
stitution which is more than 25 years old ; and so
certain has it become that no State can adopt a
constitution which will last more than 25 years with-
out being repaired and renewed that in our State the
constitution which we adopted 20 years ago con-
tains a provision that next year, without any appeal
to the people whatever, a convention shall come
together in the State of New York and make a new
constitution. Is it strange, then, that this complex
system of our government should be found, after a
lapse of 70 years, to work a little rough, a little un-
equal, and that it should require that the engineer
should look at the machinery to see where the
gudgeon is worn out, and to see that the main
wheel is kept in motion ? A child can withdraw
a pin from the mightiest machine and arrest all its
motion, and the engineer cannot see it when it is
being done; but if the engine be rightly devised
and strongly constructed, the engineer has only to
see where the pin has fallen out, and replace it,
and the machine will then go on stronger and more
vigorous than ever. (Applause.) We are a family
of 33 States and next Monday I hope we shall be a
family of 34. (Cheers.) Would it not be strange,
in a family of 34 members, if there should not once
in the course of a few years be one or two, or three,
or four, or five of the members who would get dis-
contented, and want to withdraw awhile and see
haw much better they could manage their fortunes
alone ? I think there is nothing strange in this.
I only wonder that nobody has ever withdrawn
before, to see how much batter the' could get along
on their own hook than they could get along in
this plain old-fashioned way under the direction of
Uncle Sam. They say that while I was a boy
Massachusetts and some of the New Angland States
got the same idea of contumacy for the common
parent and want of affection for the whole family,
and got up a Hartford Convention. (Laughter.)
I hope you do not think:this personal. (" No, no.")
Somebody in Massachusetts—l do not know who

--tried it. All I know about it is that for the first
20 years of my political life, although I was a De-
mocrat, a Jeffersonian, born and dyed in the
faith of the Republican fathers, somehow or
other, because I happened to become a Whig,
I was held responsible for the Hartford Con-
vention. (Laughter.) And I have made this sin-
gular discovery in contrasting those times with the
present, that whereas when Massachusetts, or say
New England State, gets in a pet, and proposes
to go out of the Union, the Democratic party
all insist that it is high treason, and ought to
be punished by coercion. When one of the Slave
States gets into the same pet, and proposes to go
out of the Union, the Democratic party think it
exceedingly excuseable, and have doubts whether
she ought not to be helped out of the Union, and
whether we ought not to give her a good dowry
besides. (Laughter.) Now, gentlemen, my belief
about all this is, that whether it is Massachusetts
or South Carolina, or whether it is New York or
Florida, it would turn out the same way in each
case. There is no such thing in the book, no such
thing in reason, no such thing in philosophy, and

no such thing in nature, as any State existing on
the continent of North America outside of the

