William H. Seward

William Henry Seward (May 16, 1801 – October 10, 1872) was an American politician who served as United States Secretary of State from 1861 to 1869, and earlier served as governor of New York and as a United States Senator. A determined opponent of the spread of slavery in the years leading up to the American Civil War, he was a prominent figure in the Republican Party in its formative years, and was praised for his work on behalf of the Union as Secretary of State during the Civil War. He also negotiated the treaty for the United States to purchase the Alaskan Territory.

Seward was born in 1801 in the village of Florida, in Orange County, New York, where his father was a farmer and owned slaves. He was educated as a lawyer and moved to the Central New York town of Auburn. Seward was elected to the New York State Senate in 1830 as an Anti-Mason. Four years later, he became the gubernatorial nominee of the Whig Party. Though he was not successful in that race, Seward was elected governor in 1838 and won a second two-year term in 1840. During this period, he signed several laws that advanced the rights of and opportunities for black residents, as well as guaranteeing jury trials for fugitive slaves in the state. The legislation protected abolitionists, and he used his position to intervene in cases of freed black people who were enslaved in the South.

After many years of practicing law in Auburn, he was elected by the state legislature to the U.S. Senate in 1849. Seward's strong stances and provocative words against slavery brought him hatred in the South. He was re-elected to the Senate in 1855, and soon joined the nascent Republican Party, becoming one of its leading figures. As the 1860 presidential election approached, he was regarded as the leading candidate for the Republican nomination. Several factors, including attitudes to his vocal opposition to slavery, his support for immigrants and Catholics, and his association with editor and political boss Thurlow Weed, worked against him, and Abraham Lincoln secured the presidential nomination. Although devastated by his loss, he campaigned for Lincoln, who appointed him Secretary of State after winning the election.

Seward did his best to stop the southern states from seceding; once that failed, he devoted himself wholeheartedly to the Union cause. His firm stance against foreign intervention in the Civil War helped deter the United Kingdom and France from recognizing the independence of the Confederate States. He was one of the targets of the 1865 assassination plot that killed Lincoln and was seriously wounded by conspirator Lewis Powell. Seward remained in his post through the presidency of Andrew Johnson, during which he negotiated the Alaska Purchase in 1867 and supported Johnson during his impeachment. His contemporary Carl Schurz described Seward as "one of those spirits who sometimes will go ahead of public opinion instead of tamely following its footprints".

Early life

Seward was born on May 16, 1801, in the small community of Florida, New York, in Orange County. He was the fourth son of Samuel Sweezy Seward and his wife Mary (Jennings) Seward. Samuel Seward was a wealthy landowner and slaveholder in New York State; slavery was not fully abolished in the state until 1827. Florida was located some north of New York City, west of the Hudson River, and was a small rural village of perhaps a dozen homes. Young Seward attended school there, and also in the nearby county seat of Goshen. He was a bright student who enjoyed his studies. In later years, one of the former family slaves would relate that instead of running away from school to go home, Seward would run away from home to go to school.

At the age of 15, Henry—he was known by his middle name as a boy—was sent to Union College in Schenectady, New York. Admitted to the sophomore class, Seward was an outstanding student and was elected to Phi Beta Kappa. Seward's fellow students included Richard M. Blatchford, who became a lifelong legal and political associate. Samuel Seward kept his son short on cash, and in December 1818—during the middle of Henry's final year at Union—the two quarreled about money. The younger Seward returned to Schenectady but soon left school in company with a fellow student, Alvah Wilson. The two took a ship from New York to Georgia, where Wilson had been offered a job as rector, or principal, of a new academy in rural Putnam County. En route, Wilson took a job at another school, leaving Seward to continue on to Eatonton in Putnam County. The trustees interviewed the 17-year-old Seward, and found his qualifications acceptable.

