William Henry Seward: Speech on the “Irrepressible Conflict”

William Henry Seward’s years in public life coincided with the struggle between northern and southern political leaders over the issue of slavery. The preservation of the Union and the growth of U.S. power abroad also became pressing concerns during this period. As both a public official and a partisan campaigner, Seward promoted the restriction of slavery and the strengthening of the United States as a nation built upon a free labor system. In his 1858 Speech on the “Irrepressible Conflict,” Seward spoke on behalf of the New York gubernatorial candidate Edwin D. Morgan. He took the opportunity to characterize the United States as divided between two opposing political systems, one based on slavery and the other on free labor—an “irrepressible conflict” that if not checked would lead inevitably to “collision.”