To avert war, Seward said he would endorse the Corwin Amendment and new fugitive slave laws. Shocked, Sumner interrupted his friend and begged him not to deliver the speech. “I protested with my whole soul, for the sake of our cause, our country, and his own good name,” he recalled. But Seward wouldn’t relent. Evidently, he hated war and disunion even more than he hated slavery.
