FROM ACCESSION OF FREDERICK WILLIAM IV. TO 1848. 253 



lion of his work. He set much greater value on the suppressed 

 portion of his essay than on the laborious astronomical obser- 

 vations for the determination of geographical positions, the 

 experiments on the strength of magnetic currents, or on the 

 statistical data ; he thought himself entitled to demand that 

 the sentiments which had been allowed to appear in the Spanish 

 edition from the first moment of publication should at least 

 have free circulation in the United States of America. In 

 private letters he scrupled not to designate Thrasher's conduct 

 as disgraceful, and saw in the transaction only another proof of 

 the desire of the Americans to possess Cuba. The important 

 aspect the afEair subsequently assumed was due to the circum- 

 stance that Humboldt's expostulation, which naturally went the 

 round of the American papers, appeared at a time of unusual 

 excitement, when the election of a president was going forward. 

 Fremont, the representative of the Abolitionists, and Buchanan, 

 the supporter of slavery, were the opposing candidates ; and this 

 election proved one of the most decisive in its bearing upon the 

 slave question and the history of the Union. The republican 

 party felt encouraged by Humboldt's support, 1 and Fremont, in 

 writing to him on August 16, expressed his appreciation of his 

 sympathy in these words : 4 In the history of your life and 

 opinions we find abundant reasons for believing that in the 

 struggle in which the friends to liberal progress in this country 

 find themselves engaged, we shall have with us the strength of 

 your name.' In order to bring before the notice of the Ame- 

 ricans the example of their great statesman, Humboldt re- 

 quested Tocqueville to search for a letter of Jefferson's against 

 slavery, which he had given to Madame de Stae'l. Even in 

 September, when already despairing of the victory of Fremont, 2 

 Humboldt received a communication from Massachusetts re- 

 questing permission to publish the opinion he had some time 

 previously given expression to verbally on the subject of the 

 Ostend conference, the resolutions of which he had designated 

 as ' the most outrageous political document ever published.' 

 Even Humboldt's recognition of the value of Fremont's scien- 



1 Herr von Gerolt to Humboldt in the 'Briefe an Varnhagen,' p. 316. 



2 ' Briefe an Varnhagen,' p. 315. 