United States of America. Ido not believe a word
of it ; and I do not believe it for a good many
reasons. Some I have already hinted at; and one
is because I do not see any good reason given for
it. The best reason I see given for it is, that the
people of some of the Southern States hate us of the
Free States very badly ; and they say we hate
them, and that all love is lost between us. Well, I
do not believe a word of that. On the other hand,
Ido know, for myself and for you, that, bating
some little differences of opinion about advantages,
and about proscription, and about office, and about
freedom, and about slavery, and all those which are
family difficulties, for which we do not take any
outsiders in any part of the world into our councils
on either side, there is not a State on the earth,
outside of the American Union, which I like half
so well as I do the State of South Carolina—
(cheers)—neither England, nor Ireland, nor Scot-
land, nor France, nor Turkey—although from
Turkey they sent me Arab horses, and from South
Carolina they send me nothing but curses. Still, I
like South Carolina better than I like any of them ;
and I have the presumption and vanity to believe
that if there were nobody to overhear the State of
South Carolina when she is talking she would con-
fess that she liked us tolerably well. lam sure that
if anybody were to make a descent on New York
to-morrow—whether Louis Napoleon, or the Prince
of Wales, or his mother—(laughter)—or the Em-
peror of Russia, or the Emperor of Austria, all the
hills of South Carolina would pour forth their po-
pulation for the rescue of New York. (Cries of
" Good," and applause.) God knows how this may
be; Ido not pretend to know—l only conjecture.
But this I do know, that if any of those Powers
were to make a descent on South Carolina, I know
who would go to their rescue. (A Voice—We'd all
go.) We would all go, everybody. (That's so, and
great applause.) Therefore: they do not humbug
me with their secession. (Laughter.) And I do
not think they will humbug you ; and I do not be-
lieve that if they do not humbug you and me, they
will much longer succeed in humbugging them-
selves. (Laughter.) Now, fellow-citizens, this is
the ultimate result of all this business. These
States are always to be together—always shall.
Talk of striking down a star from that constella-
tion. It is a thing which cannot be done. (Applause.)
I clo not see any less stars to-day than I did a week
ago, and I expect to see more all the while.
i
(Laughter.) The question then is, what, n these
times, when people are labouring under the
nyvany e
delu-
sion that they are going out of the Union, and
going to set up for themselves,
r
order to hold them in ? Ido
notough: we to do in
every good father t
tof a
rule than the rule which
family observes. It is this—!f a man wishes not to
keep his family together it is the easiest thing in
the world to place them apart. He will do so at
once if he only gets discontented with his son,
quarrels with him, complains of him, torments him,
threatens him, coerces him. This is the way to get
rid of the family and to get them all out of doors.
On the other hand, if you wish to keep them in,
you have got only one way to do it. That is,
patient, kind, paternal, forbearing, and wait until
they come to reflect for themselves. The South is
to us what the wife is to her husband. I do not
know any man in the world who cannot get rid of
his wife if he tries. I can put him in a way to do
it at once. (Laughter.) He has only got two
things to do--one is to be unfaithful to her; the
other is to be out of temper with her. Ido not
know a man on earth who, even though his
wife were as troublesome as the wife of Socrates,
cannot keep his wife if he wants to do so ; all that

...—..„
he needs is to keep his own virtue and kis owa
temper. (Applause.) Now, in all this business I
propose that we shall keep our own virtue, whicll.
in politics is loyalty, and our own temper, which
in politics consists in remembering that men may
differ, that brethren may differ. If we keep en-
tirely cool, and entirely calm, and entirely kind, a
debate will ensue which will be kindly in itself ;
and it will prove very soon either that we are wrong
—and we shall concede to our offended brethren,
or else that we are right, and they will acquiesce
and come back into fraternal relations with us.
I do not wish to Anticipate any question. We
have a great many statesman who demand at once
to know what the North propose to do, what the
Government propose to do—whether we propose to
eoerce our Southern brethren back into their alle-
giance. They ask us, as of course they may right-
fully ask, what will be the value of fraternity
which is compelled ? (Hear, and cheers.) All I
have to say on that subject is, that so long ago as
the time of Sir Thomas More, he discovered, and
set down the discovery in his writing, that there
were a great many schoolmasters, and that while there
were a very few who knew how to instruct children,
there were a great many who knew how to whip them.
I propose to have no question on that subject, but
to hear complaints, to redress them if they ought
to be redressed, and if we have the power to redress
them, and I expect them to be withdrawn if they
are unreasonable, because I know that the necessi-
ties which made this Union exist for these States
are stronger to-day than they were when the
Union was made, and that those necessities are
enduring, while the passions of men are short-lived
and ephemeral. I believe that secession was
stronger on the night of the 6th of November last,
when a President and a Vice-President who were
unacceptable to the slave states were elected, than
it is now. That is now some fifty days since,
and I believe that every day's sun which set
since that time has set on mollified passions and
prejudices, and that if you will only give it time,
sixty days more suns will give you a ranch brighter
and more cheerful atmosphere. (Applause.)