This dissertation has been microfilmed exactly as received 68—3011 LAWSON, Harold Lewis, 1940- THE SPEAKING OF WILLIAM H. SEWARD: 1845-1861. The Ohio State University, Ph.D., 1967 Speech University Microfilms, Inc., Ann Arbor, Michigan THE SPEAKING OF WILLIAM H. SEWARD 1845 — 1861 Dissertation Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of The Ohio State University By Harold Lewis Lawson, B.S.E., M.S. The Ohio State University 1967 Approved by Adviser department of Speech ACKNOWLEDGMENTS The writer of any dissertation is indebted to the members of his committee— in my case to Professors Keith Brooks, Wallace Fotheringham, James Golden, and Richard Rieke. I am especially in­ debted to my major adviser, Dr. James Golden, whose comments and suggestions are, in large measure, responsible for whatever merit the finished product may have. I am most grateful to the University of Rochester Library, and particularly to Margaret B. Andrews, Assistant Librarian in Charge of Special Collections; and to her assistant, Catherine D. Hayes; for permission to use and assistance in using, the William H. Seward Collection. William H. Seward was a graduate of Union College, Schenectady New York. I am grateful to Henry J. Swanker, Director of Alumni Rela­ tions, for sending me materials and information unattainable elsewhere Finally, I am grateful to my wife, June, and to the friends, colleagues, and students who have endured my changes in disposition during the progress of this study. VITA August 14, 1940 Born - Pittsburg, Kansas May, 1962. B.S.E., Kansas State Teachers College, Emporia, Kansas August, 1963. M.S., Kansas State Teachers College, Emporia, Kansas 1962-1964. Teacher, Abilene High School, Abilene, Kansas 1964^1965. Instructor, Southwest Missouri State College, Springfield, Missouri 1965-1967. Teaching Associate, The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio PUBLICATIONS "The Importance of Reciprocity," "The Balance of Payments Problem," "Negative Case Construction," The Presumption on Free World Trade. Summary Report of the 1962 Debate Coaches' Institute, Kansas State Teachers College, Emporia, Kansas. "Factors which Differentially Characterized Winning and Losing Kansas High School Debate Programs in 1962-1963," Unpublished master's thesis, Department of Speech, Kansas State Teachers College of Emporia, 1963. "An Objective Comparison of Kansas High School Debate Programs," Kansas Speech Association Journal. March, 1964. "Proposition Analysis on Combatting Crime," Ohio High School Speech League, 1967. FIELDS OF STUDY Maj or FiBlds Communication Studies in Rhetoric: Professors James Golden, Harold Harding, Gordon Hostettler iii Studies in Forensics: Professor Richard Rieke Studies in Conmiunicology: Professors Keith Brooks, Franklin Knower, Richard Mall Studies in Persuasion: Professor Wallace Fotheringham TABLE OF CONTENTS Page ACKNOWLEDGMENTS..............................................ii VITA, PUBLICATIONS, FIELDS OF S T U D Y ........................ iii Chapter I. INTRODUCTION, LIMITATIONS, PROCEDURE .............. 1 II. THE ANTE-BELLUM AMERICANS......................... 13 III. 1801-1843: THE FORMATIVE YEARS.................... 60 IV. 1843-1348: RETURN TO PRIVATE LIFE................. 97 V. 1849-1855: SEWARD AS UNITED STATES SENATOR. 160 VI. 1855-1861: SENATOR SEWARD AND THE ADVENT OF THE REPUBLICAN PARTY.............................229 VII. SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS............................ 307 BIBLIOGRAPHY................................................ 323 v CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION, LIMITATIONS, PROCEDURE The present study is begun with a somewhat ambivalent view of the speech discipline. The author would class himself as a rhetori­ cian, as should be obvious from the choice of subject. Yet he is aware of and interested in the behavioral science approach to the study of speaking and speakers. Such an orientation necessarily means that this study will be seeking to do more than examine the life and speaking of an orator long since dead. Hopefully, we shall concern ourselves not only with the man and his speeches but with movements and attitudes which influenced him as well as the audiences which he sought to in­ fluence. We fully accept Fotheringham' s position that: . persuasion is more typically a campaign through time rather than a one-shot effort. Exceptions can be found, as in mail-order or door-to-door persuasion, but generally an effort is seldom limited to a single message. A structured series of messages is more often developed, using varied media, message forms, and codes.1 Therefore, while we may evaluate each of our orator's speeches as an artistic creation, we must also think of many of them as part of a series of efforts by