then and there, and would brook no delay. Pious deacons and sage justices clamored savagely for an opportunity to tear him limb from limb, and it was only by stratagem that the officers having charge of the prisoner were enabled to baffle the frenzied crowd and run him into Auburn jail, with the bloodhounds in full cry on their track. The mob dispersed to diffuse their excitement and thirst for blood all over the interior of our State. The funeral of the victims soon followed, and a mighty concourse assembled around the encoffined remains of the four lamented victims, to whom Rev. A. B. Winfield, pastor of the Church whereof those victims were members, preached a sermon of which the following is the conclusion:

"If ever there was a just rebuke upon the falsely so-called sympathy of the day, here it is. Let any man in his senses look at this horrible sight, and

then think of the spirit with which it was perpetrated, and, unless he loves the murderer more than his

murdered victims, he will, he must confess, that the law of God which requires that he that sheddeth man's blood by man shall his blood be shed, is right, is just, is reasonable. Is this the way to prevent murder, by sympathy? It encourages it.

It steels the heart and nerves the arm of the assassin. "But capital punishment is said to be barbarous, What does this amount to? Why, that God commands that which is barbarous, cruel and savage! Most daring blasphemy! But all

cruel, savage.

punishment is for the good of the culprit, or else it is tyrannical! The wretch who committed this horrid deed has been in the school of a State Prisen for five years, and yet comes out a murderer!

Besides, it is an undeniable fact that murder has in

creased with the increase of this anti-capital-pun

ishment spirit. It awakens a hope in the wretch, that by adroit counsel law may be perverted, and jurors bewildered or melted by sympathy; that by judges infected with it, their whole charges may be in favor of the accused; that by the lavishment of money, appeals might be multiplied, and, by putting off the trial, witnesses may die. Why,

none of us are safe under such a false sympathy as this; for the murderer is almost certain of being acquitted! If I shoot a man to prevent him breaking into my house and killing my family, these gentlemen will say I did right. But if he succeeds, and murders my whole family, then it would be barbarous to put him to death! Oh, shame, shame! I appeal to this vast assembly to maintain the laws of their country inviolate, and cause the murderer to be punished."

The excitement thus created overspread the whole region, and swept everything in its course. As an example of its blind fury-Cayuga had for some years been a closely balanced County in Politics, rarely, since 1837, giving 300 majority either

VOL. V. NO. VI. NEW SERIES.

way,

and as often for one party as the other. But in the election for delegates to the Constitutional Convention, which took place soon after this murder, though the Whig ticket was headed by Judge Conkling of the U. S. District Court, who at any other time would have been elected, the adverse candidates were all chosen by about 1,000 majority. The popular fury against negroes, excited by this murder, coupled with the belief that the Whigs would favor the extension of the Right of Suffrage to Blacks, while their adversaries avowedly would not, was mainly instrumental in producing this result. And its influence was felt, though not so strongly, in many other counties.

Freeman was indicted for murder on the 18th of May, and arraigned for trial on the 1st of June. It was still a test of courage to whisper, in any part of the county, a word in extenuation of his crime, or to doubt that he was legitimate prey for the gallows. But WILLIAM H. SEWARD had inquired into the matter, and become satisfied that the prisoner was of unsound mind, at once shattered and imbecile, and that he was not morally accountable for his deed. He appeared in Court on the arraignment as a volunteer counsel for the accused, and entered a plea of Not Guilty by reason of Insanity, and demanded a preliminary trial on that issue. That plea was especially odious to the popular mind, as it had recently escaped the gallows by means was believed that several great criminals of it, one of them at Auburn. If a popular vote of the County could then have been taken on hanging Freeman and his counsel together, the affirmative would, doubtless, have had an immense majority. The Court took time to consider the plea, and, on the 24th, decided that the issue of sanity or insanity should be separately tried, and ordered jurors to be drawn for the trial. Hon. John Van Buren, Attorney General, with Luman Sherwood, District Attorney, appeared for the People; Gov. Seward, with his partners, Christopher Morgan and S. Blatchford, to whom David Wright was. added, at Gov. Seward's request, by assignment of the Court, were counsel for the prisoner. A jury was, after a sharp struggle, empaneled, and the trial proceeded.

Freeman, it appeared, had been a va

41

grant, errand-boy and menial from his infancy, staying where he could, and picking up his living by doing odd jobs here and there. That he was inefficient and intractable was notorious; some attributing his inaptness to an obtuseness akin to idiocy, while others suspected it had its root in indolence and knavery. When hardly seventeen years of age, he had, by perjury, been sent to State Prison on a conviction of stealing a horse he never saw, and had there, by reason of his rudeness and incapacity, been beaten over the head so that, (as was afterward proved,) the drum of his ear was broken and his left temporal bone was ever after carious and diseased. He was henceforth more sullen and stupid than ever, complained of deafness, seemed to have little memory, but brooded ever on the idea that he had worked five years in the State Prison for nothing, and ought to be paid for it. In this state of mind he was liberated on the expiration of his sentence in September, 1845, and continued. to mutter about his five years' service, and that he must and would be paid for it, to all who would listen to him and to some who would not, down to the time of the murder. To those who visited him in jail between the tragedy and the trial, his talk was substantially the same. He insisted that he could read, and seemed on trying to do so, but merely uttered such incongruous words and phrases as came into his head, having no reference to the open page before him.

