84 POLITICAL LIFE-III 



enjoyed any work so much as this, which brought me into 

 hearty and close relations with a large body of active- 

 minded students from all parts of our country, and es- 

 pecially from the Northwest. More and more I realized 

 the justice of President Wayland's remark, which had so 

 impressed me at the Yale Alumni meeting just after my 

 return from Europe: that the nation was approaching 

 a " switching-off place' '; that whether we were to turn 

 toward evil or good in our politics would be decided by the 

 great Northwest, and that it would be well for young 

 Americans to cast in their lot with that part of the country. 



In the intervals of my university work many invitations 

 came to me from associations in various parts of Michigan 

 and neighboring States to lecture before them, and these 

 I was glad to accept. Such lectures were of a much more 

 general character than those given in the university, but 

 by them I sought to bring the people at large into trains 

 of thought which would fit them to grapple with the great 

 question which was rising more and more portentously 

 before us. 



Having accepted, in one of my vacations, an invitation 

 to deliver the Phi Beta Kappa Commencement Address 

 at Yale, I laid down as my thesis, and argued it from his- 

 tory, that in all republics, ancient or modern, the worst 

 foe of freedom had been a man-owning aristocracy an 

 aristocracy based upon slavery. The address was circu- 

 lated in printed form, was considerably discussed, and, I 

 trust, helped to set some few people thinking. 



For the same purpose I also threw some of my lectures 

 into the form of magazine articles for the "Atlantic 

 Monthly," and especially one entitled "The Statesman- 

 ship of Kichelieu, ' ' my effort in this being to show that the 

 one great error of that greatest of all French statesmen 

 was in stopping short of rooting out the serf system in 

 France when he had completely subjugated the serf own- 

 ers and had them at his mercy. 



As the year 1860 approached, the political struggle be- 

 came more and more bitter. President Buchanan in re- 



