8EWARD MONUMENT, THE. 



717 



The idea of erecting a statue of the late Sec- 

 retary Seward in the city of New York was 

 first conceived by Richard Schell, of that city, 

 dome three years before. After consulting Mr. 

 Rogers about the probable coat of such a work, 

 .Mi-. Srh, 11 conferred with Messrs. George J. 

 Forrest, Lawrence W. Jerome, Thurlow Weed, 

 E. D. Morgan, and Hugh J. Hastings, who all 

 approved the project. To make up tlie sum of 

 $:2">,iK)0, the estimated cost of the undertaking, 

 subscriptions of just $100 were readily obtained 

 from 250 gentlemen, most of them residents 

 of New York, the committee who attended to 

 the business being G. J. Forrest, William H. 

 Appleton, and Lawrence W. Jerome. Mr. Rog- 

 ers was commissioned to make the statue. He 

 oame from Italy to make studies upon it, and 

 two years were occupied in its completion. 

 After it was cast in the famous works at Mu- 

 nich, it was shipped to New York, and within 

 three weeks after its arrival the unveiling took 

 place. The committee acting for the donors 

 consisted of William H. Appleton, chairman ; 

 Edwin D. Morgan, Richard Schell, Lawrence 

 W. Jerome, Frederick Law Olmsted, Isaac 

 Bell, Richard E. Mount, Sheridan Shook, 

 Charles W. Griswold, Chester A. Arthur, 

 Abram S. Hewitt, James Bowen, John D. 

 Maxwell, John E. Develin, William R. Martin, 

 Elijah Ward, De Witt 0. Wheeler, George M. 

 Van Nort, and George J. Forrest. 



The gift was formally made by the Hon. 

 John Bigelow, Secretary of State of the State 

 of New York, in the absence of Secretary Ham- 

 ilton Fish, who was unable to be present, after 

 the meeting had been called to order by Mr. 

 William R. Martin, President of the Depart- 

 ment of Public Parks in the city of New York, 

 and the acceptance on the part of the city ex- 

 pressed by William H. Wickham, mayor, in 

 two brief speeches. William H. Evarts, the 

 orator of the occasion, then delivered a lengthy 

 address before the large concourse of people 

 whom the event had attracted to the spot. 

 Mr. Evarts referred to the friendship which 

 had existed between himself and the lamented 

 statesman, during the twenty years preceding 

 his death, which embraced the most eventful 

 period of his career, but modestly deferred to 

 the longer intimacy of Hamilton Fish and Thur- 

 low Weed. He reviewed the public life of 

 Seward, which he divided into four periods: 

 "From 1824 to 1836 he was a lawyer, with an 

 interval, indeed, of service in the Senate of the 

 State, both as a debater and as a judge. From 

 1886 to 1848 he filled a prominent post in the 

 service of the State, with intervals in which he 

 resumed again his place as a lawyer and as a 

 citizen. From 1848 to 1860, in the Senate of 

 the United States, he led and filled out the 

 great progressive movements of our politics, 

 and there placed on the rolls of the renown 

 which its records preserve a name second to 

 none of those that preceded him ; and from 

 1860 to 1872, in administration of great affairs, 

 in times of transcendent interests and of gravest 



difficulty, and then retiring in the complete 

 triumph both of his politics and of his states- 

 manship, and leaving the helm from which an 

 incomparable pilot could then be spared, to the 

 smoothed sous and the calmed skies that had 

 succeeded the te:npest and thestorin in which he 

 had been the pilot and the savior of the state." 



He spoke of his connection with the great 

 Whig and Republican parties, in each of which 

 he was a conspicuous agent in its formation 

 and development, during its successes and de- 

 feats. He spoke of his disinterested attach- 

 ment to the right as a lawyer, and the dignity 

 of his brief services at the bar, and, referring 

 to the Freeman case, declared : ' I would give 

 up all forensic fame if I could not add it to in- 

 tegrity, I would give up all glory if I could 

 not add it to duty, to have it said of me that I 

 defended William Freeman against a world in 

 arms, and saved the jurisprudence and the jus- 

 tice of the State." 



The speaker then referred to Mr. Seward's 

 career in the Senate, from the time when he 

 alone represented in the United States Senate 

 a doctrine of slavery which was distinct from 

 compromise on the one side, and from aboli- 

 tionism on the other, to the time when, twelve 

 years later, seven Senators gathered around 

 him, supporters of his milder and conciliatory 

 methods. He eulogized his course when the 

 choice of the party, in 1860, fell upon "a younger 

 soldier in the great cause " as its candidate for 

 the presidency, and Seward, " without a senti- 

 ment of doubt, without a ripple in the com- 

 posure of his spirit," took his place as supporter 

 of his party's chosen chief. Mr. Evarts then 

 passed to the crowing glory of William H. 

 Seward's life his administration of foreign 

 affairs during the civil war and qualified the 

 serenity of judgment " which could make him 

 master of the confused counsels of others, tho 

 power of forecast, and the patience, which char- 

 acterized his mind." 



In conclusion, he noted Seward's undeviating 

 faith in popular institutions, which always 

 guided and impelled his political course. 



The statue is of light-colored bronze, and 

 rests upon a pedestal with a base of New 

 England granite and a dado of variegated 

 marble of Spezzia. It represents Mr. Sew- 

 ard sitting upon a chair, the right leg thrown 

 over the left, and turned slightly to the left 

 in the chair a common attitude with him 

 in life. One hand grasps a paper, and the 

 other, fallen to his side, holds a pen ; he ap- 

 pears to be meditating upon what he has just 

 written. A cloak hangs over the back of the 

 chair, and books and a scroll lie underneath. 

 The statue is ten feet in height, standing, with 

 the pedestal, twenty feet high ; the figure, if 

 standing, would be thirteen feet tall. The in- 

 scription upon the pedestal is, " William H. 

 Seward, Governor, Senator, Secretary of State 

 of U. S." Randolph Rogers, the artist, is a na- 

 tive of Michigan and former citizen of New 

 York. He has resided in Rome many years, 



