at Seward should be sent to the
United States Senate. In Eighteen Hundred Forty-nine, he was chosen
senator and from the first became the trusted leader of the administration
party.

The year after Seward's election to the Senate, President Taylor died and
Vice-President Fillmore (who had the happiness to live in the village of
East Aurora, New York) succeeded to the office, but Seward still remained
leader of the Anti-Slavery Party.

Seward's second term as United States Senator closed in Eighteen Hundred
Sixty-one. In Eighteen Hundred Fifty-five, when his first term expired,
there was a very strenuous effort made against his re-election. His strong
and continued anti-slavery position had caused him to be thoroughly hated
both North and South. He was spoken of as "a seditious agitator and a
dangerous man."

But in spite of opposition he was again sent back to Washington. Small,
slim, gentle, modest and low-voiced, he was pointed out in Pennsylvania
Avenue as "one who reads much and sees quite through the deeds of men."

Men who are well traduced and hotly denounced are usually pretty good
quality. No better encomium is needed than the detraction of some people.
And men who are well hated also have friends who love them well. Thus
does the law of compensation ever live.

In Eighteen Hundred Fifty-six, there was a goodly little demonstration in
favor of Seward for President, but the idea of running such a radical for
the chief office of the people was quickly downed; and Seward himself knew
the temper of the times too well to take the matter very seriously.

But the years between Eighteen Hundred Fifty-six and Eighteen Hundred
Sixty were years of agitation and earnest thought, and the idea that
slavery was merely a local question was getting both depolarized and
dehorned. The non-slaveholding North was rubbing its sleepy eyes, and
asking, Who is this man Seward, anyway? The belief was growing that
Seward, Garrison, Sumner and Phillips were something more than
self-seeking agitators, and many declared them true patriots. In every
town and city, in every Northern State, political clubs sprang into being
and their battle-cry was "Seward!" It seemed to be a foregone conclusion
that Seward would be the next President. When the convention met, the
first ballot showed one hundred seventy-three votes for Seward and one
hundred two for Lincoln, the rest, scattering. But Seward's friends had
marshaled their entire strength--