Seward enjoyed his time in Georgia, where he was accepted as an adult for the first time. He was treated hospitably, but also witnessed the ill-treatment of slaves. Seward was persuaded to return to New York by his family and did so in June 1819. As it was too late for him to graduate with his class, he studied law at an attorney's office in Goshen before returning to Union College, securing his degree with highest honors in June 1820.

Lawyer and state senator

Early career and involvement in politics

After graduation, Seward spent much of the following two years studying law in Goshen and New York City with attorneys John Duer, John Anthon and Ogden Hoffman. He passed the bar examination in late 1822. He could have practiced in Goshen, but he disliked the town and sought a practice in growing Western New York. Seward decided upon Auburn in Cayuga County, which was about west of Albany and northwest of Goshen. He joined the practice of retired judge Elijah Miller, whose daughter Frances Adeline Miller was a classmate of his sister Cornelia at Emma Willard's Troy Female Seminary. Seward married Frances Miller on October 20, 1824.

In 1824, Seward was journeying with his wife to Niagara Falls when one of the wheels on his carriage was damaged while they passed through Rochester. Among those who came to their aid was local newspaper publisher Thurlow Weed. Seward and Weed would become closer in the years ahead as they found they shared a belief that government policies should promote infrastructure improvements, such as roads and canals. Weed, deemed by some to be one of the earliest political bosses, would become a major ally of Seward. Despite the benefits to Seward's career from Weed's support, perceptions that Seward was too much controlled by Weed became a factor in the former's defeat for the Republican nomination for president in 1860.

Almost from the time he settled in Auburn, Seward involved himself in politics. At that time, the political system was in flux as new parties evolved. In New York State, there were generally two factions, which went by varying names, but were characterized by the fact that Martin Van Buren led one element, and the other opposed him. Van Buren, over a quarter century, held a series of senior posts, generally in the federal government. His allies were dubbed the Albany Regency, as they governed for Van Buren while he was away.

Seward originally supported the Regency, but by 1824 had broken from it, concluding that it was corrupt. He became part of the Anti-Masonic Party, which became widespread in 1826 after the disappearance and death of William Morgan, a Mason in Upstate New York; he was most likely killed by fellow Masons for publishing a book revealing the order's secret rites. Since the leading candidate in opposition to President John Quincy Adams was General Andrew Jackson, a Mason who mocked opponents of the order, Anti-Masonry became closely associated with opposition to Jackson, and to his policies once he was elected president in 1828.

Governor DeWitt Clinton had nominated Seward as Cayuga County Surrogate in late 1827 or early 1828, but as Seward was unwilling to support Jackson, he was not confirmed by the state Senate. During the 1828 campaign, Seward made speeches in support of President Adams's re-election. Seward was nominated for the federal House of Representatives by the Anti-Masons, but withdrew, deeming the fight hopeless. In 1829, Seward was offered the local nomination for New York State Assembly, but again felt there was no prospect of winning. In 1830, with Weed's aid, he gained the Anti-Masonic nomination for state senator for the local district. Seward had appeared in court throughout the district, and had spoken in favor of government support for infrastructure improvements, a position popular there. Weed had moved his operations to Albany, where his newspaper, the ''Albany Evening Journal'', advocated for Seward, who was elected by about 2,000 votes.

State senator and gubernatorial candidate

Seward was sworn in as state senator in January 1831. He left Frances and their children in Auburn and wrote to her of his experiences. These included meeting former vice president Aaron Burr, who had returned to practicing law in New York following a self-imposed exile in Europe after his duel with Alexander Hamilton and treason trial. The Regency (or the Democrats, as the national party led by Jackson and supported by Van Buren, was becoming known) controlled the Senate. Seward and his party allied with dissident Democrats and others to pass some legislation, including penal reform measures, for which Seward would become known.