When asked why he killed the Van Nests, he only repeated his old story about his five years' service, and that he must be paid for it. He denied that he had killed the child, however, and manifested sensibility when accused of it. He said to one witness that Van Nest said to him, "If you are going to eat my liver, I will eat yours;" whereupon he (Freeman) struck him. It appeared that Freeman's brother had died of brain fever, an uncle was a wandering lunatic, an aunt had died deranged. Freeman himself had been to various lawyers' offices to get justice for his five years' service, had visited Mrs. Godfrey, whose horse he was convicted of stealing, on the same errand. After a protracted and arduous trial, the jury returned this verdict," We find the prisoner sufficiently sound in mind and memory to distinguish between Right and Wrong." The pris

oner's counsel demanded that this verdict be rejected, and a simple verdict of "Sane" or "Insane" required. The Court refused, and the counsel excepted. On the 6th of July, the District Attorney moved on the trial on the indictment, which Mr. Seward opposed, but the Court overruled him, and refused to hear argument. The prisoner was arraigned, and asked if he demanded a trial on the indictment. He answered "No." "Have you counsel ?" I don't know." "Are you able to employ counsel ?" "No." The Court directed the clerk to enter a plea of "Not Guilty," and that the trial proceed. Mr. Seward here interposed an affidavit, asking a continuance of the case, because of the prisoner's infirm mind and helpless condition, the popular excitement against him, and the absence of a witness deemed material to prove his insanity. Motion denied. A motion to quash the indictment for cause was overruled; as was a challenge to the array of the panel for like cause. The trial went on; a jury was obtained; and, on the 23d, a verdict of Guilty was recorded. On the 24th, Freeman was sentenced to be executed on the 18th of September following.

The counsel for the prisoner promptly interposed a bill of exceptions, alleging errors and misdirections on various points in the course of the trial. The argument on this bill was made before the Supreme Court, by Mr. Seward for the prisoner, and Attorney General Van Buren for the People, and Chief Justice Beardsley delivered the opinion of the Court, sustaining the exceptions, reversing the judgment against Freeman, and granting a new trial. Meantime, the Judge visited Freeman repeatedly in his cell, became satisfied of his mental disability, and refused to try him again. In fact, it became speedily so evident that no one could reasonably doubt it Gradually declining in health and strength, Freeman became more and more palpably idiotie and deranged, and finally died in prison, August 21st, 1847.

If to statesmen are awarded honors and to conquerors laurels, he who saves a community from its own blinding frenzy and baleful passions is deserving of its grateful remembrance. That Freeman was not torn in pieces to satiate the wolfish ferocity of a mob, was due to the tact of his custo

to death, while half insane, half idiotic, for an offence of which he had no moral consciousness, is due to the persevering fidelity and self-forgetting humanity of William H. Seward.

The hum of preparation for the contest of 1848 again summoned Gov. S. to the political arena. Early convinced that Gen. Taylor combined with eminent fitness for the station, an unequalled popularity among those who are not decided partisans, but whose votes, as they are cast into this scale or that, determine the result of an election, he was, though not prominent in the canvass, a decided advocate of the nomination of Gen. T. up to the assembling of the Whig National Convention at Philadelphia, and thenceforth an ardent and assiduous champion of his election. Though he spoke frequently in our State, the certainty of an overwhelming Whig triumph here rendered speaking well nigh superfluous, and he therefore accepted invitations to address the Whigs of Pennsylvania and of Ohio, to set forth the reasons which induced him-ardently devoted to the preservation of every inch of Free Territory from the irruption of Slavery and hoping for the Emancipation of the Enslaved universally-to unite in the support of Gen. Taylor. The following extract from his speech at Cleveland, Ohio, will convey a fair idea of his views and positions:

"There are two antagonistical elements of Society in America-Freedom and Slavery. Freedom is in harmony with our system of Government, and with the spirit of the age, and is therefore passive and quiescent. Slavery is in conflict with that system, with justice and with humanity, and is therefore organized, defensive, active, and perpetually aggressive.

Freedom insists on the emancipation and'elevation of Labor; Slavery on its debasement and bondage. Slavery demands a soil moistened with tears and blood; Freedom, a soil that exults under the elastic tread of Man in his native majesty.

