...irrepressible conflict between opposing and enduring forces," and it meant that the United States must "sooner or later, become either entirely a slaveholding nation, or entirely a free-labor nation." A revolution, said Seward, had already begun: "Twenty Senators and a hundred Representatives proclaim...

...on October 25, he characterized the conflict between North and South in the most radical terms yet: "It is an irrepressible conflict between opposing...either entirely a slave-holding nation, or entirely a free labour nation." With the national debate over slavery as backdrop, New York's parties turned their...

...physical, moral and social energies of the whole State." A collision between these two systems impended, "an irrepressible conflict between opposing and enduring...and it means that the United States must and will . . . become either entirely a slave-holding nation, or entirely a free-labor nation."61 Southerners...

...physical, moral and social energies of the whole State." A collision between these two systems impended, "an irrepressible conflict between opposing and enduring...and it means that the United States must and will . . . become either entirely a slave-holding nation, or entirely a free-labor nation."61 Southerners...

...the work of interested or fanatical agitators, and therefore ephemeral, mistake the case altogether. It is an irrepressible conflict between opposing and...United States must and will sooner or later, become entirely a slaveholding nation or entirely a free-labor nation.66 Such rhetoric did not go unanswered....

...Press, 1971; reprint of an 1884 edition), p. 575. 5. Ibid., p. 194. Seward urged that this struggle was "an irrepressible conflict between opposing and enduring...slaveholding nation, or entirely a free-labor nation It is the failure to apprehend this great truth that induces so many unsuccessful attempts at final...

...work of interested or fanatical agitators, and therefore ephemeral, mistake the case altogether. lt is an irrepressible conflict between opposing and...entirely a free-labor nation. Either the cotton and rice-fields of South Carolina and the sugar plantations of Louisiana will ultimately be tilled by free...

...in Rochester, New York, that an "irrepressible conflict between opposing and enduring forces . . . means that the United States must and will, sooner...slaveholding nation or entirely a free-labor nation." Seward had already alienated constitutional unionists in 1850, when he claimed that a "higher law than...

...happiness throughout all its mountains and plains?" 31 And in a widely quoted speech, he observed: "It is an irrepressible conflict between opposing...slaveholding nation, or entirely a free-labor nation." 32 The beliefs Seward espoused must be set in a broader context. The ideology of free labor affirmed...

...William Seward stated in 1858, that there was "an irrepressible conflict" between North and South, that "the United States must and will, sooner or later,...slave-holding nation, or entirely a free-labor nation." As Republican Theodore Sedgwick asserted on the eve of the Civil War, "The policy and aims of slavery,...