During his term as state senator, Seward traveled extensively, visiting other anti-Jackson leaders, including former president Adams. He also accompanied his father Samuel Seward on a trip to Europe, where they met the political men of the day. Seward hoped that the Anti-Masons would nominate Supreme Court Justice John McLean for president against Jackson's re-election bid in 1832, but the nomination fell to former Attorney General William Wirt. Kentucky Senator Henry Clay, an opponent of Jackson, was a Mason, and thus unacceptable as party standard-bearer. In the aftermath of Jackson's easy victory, many of those who opposed him believed that a united front was necessary to defeat the Democrats, and the Whig Party gradually came into being. The Whigs believed in legislative action to develop the country and opposed Jackson's unilateral actions as president, which they deemed imperial. Many Anti-Masons, including Seward and Weed, readily joined the new party.

In preparation for the 1834 election, New York's Whigs met in Utica to determine a gubernatorial candidate. Democratic Governor William Marcy was heavily favored to be re-elected, and few prominent Whigs were anxious to run a campaign that would most likely be lost. Seward's wife and father wanted him to retire from politics to increase the income from his law practice, and Weed urged him to seek re-election to the state Senate. Nevertheless, the reluctance of others to run caused Seward to emerge as a major candidate. Weed procured Seward's triumph at the Utica convention. The election turned on national issues, most importantly President Jackson's policies. These were then popular, and in a strong year for Democrats, Seward was defeated by some 11,000 votes—Weed wrote that the Whigs were overwhelmed by illegally cast ballots.

Defeated for governor and with his term in the state Senate having expired, Seward returned to Auburn and the practice of law at the start of 1835. That year, Seward and his wife undertook a lengthy trip, going as far south as Virginia. Although they were hospitably received by southerners, the Sewards saw scenes of slavery which confirmed them as its opponents. The following year, Seward accepted a position as agent for the new owners of the Holland Land Company, which owned large tracts of land in Western New York, upon which many settlers were purchasing real estate on installment. The new owners were viewed as less forgiving landlords than the old, and when there was unrest, they hired Seward, popular in Western New York, in hopes of adjusting the matter. He was successful, and when the Panic of 1837 began, persuaded the owners to avoid foreclosures where possible. He also, in 1838, arranged the purchase of the company's holdings by a consortium that included himself.

Van Buren had been elected president in 1836; even with his other activities, Seward had found time to campaign against him. The economic crisis came soon after the inauguration and threatened the Regency's control of New York politics. Seward had not run for governor in 1836, but with the Democrats unpopular, saw a path to victory in 1838 (the term was then two years). Other prominent Whigs also sought the nomination. Weed persuaded delegates to the convention that Seward had run ahead of other Whig candidates in 1834; Seward was nominated on the fourth ballot. Seward's opponent was again Marcy, and the economy the principal issue. The Whigs argued that the Democrats were responsible for the recession. As it was thought improper for candidates for major office to campaign in person, Seward left most of that to Weed. Seward was elected by a margin of about 10,000 votes out of 400,000 cast. The victory was the most significant for the Whig Party to that point, and eliminated the Regency from power in New York, permanently.

Governor of New York

William Seward was sworn in as governor of New York on January 1, 1839, and inaugurated in front of a crowd of jubilant Whigs. In that era, the annual message by the New York governor was published and discussed to the extent of that of a president. Seward biographer Walter Stahr wrote that his address "brimmed with his youth, energy, ambition, and optimism." Seward took note of America's great unexploited resources and stated that immigration should be encouraged in order to take advantage of them. He urged that citizenship and religious liberty be granted to those who came to New York's shores. At the time, New York City's public schools were run by Protestants, and used Protestant texts, including the King James Bible. Seward believed the current system was a barrier to literacy for immigrants' children and proposed legislation to change it. Education, he stated, "banishes the distinctions, old as time, of rich and poor, master and slave. It banishes ignorance and lays axe to the root of crime." Seward's stance was popular among immigrants, but was disliked by nativists; their opposition would eventually help defeat his bid for the Republican presidential nomination in 1860.