many sources in an overall campaign. This is ^Wallace C. Fotheringham, Perspectives on Persuasion (Boston: Allyn and Bacon, Inc., 1966), pp. xvi-xvii. 1 2 particularly true of Seward’s speeches on slavery. Some basic questions in regard to scope and specific procedure arise out of our concern for the relationship between a historical speaker and the period in which he lived and spoke. Unquestionably, historical research is like any other form of research in communica­ tion, at least to some extent. It recognizes, along with Clevenger, that: . it is impossible to catalogue all of the possible bases from which communication strategies might be developed. However, most of them are concerned in some way with the standard communication formula of WHO says WHAT to WHOM, WHEN, and HOW, with what EFFECT. Various approaches to communication strategy place differing emphasis upon the six elements of this formula and take differing views of the elements and their re­ lationships, but all consist of making choices concerning these six matters.2 The historical critic, then, is concerned with the source and his credi­ bility, the message which he presents, the audience to which he delivers the message, and the observable results of the presentation. In studying a dead orator, one must realize that speeches are not isolated acts. As Nichols has recognized, any given speech is . an act bearing the marks of a culture at a particular time: the person doing the talking will have been conditioned by the culture of which he is a part; in purpose, matter, and manner the act will be a manifestation of the period of which it is a product. In fact, it will be the speaker's peculiar way p Theodore Clevenger, Jr., Audience Analysis (Edited for the Bobbs-Merrill Series in Speech Communication. Indianapolis, New York, Kansas City: Bobbs-Merrill Company, Inc., 1966.) 3 of responding to the times. He will recognize that time is not merely a physical fact but a social fact.3 Thonssen and Baird express it somewhat differently, but recog­ nize just as clearly that the speech is both a historical and a social phenomenon: . oratory functions within the framework of public affairs, and that the criticism of it must be soundly based upon a full and penetrating understanding of the meaning of the events from which it issues. Rhetoric and history, age- old partners, cannot be divorced. The critic of speeches knows that their union is indissoluble.4- The breadth of the historical critic's task, as implied above, is staggering. A “full and penetrating" knowledge of all the events which impinge upon any given speech is probably more than we can reasonably hope to achieve. When historians themselves reconstruct the same social situations and events in many divergent ways, it is un­ reasonable to expect the rhetorician to reconstruct accurately the total situation which gave rise to a particular speech. Such an attempt is similar to the task faced by the man who seeks to compile an exhaustive list of the "causes" of World War II. Paced with this realization, students of criticism have accepted certain limitations as inherent within their work. Thonssen and Baird 3 Marie Hochmuth Nichols, History and Criticism of American Public Address. Vol. Ill, published under the auspices of the Speech Association of America (New York: Longmans, Green and Co., 1955)> pp. 4-5. ^Lester Thonssen and A. Craig Baird, Speech Criticism (New York: The Ronald Press Company, 1948), p. 315. admit that: The rhetorical critic therefore accepts as one of the limitations of his task the conclusion that he cannot get all the facts necessary for complete reconstruction of the social setting in which a speech occurred. Despite that concession, the critic can still get a workable conception of the whole pattern of a social event. In order to appreciate the design of a fabric, it is not necessary to examine every t h r e a d . 5 Perhaps the most serious shortcoming of much of our rhetorical criticism lies in our failure to recognize the uniqueness of the con­ tribution which we have to make. The Greeks widely believed that political science was the master science and that all other sciences were studied to serve this master. Training in such schools as that of Isocrates, however, made little distinction between this master science and the study of the art of rhetoric. History was studied more for the purpose of providing material for invention of the orator than t■ for its own sake. The rhetorical critic of today must recognize that society has changed greatly. Oratory, still a valuable tool, is no longer the supreme key to success that it may have been in the time of Isocrates, or even in the time of Seward. Today history and political science are studied for their own sake and for the contributions