"These elements divide and classify the American People into two parties; each of these parties has its court and its sceptre. The throne of the one is amid the rocks of the Alleghany mountains, the throne of the other is reared on the sands of South Carolina. One of these parties, the party of Slavery, regards disunion as among the means of defence, and not always the last to be employed. The other maintains the Union of the States, one

and inseparable, now and forever, as the highest duty of the American people to themselves, to posterity and to mankind.

"The party of Slavery uphold an aristocracy

to the perfection of a chivalrous Republic. The party of Freedom maintains universal suffrage, which makes men equal before human laws, as they are in the sight of their common Creator.

"The party of Slavery cherishes ignorance, because it is the only security for oppression. The party of Liberty demands the diffusion of knowledge, because it is the only safeguard of Republican institutions.

"The party of Slavery patronizes that Labor which produces only exports to commercial nations abroad, tobacco, cotton and sugar, and abhors the Protection that draws grain from our native fields, lumber from our native forests, and coal from our native mines, and ingenuity, skill and labor from the free minds and willing hands of our own people.

"The party of Freedom favors only the productions of such minds and such hands, and seeks to build up our Empire out of the redundant native materials with which our country is blest.

"The party of Slavery leaves the mountain, ravine and shoal to present all their natural obstacles to internal trade and free locomotion, because Railroads, Rivers and Canals are highways for the escape of bondmen.

"The party of Liberty would cover the country with railroads and canals to promote the happiness of the people, and link them together with the indissoluble bonds of friendship and affection.

"The party of Slavery maintains its military defences, and cultivates the martial spirit, for it knows not the day, nor the hour, when a standing army will be necessary to suppress and extirpate the insurrectionary bondinen.

"The party of Freedom cherishes peace, because its sway is sustained by the consent of a happy and grateful people. The party of Slavery fortifies itself by adding new slave-bound domains, on fraudulent pretext and with force.

"The party of Freedom is content and moderate, seeking only just enlargement of Free Territory through fear of change.

"The party of Slavery declares that institution necessarily beneficent, and approved by God, and therefore inviolable.

"The party of Freedom seeks complete and universal emancipation. You, Whigs of the Reserve, and you especially, Seceding Whigs, none know so well as you that these two elements exist, and are developed in the two great National parties of the land as I have described them. That existence aud development constitute the only reason you can assign for having been enrolled in the Whig party, and mustered under its banner, so zealously and so long. And now, I am not to contend that the evil spirit I have described has possessed one party without mitigation or exception, and that the beneficent one has on all occasions, and fully, directed the action of the other. But I appeal to you, to your candor and justice, if the beneficent spirit has not worked chiefly in the Whig party, and its antagonist in the adverse party."

Mr. Fillmore Vice-President in the elecGen. Taylor was chosen President and tion which soon followed, and in this State the Whig ascendancy, owing to the bitter

feud and nearly equal division of the adverse host into supporters of Van Buren and Cass respectively, was overwhelming. The Whig plurality on the Electoral and State tickets was nearly 100,000 votes, and the Assembly exhibited nearly or quite one hundred Whig majority out of one hundred and twenty-eight Members. Tac Senate had been chosen the previous year, when the feud was much less definitive and universal, and stood twenty-four Whigs to eight opponents of both sections. On the Legislature thus composed-the most decidedly Whig that New-York had ever seen, embracing representatives of the party from nearly every neighborhood in the State -devolved the duty of electing a United States Senator, in place of John A. Dix, whose term would expire on the 4th of March then ensuing. A very eager and animated canvass early and naturally sprung up among the friends of our prominent Whig Statesmen, by any of whom the post might justly be regarded as the goal of an honorable ambition. This canvass was closed on the evening of the 1st of February, 1849, when the Whig Members of the Legislature assembled to designate the candidate of their choice for Senator. The vote on the first informal ballot stoodWilliam H. Seward, 88; John A. Collier, 12; all others, 18; blanks, 4. Gov. Seward having nearly three-fourths of the whole number, was unanimously nominated, without proceeding to a formal ballot, and on Tuesday the 6th ensuing, he was elected a Senator of the United States, for six years from the 4th of March then ensuing, by a vote of 121 for him to 30 for all

others.