Although the Assembly had a Whig majority at the start of Seward's first term as governor, the party had only 13 legislators out of 32 in the state Senate. The Democrats refused to co-operate with Governor Seward except on the most urgent matters, and he initially found himself unable to advance much of his agenda. Accordingly, the 1839 legislative elections were crucial to Seward's legislative hopes, and to advancing the nominations of many Whigs to state office whose posts required Senate confirmation. Both Seward and President Van Buren gave several speeches across New York State that summer. Henry Clay, one of the hopefuls for the Whig nomination for president, spent part of the summer in Upstate New York, and the two men met by chance on a ferry. Seward refused to formally visit Clay at his vacation home in Saratoga Springs in the interests of neutrality, beginning a difficult relationship between the two men. After the 1839 election, the Whigs had 19 seats, allowing the party full control of state government.

Following the election, there was unrest near Albany among tenant farmers on the land owned by Dutch-descended patroons of the van Rensselaer family. These tenancies allowed the landlords privileges such as enlisting the unpaid labor of tenants, and any breach could result in termination of tenure without compensation for improvements. When sheriff's deputies in Albany County were obstructed from serving eviction writs, Seward was asked to call out the militia. After an all-night cabinet meeting, he did so, though quietly assuring the tenants that he would intervene with the legislature. This mollified the settlers, though Seward proved unable to get the legislature to pass reforming laws. This question of tenants' rights was not settled until after Seward had left office.

In September 1839, a ship sailing from Norfolk, Virginia, to New York City was discovered to have an escaped slave on board. The slave was returned to his owner pursuant to the Fugitive Slave Clause of the Constitution, but Virginia also demanded that three free black sailors, said to have concealed the fugitive aboard ship, be surrendered to its custody. This Seward would not do, and the Virginia General Assembly passed legislation inhibiting trade with New York. With Seward's encouragement, the New York legislature passed acts in 1840 protecting the rights of blacks against Southern slave-catchers. One guaranteed alleged fugitive slaves the right of a jury trial in New York to establish whether they were slaves, and another pledged the aid of the state to recover free blacks kidnapped into slavery.

Seward and Van Buren were both up for re-election in 1840. Seward did not attend the December 1839 Whig National Convention in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, but Weed did on his behalf. They were determined to support General Winfield Scott for president, but when Weed concluded Scott could not win, he threw New York's support behind the eventual winner, General William Henry Harrison. This action outraged supporters of Senator Clay. These grievances would not be quickly forgotten—one supporter of the Kentuckian wrote in 1847 that he was intent on seeing the "punishment of Seward & Co. for defrauding the country of Mr. Clay in 1840".

Seward was renominated for a second term by the Whig convention against Democrat William C. Bouck, a former state legislator. Seward did not campaign in person, but ran affairs behind the scenes with Weed and made his views known to voters through a Fourth of July speech and lengthy letters, declining invitations to speak, printed in the papers. In one, Seward expounded upon the importance of the log cabin—a structure evoking the common man and a theme that the Whigs used heavily in Harrison's campaign—where Seward had always found a far warmer welcome than in the marble palaces of the well-to-do (evoking Van Buren). Both Harrison and Seward were elected. Although Seward would serve for nearly thirty more years in public life, his name would never again pass before the voters.

In his second term, Seward was involved with the trial of Alexander McLeod, who had boasted of involvement in the 1837 ''Caroline'' Affair, in which Canadians came across the Niagara River and sank the ''Caroline'', a steamboat being used to supply William Lyon Mackenzie's fighters during the Upper Canada Rebellion. McLeod was arrested, but the British Foreign Minister, Lord Palmerston, demanded his release. McLeod, who was part of the Canadian colonial militia, could not be held responsible for actions taken under orders. Although the Van Buren administration had agreed with Seward that McLeod should be tried under state law, its successor did not and urged that charges against McLeod be dropped. A series of testy letters were exchanged between Governor Seward and Harrison's Secretary of State Daniel Webster, and also between the governor and the new president John Tyler, who succeeded on Harrison's death after a month in office. McLeod was tried and acquitted in late 1841. Stahr pointed out that Seward got his way in having McLeod tried in a state court, and the diplomatic experience served him well as Secretary of State.

