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Show A GREAT MAN GONE. At ten unoutc-i past tlirtio o'olock, yesterday aftcrnoou, William Xlcnry Seward, ex -Sec -clary of State, breathed his last at his rcMtleoeo in Auburn, New York, He was a little over scv-coty-one years of ape, bavins been born May 1G, 1801, in Florida, OraDge rymniy, N. Y. Ilia anee.-lorn wero ol Wcl.ih extraction ou the father's side, and of Irish on the mother1!-; and bis father, Dr. Samuel S. Seward, was a man of considerable prominence in his State, and of much ability. t The distinguished gentleman just deceased de-ceased received a gcod education when young; and when eighteen years ol ago spent six months as a teaeher in Georgia whore he imbibed impressions inimical to slavery, which affected his course when as a promincut politician and statesman ho took such earnest ground against involuntary servitude. Early iu life ho showed the possession of great powers and a mind that broke out of the trammels of party training, assuming a position in advance ol his time and advocating principles that years after became popular and dominant. domi-nant. In 1830 ho was elected to the State senate, as an anti-Mason, and while in the State legislature advocated various important reforms. In 1S33 ho visited Europe; and a year later he was tho Whig candidate for governor of New York, but was defeat cd, although leading his ticket in every county. In 1S3S he again ran for governor and was elected by ten thousand majority. Ho was governor for two terms, being ro-elccted in 1S40; aud in 1S49 was returned to tho senate of the United States, receiving a hundred and twenty-ono votes to thirty for all others. It was in the senate, in a speech on the admission of Calfornia, delivered March 11, 1S50, that he used tho following language: "The constitution regulates our stewardship; the constitution devotes the domain to union, to justice, to defence, to welfare, And to liberty. But thero is a higher law than the constitution, which regu lates our authority over the domain, and devotes it to the samo noble purposes." pur-poses." And the phrase " higher law" passed into a party proverb that has fince been fraught with ponderous meaning. He, too, was the auLhor of another phrase equally expressive and that has passed into a proverb "irrepressible conflict" which occurred occur-red in an election speech delivered at llochestcr, New York, iu 1S5S, on the collision between the systems of free and slp.vo labor, when he said: "Shall 1 tell you what this collision means? They who think that it is accidental, unnecessary, the work of interested or fanatical agitators, and therefore ephemeral, mistake the case altogether. It is an irrepressible conflict between opposing forces, and it means that the United States must and will, sooner oi liter, become cither "entirely a slave-holding slave-holding nation, or entirely a free laboi nation." Mr. Seward was a strong, uucompromising opponent of everything every-thing leading to secession, and an unswerving un-swerving adherent of an extended and united republic. In the convention, in I860, which nominated Mr. Lincoln, he was prominently put forward for the nomination for President, and received re-ceived a hundred and serentythree votes on the first ballot, seventy more than Mr. Lincoln. Of his labors in President Lincoln's cabinet as secretary secre-tary of state during the war of the rebellion; of tho iojuries received io Washington prior to the assassination of Lincoln; of the plan for that assassination assassi-nation which embraced his own, and the attack upon his life as he lay enfeebled en-feebled in his room, we need not ppoak. Though nearly eiht years have passed since that terrible event, the great publio painfully remember the details of a crime, and its attendant attend-ant circumstances, which filled the civilized world with horror. Soon after Mr. Seward retired from active participation in political life. He had visited Europe a second time and had extended his travels to Egyp1 and Palestine, in 1859; and some time after his retirement from the cabinet he proposed to himself a trip around the world. Tho completion of that undertaking gigantic Ibr a man of his years, is of recent occurrence. He called at this city on his way westward, and left pleasing memories behind; le visited Alaska, which he had been the main instrument in .securing to the United State?; went to Mexico; thence to the far E '..t, receiving from the sovereigns of China and Japan unusual un-usual honors. In India, in Turkey, jD llussia, and indeed wherever he traveled, trav-eled, his personal eminence and the greatness of the republic of which be was so illustrious a representative, were recognized and the highest honors were bestowed upon him. For some time prior to his decease be had been pre. paring a work on his travels, which it L' to bo hoped he was ablo to suS cicntly complete to do justico to his memory. As a wise statesman, a brilliant bril-liant orator, a true friend to liberty, on illustrious American citizen and a truly great man, William II. Seward will long live in the memory of his countrymen and of the civilized world. |