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of Public Parks, made the introductory speech. Hon. John Bigelow made the formal presentation of the statue, on the part of the citizens, and it was received by the Mayor, Hon. W. H. Wickham, on behalf of the city of New York. The orator of the day was the Hon. William M. Evarts. The arrangements which had been made for the ceremonies were carried out under the control of the Department of Parks. The southwestern angle of Madison Square, where the statue is erected, was suitably enclosed; a spacious stand, draped with American flags, was there for the accommodation of the speakers and principal guests; the statue was veiled with the nation's ensign. "The sculptor has executed a life-like portrait statue of the late eminent American statesman, Mr. Seward. The statue is in every way naturalistic; there has been no attempt to make it anything but a portrait of the man, and this it may fairly lay claim to. He is seated in an attitude of meditation, and in a costume such as, in all probability, he was daily accustomed to wear." 1

"Called to the Department of State," says a friendly writer, "at a period when our foreign relations were fraught with peril and environed with difficulty, Mr. Seward so administered them that, while calmly maintaining the internal sovereignty and the external rights of the government which he represented, the jealous ministers of rival nations publicly acknowledged his fairness and his candor, and were able only to cavil at those assertions of the unabated power and dignity of the Republic which, made with unflinching confidence in an hour of unprecedented trial, touched the hearts of his countrymen as the expression of a faith which was then in very deed the substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things unseen, but which events have since shown to have been well founded. Just men may have misunderstood Mr. Seward, but his only enemies have been the enemies of right and of the country. At the hands of some of these he suffered in common with our good President, whose death the whole world mourned.

"That his life was sought with the President's was an additional testimony to his faithfulness and ability. Men seek to kill only whom they fear and hate. That Mr. Seward escaped the murderous attempts made by the assassins, who struck at his country through him, was an occasion of rejoicing throughout the land.

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Through all his public life, Mr. Seward was the unrelenting foe of wrong and oppression, and one of the earliest and most earnest advocates of the cause of freedom; a statesman who recognized his responsibility to a higher law than that of state necessity, and who yet endeavored to secure the blessings of liberty to all by peaceful methods, and to obtain for all the protection of the law without the violation of the law."

1 The London Art Journal of September, 1877.

DIARY,

OR

NOTES ON THE WAR.

DIARY, OR NOTES ON THE WAR.

April 10, 1861. - The presidential election took place on the 6th of November last. The canvass had been conducted in all the Southern or slave States in such a manner as to prevent a perfectly candid hearing there of the issue involved, and so all the parties existing there were surprised and disappointed in the marked result. That disappointment was quickly seized for desperate purposes by a class of persons until that time powerless, who had long cherished. a design to dismember the Union and build up a new confederacy around the Gulf of Mexico. Ambitious leaders hurried the people forward, in a factious course; observing conventional forms, but violating altogether the deliberative spirit of their constitutions. When the new federal administration came in on the 4th of March last, it found itself confronted by an insurrectionary combination of seven States, practising an insidious strategy to seduce eight other States into its councils.

April 22, 1861.- Five months ago sedition showed itself openly in several of the Southern States, and it has acted ever since that time with boldness, skill, and energy. An insurrectionary government, embracing seven members of this Union, has been proclaimed under the name of "the Confederate States of America." That pretended authority, by means chiefly of surprise, easily seen here to have been unavoidable, although liable to be misunderstood abroad, has possessed itself of a navy yard, several fortifications and arsenals, and considerable quantities of arms, ordnance, and military stores. On the 12th of April, instant, its forces commenced an attack upon, and ultimately carried, Fort Sumter, against the brave and heroic resistance of a diminutive garrison, which had been, through the neglect of the former administration, left in a condition to prevent supplies and reinforcements.1

1 See despatch to Wood, May 1, 1861.

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