Seward continued his support of blacks, signing legislation in 1841 to repeal a "nine-month law" that allowed slaveholders to bring their slaves into the state for a period of nine months before they were considered free. After this, slaves brought to the state were immediately considered freed. Seward also signed legislation to establish public education for all children, leaving it up to local jurisdictions as to how that would be supplied (some had segregated schools).

Out of office

As governor, Seward incurred considerable personal debt not only because he had to live beyond his salary to maintain the lifestyle expected of the office, but also because he could not pay down his obligation from the land company purchase. At the time he left office, he owed $200,000. Returning to Auburn, he absorbed himself in a profitable law practice. He did not abandon politics and received former president Adams at the Seward family home in 1843.

According to his biographer, John M. Taylor, Seward picked a good time to absent himself from electoral politics, as the Whig Party was in turmoil. President Tyler, a former Democrat, and Senator Clay each claimed leadership of the Whig Party and, as the two men differed over such issues as whether to re-establish the Bank of the United States, party support was divided. The abolitionist movement attracted those who did not want to be part of a party led by slavery-supporting southerners. In 1844, Seward was asked to run for president by members of the Liberty Party; he declined and reluctantly supported the Whig nominee, Clay. The Kentuckian was defeated by Democrat James K. Polk. The major event of Polk's administration was the Mexican–American War; Seward did not support this, feeling that the price in blood was not worth the increase in territory, especially as southerners were promoting this acquisition to expand territory for slavery.

In 1846, Seward became the center of controversy in Auburn when he defended, in separate cases, two felons accused of murder. Henry Wyatt, a white man, was charged with fatally stabbing a fellow inmate in prison; William Freeman, a black, was accused of breaking into a house after his release and stabbing four people to death. In both cases, the defendants were likely mentally ill and had been abused while in prison. Seward, having long been an advocate of prison reform and better treatment for the insane, sought to prevent each man from being executed by using the relatively new defense of insanity. Seward gained a hung jury in Wyatt's first trial, though he was subsequently convicted in a retrial and executed despite Seward's efforts to secure clemency. Freeman was convicted, though Seward gained a reversal on appeal. There was no second Freeman trial, as officials were convinced of his insanity. Freeman died in prison in late 1846. In the Freeman case, invoking mental illness and racial issues, Seward argued, "he is still your brother, and mine, in form and color accepted and approved by his Father, and yours, and mine, and bears equally with us the proudest inheritance of our race—the image of our Maker. Hold him then to be a Man."

Although they were locally contentious, the trials boosted Seward's image across the North. He gained further publicity in association with Ohioan Salmon P. Chase when handling the unsuccessful appeal in the United States Supreme Court of John Van Zandt, an anti-slavery advocate sued by a slaveowner for assisting blacks in escaping on the Underground Railroad. Chase was impressed with Seward, writing that the former New York governor "was one of the very first public men in our country. Who but himself would have done what he did for the poor wretch Freeman?"

The main Whig contenders in 1848 were Clay again, and two war hero generals with little political experience, Winfield Scott and Zachary Taylor. Seward supported General Taylor. The former governor was less enthusiastic about the vice-presidential candidate, New York State Comptroller Millard Fillmore, a rival of his from Buffalo. Nevertheless, he campaigned widely for the Whigs against the Democratic presidential candidate, former Michigan senator Lewis Cass. The two major parties did not make slavery an issue in the campaign. The Free Soil Party, mostly Liberty Party members and some Northern Democrats, nominated former president Van Buren. The Taylor/Fillmore ticket was elected, and the split in the New York Democratic Party

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