Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 07.djvu/363

Rh lately disposed of, and I said to Mr. Seward, "Governor, may I ask you one question?" "Oh, as many as you please," was the reply. I then said: "Did you confide in the opinion" (which, as Governor of New York, he had put forth, viz:) "that it was unconstitutional to annex Texas?" And with his peculiar laugh, he replied: "Oh, no; I was very much surprised to see that some of you men down South were green enough to be caught with that idea. If you had given us free territory every man of us would have voted for Texas." (I was not one of the "green ones," but was always and to the bitter end in favor of the annexation of Texas, as, by the way, Mr. Clay told me he was, "with the consent of the North and peace with Mexico," when he explained his plan to me of dividing Texas into three free and two slave States). But that night fixed my opinion of Mr. Seward as a man destitute of all public principle, and I never spoke to him afterwards, except once, per force almost, in the library of the Supreme Court.

In further proof of the correctness of my opinion, I mentioned to you the fact that in the year 1859 (I think it was), at the residence of the late Robert C. Stanard, in the city of Richmond, I had a conversation with Mr. Jo. Holt, now the Judge Advocate-General, I believe, of the army, in relation to the abolition of slavery, in which I told him that I was very much surprised that he, a Kentuckian, should be in favor of it; and for the purpose of illustrating the injustice and inhumanity of it more strongly, I said, after pointing out the horrors to flow from it, commencing with the right of suffrage and political equality which must be conferred upon them, "Suppose, that to avoid these ills, we of the South were to emancipate all the slaves—then about two million five hundred thousand in round numbers—and could drive them all across the Potomac, what would you say to it?" He replied, "We would meet you on the north bank of the Potomac with all the muskets and bayonets we could command and drive them back or drive them into the river." "Then," said I, "you admit that you would inflict upon your white brethren of the South an evil so great that, rather than be subjected to it yourselves, you would put to death two million five hundred thousand of your pets, the objects of your philanthropy?" "Well," said he, "I can't help that." Not very long after that the election took place, followed by the war, the more immediate agents in producing which were Stephen A. Douglas and Abraham Lincoln, of Illinois (which State unjustly denounced Mr. Davis lately). Mr. Douglas, in the hope of getting the