Gov. Seward took his seat in the Senate on the day of Gen. Taylor's Inauguration, (March 5th, 1849,) and is understood to have withdrawn from the labors of his profession, so far as his engagements would permit, in order to devote himself thoroughly to the duties of his station and to those of the responsible private trust already alluded to. Heartily concurring with and supporting the general views and measures of the illustrious Patriot now happily filling the Executive Chair of the Nation, he has yet vindicated his integrity to his own convictions by a uniform affirmance of the Right of Petition, the natural Equality of all Men, and the duty devolving on Con

gress of protecting and shielding the Territories of the United States from the intrusion of Human Bondage. While thus maintaining his own principles-sometimes in a minority of two or three only-he has studiously refrained from giving personal offence to others or taking offence at any sallica o malevolence and impertinent detraction. Never moved from his natural equanimity by the insults or taunts of the few who hoped to commend themselves to local favor and eclat by scurrilous attacks on the representative in that body of Three Millions of Freemen-the undoubted, unfaltering champion of the Right of All Men to Freedom and its attendant blessingshe has kept due on in the straight path lighted before him by the sentiment of Humanity and by his convictions of Truth, Public Policy, and Christian duty. His votes and his speeches have been, all as one, on the side of Justice, Equality and Beneficence. From his speech of March 11th, on the Admission of California, in connection with the Slavery Question-a speech which posterity will recognize as the memorable incident of the Session of 1850, and of which already Half a Million copies. have been printed without satisfying the demand for it a single extract will close this Memoir:

"The Union, the creation of necessities physical, moral, social and political, endures by virtue of the same necessities; and these necessities are stronger than when it was produced, by the greater amplitude of territory now covered by it; stronger by the six-fold increase of the society living under its beneficent protection;-stronger by the augmentation ten thousand times of the fields, the work-shops, the mines and the ships of that society, of its productions of the sea, of the plow, of the loom, and of the anvil, in their constant circle of internal and international exchanges; stronger in the long rivers penetrating regions before unknown; stronger in all the artificial roads, canals and other channels and avenues essential not only to trade but to defense; stronger in steam navigation, in steam locomotion on the land, and in telegraph communications unknown when the Constitution was adopted ;-stronger in the freedom and in the growing empire of the seas;-stronger in the element of national honor in all lands, and stronger than all in the now settled habits of veneration and affection for institutions so stupendous and useful.

"The Union then IS, not because merely that men choose that it shall be, but because some Government must exist here, and no other Government than this can. If it should be dashed to atoms by the whirlwind, the lightning, or the

earthquake to-day, it would rise again in all its just and magnificent proportions to-morrow.

"I have heard somewhat here, and almost for the first time in my life, of divided allegiance-of allegiance to the South and to the Union-of allegiance to States severally, and to the Union. Sir, if sympathies with State emulation and pride of achievement could be allowed to raise up another sovereign to divide the allegiance of a citizen of the United States, I might recognize the claims of the State to which by birth and gratitude I belong to the State of Hamilton and Jay, of Schuyler, of the Clintons and of Fulton-the State which, with less than 200 miles of natural navigation connected with the ocean, has, by her own enterprise, secured to herself the commerce of the Continent, and is steadily advancing to the command of the commerce of the world. But for all this, I know only one country and one Sovereign -the United States of America and the American People.

"And such as my allegiance is, is the loyalty of every other citizen of the United States.

"As I speak he will speak when his time arrives; he knows no other country and no other sovereign; he has life, liberty, property, and precious affections and hopes for himself and for his posterity, treasured up in the ark of the Union; he knows as well and feels as strongly as I do, that this Government is his own Government; that he is a part of it; that it was established for him, and that it is maintained by him; that it is the only true, wise, just, free, and equal Government that has ever existed; that no other Government could be so wise, just, free and equal; that it is safer and more beneficent than any which time or change could bring into its place.

"You may tell me, Sir, that although all this may be true, yet that the trial of faction has not

yet been made! If the trial of faction has not been made, it has not been because that faction has not always existed, and has not always menaced a trial, but because faction couldfind no fulcrum on which to place the lever to subvert the Union, as it can find no fulcrum now; and in this is my confidence. I would not rashly provoke the trial, but I will not suffer a fear which I have not to make me Compromise one sentiment, one principle of truth or justice, to avert a danger that all experience teaches me is purely chimerical. Let those, then, who distrust the Union make Compromises to save it. I shall not impeach their wisdom, as I certainly cannot their patriotism, but, indulging no such apprehensions myself, I shall vote for the admission of California, directly, without conditions, without qualification, and without Compromise. For the vindication of that vote I look not to the verdict of the passing hour, disturbed as the public mind now is by conflicting interests and passions, but to that period, happily not far distant, when the vast regions over which we are now legislating, shall have received their destined inhabitants.

"While looking forward to that day, its countless generations seem to me to be rising up and passing in dim and shadowy review before us. And the voice comes forth from their serried ranks, saying, 'Waste your treasures, and your armies, if you will; raze your fortifications to the ground; sink your navies into the sea; transmit to us even a dishonored name, if you must; but the soil that you hold in trust for us, give it to us Free! You found it free and conquered it to extend a better and surer freedom over it. Whatever choice you have made for yourselves, let us have no partial freedom; let us all be free; let the reversion of our broad domain descend to us unincumbered and free from the calamities and the sorrows of human bondage."