Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1872-10-14
DEATH OF VIM. III. SEWARD.

The country was startled last Thurs
day by the announcement of the death OF
VIM. H. Seward, who died at his home in
Auburn, N. Y, on the afternoon of that
day, He had for a long time been in
poor health, but was able to be about
and attend to his literary labors, having
been engaged since his return from a re-
cent tour around the world in writing a
history of the journey. His disease was
ague and fever, though the immediate
cause of his death was catarrhal effu-
sion of the lungs. His age was seventy
one years, not year of which since his
first advent into the arena of politics,
but was marked with the severest strug-
Giles. From the time he was first intro
duced to the public to the hour OF his
death it was continued warfare-a new
Ell ending battle for some cause in which
he was almost always victorious, though
uniformly fighting against heavy odds.
His was the persistency of a Christian in
his journey to the heavenly city, and his
the boldness of Bunyan's sublime hero
whom no Apollyon could brighten nor
turn aside by 81 lions in the way. =
His first great contest, and which at once
established his fame as rising orator,
was with the old ALBANY regency"
which commenced in 1924, when he was
but twenty three years old, coming out
victorious in 1888, in which year he was
elected governor of New York. After
Webster and Clay he was the greatest
orator of his time, though there were
many, perhaps, who would excel him as
ready debaters, among which may be
reckoned Douglas and Calhoun. His
speeches were always prepared with great
labor and care and hence he never spoke
to drowsy cars nor to empty seats. 10
him more than to any other one of our
statesmen is the country indebted for the
birth and growth of that great party
which finally crushed slavery and forev-
er ended human bondage in North
America. Along with Horace Greeley he
was one of the earliest anti-slavery cham
pions, and what the former failed to do
in his paper he accomplished on the ros-
trum. Though never reckoned as on alb
olitionist of the ultra Birney, Gerritt
Smith or Garrison stripe, he was yet as
effective as all of them in raising that
intense whirlwind of bitter scorn against
slavery which eliminated in its total ex-
tinction. If we may be permitted to 60
to the gospel for simile, Birney and
Smith and Garrison were the voices 'cry-
ing in the wilderness, when came Sew
ard and Greeley who ushered in a thou
sand Pentacostal days of conversion to
universal liberty, while the countless
thousands who strew the plains of the
south or whose white headstones dot ev-
cry village graveyard, were the ones tc
be " offered up as Precipitation for the
great sin of our country, for without
the shedding of blood there is no remis-
sion of sins" All great men have theil
faults. Mr.. Seward of course had his
Yet we confess our inability to name
them. He was ambitious, and we should
think very meanly of him had he beer
otherwise than ambitious. His failure
to be president soured his disposition
somewhat. This is not to be wondered
at since we know that like failure kill
ed Daniel Webster and is going to sent
Horace Greeley to heaven long before the
Lord wants him. In Mr.. Seward thu
country loses her first and foremost states
man, and we shall look long before W,
find his equal.