William H. Seward
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Categories: United States Secretaries of State | United States presidential candidates, 1856 | United States presidential candidates, 1860 | Union political leaders | United States Senators from New York | Governors of New York | United States Whig Party | History of the foreign relations of the United States | American abolitionists | New York State Senators | People of New York in the American Civil War | New York lawyers | New York politicians | New York Republicans | Orange County, NY politicians | Hudson Valley politicians | People from Cayuga County, New York | Union College, New York alumni | People from Orange County, New York | American Episcopalians | American adoptive parents | 1801 births | 1872 deaths
William Henry Seward, Sr. (May 16, 1801 – October 10, 1872) was a Governor of New York, United States Senator and the United States Secretary of State under Abraham Lincoln and Andrew Johnson.
Early life and careerSeward was born in Florida, New York, a community (which since has incorporated as a village) in Orange County, New York. His parents were Dr. Samuel Sweazy Seward (December 5, 1768-August 4, 1849) and Mary Jennings Seward (November 27, 1769-December 11, 1844). He attended Union College, studying law, and graduated in 1820, with high honors. He married Frances Adeline Miller on October 20, 1824, after meeting in 1821. They raised five children:
Some years after his wife's death, in 1865, William formally adopted his companion Olive Risley Seward (1841-1908) as his "daughter." After receiving his college degree he read law in Goshen, New York and New York City. Subsequently he joined the practice of his future father-in-law, Judge Elijah Miller, in Auburn, New York. Seward entered politics with the help of his friend Thurlow Weed, whom he had met by chance after a stagecoach accident.[1] In 1830, Seward was elected, at the age of 29, to the state senate as an Anti-Masonic candidate, and served till 1834. In that year (only 33 years old) he was the Whig candidate for Governor of New York. He lost narrowly to incumbent Democrat William Marcy (52% to 48%). From 1836 to 1838, Seward served as agent for the Holland Land Company in Westfield, New York, and in that capacity was successful in easing tensions between that company and local landowners. On July 16, 1837, he delivered to the students and faculty of the newly-formed Westfield Academy a Discourse on Education, in which he advocated for universal education.[2] In 1838, he challenged Marcy again, and won (51.4% to 48.6%). He was narrowly re-elected in 1840 (50.3% to 49.1%). His two terms ran from 1839 through 1842. As a state senator and governor, Seward promoted progressive political policies including prison reform and increased spending on education. He supported state funding for schools for immigrants using their own languages and operated by their own clergy - such as Catholic parochial schools. This came back to haunt him in the 1850s, when anti-Catholic feelings were high, especially among ex-Whigs in the Republican Party. Beginning in the late 1830s, Seward became a radical opponent of slavery. His views -- and the even stronger anti-slavery feelings of his wife -- were formed in part by their observations of the conditions of slavery while traveling in the South with their children in 1835.[3] He opposed the expansion of slavery and resisted attempts by Southern states to extradite those who enabled fugitive slaves to escape. In 1846 Seward became the center of controversy in his hometown when he defended, in separate cases, two African American men accused of murder. Henry Wyatt stabbed a fellow prison inmate, while William Freeman, after his release from prison, broke into a home and stabbed to death four people (one of whom Freeman erroneously believed had falsely testified against him). In both cases the defendants were mentally ill and had been severely abused while in prison. Seward having long been an advocate of prison reform and better treatment for the insane sought to prevent both men from being executed by using the relatively new insanity defense. In a case involving mental illness with heavy racial overtones Seward argued:
Later, Seward quoted Freeman’s brother-in-law, praising his eloquence: “They have made William Freeman what he is, a brute beast; they don’t make anything else of any of our people but brute beasts; but when we violate their laws, then they want to punish us as if we were men.”[5] In the end both men were convicted with Wyatt being executed and Freeman dying in prison while Seward vigorously pursued an appeal. 
Services to the United StatesSeward supported the Whig candidate, General Zachary Taylor, in the presidential election of 1848. He said of Taylor, "He is the most gentle-looking and amiable of men." Taylor was a slaveholding plantation owner, but was was friendly to Seward anyway. He was elected U.S. Senator as a Whig in 1849 and emerged as the leader of the anti-slavery "Conscience Whigs". Seward opposed the Compromise of 1850, and was thought to have encouraged Taylor in his supposed opposition. More recent scholarship suggests that Taylor was not under Seward's influence and would have accepted the Compromise if he had not died. Seward believed that slavery was morally wrong, and said so many times, outraging Southerners. He acknowledged that slavery was legal under the Constitution, but denied that the Constitution recognized or protected slavery. He famously remarked in 1850 that "there is a higher law than the Constitution". He continued to argue this point of view over the next ten years. He presented himself as the leading enemy of the Slave Power — that is, the perceived conspiracy of southern slaveowners to seize the government and defeat the progress of liberty. Seward was an opponent of the Fugitive Slave Act, and he defended runaway slaves in court. He supported personal liberty laws. Image:WmHSeward.jpg
William H. Seward (c. 1850)
When the Whig Party dissolved, Seward joined the Republican Party in 1855 and was re-elected to the Senate. Seward did not seriously compete for the presidential nomination (won by John C. Frémont) in 1856, but sought and was expected to receive the nomination in 1860. In October 1858, he delivered a famous speech in which he argued that the political and economic systems of North and South were incompatible, and that, due to this "irrepressible conflict," the inevitable "collision" of the two systems would eventually result in the nation becoming "either entirely a slaveholding nation, or entirely a free-labor nation.".[6] Yet, Seward was not an abolitionist. Like Lincoln, he believed slavery could and should be extinguished by long-run historical forces rather than by coercion or war.[7] In 1859, confident of gaining the presidential nomination and advised by his political ally and friend Thurlow Weed that he would be better off avoiding political gatherings where his words might be misinterpreted by one faction or another, Seward left the country for an eight-month tour of Europe. During that hiatus, his lesser-known rival Abraham Lincoln worked diligently to line up support in case Seward failed to win on the first ballot. After returning to the United States, Seward gave a conciliatory, pro-Union Senate speech that reassured moderates but alienated some radical Republicans. (Observing events from Europe, Karl Marx, who was ideologically sympathetic to Frémont, contemptuously regarded Seward as a "Republican Richelieu" and the "Demosthenes of the Republican Party" who had sabotaged Frémont's presidential ambitions.) Around the same time, his friend Horace Greeley turned against him, opposing Seward on the grounds that his radical reputation made him unelectable. When Lincoln won the nomination, Seward loyally supported him and made a long speaking tour of the West in the autumn of 1860. Abraham Lincoln appointed him Secretary of State in 1861 and he served until 1869. As Secretary of State, he argued that the United States must move westward. He fought for the U.S. purchase of Alaska, which he finally negotiated to acquire from Russia for $7,200,000 for 586,412 square miles (1,518,800 km²) of territory (more than twice the size of Texas), on March 30, 1867. This translated into approximately 2 cents per acre. The purchase of this frontier land was alternately mocked by the public as "Seward's Folly", "Seward's Icebox", and Andrew Johnson's "polar bear garden". Currently, Alaska celebrates the purchase on Seward's Day, the last Monday of March. Proposing American possession of the Danish West Indies, Samaná, Panama, and Hawaii, only the Brook Islands were annexed. Despite a minimal degree of Congressional support however, by the end of his term, Seward had established a realm of informal influence which, nonetheless included the Hawaiian Islands, Japan, and even, China. Image:RunningtheMachine-LincAdmin.jpg
Running The "Machine"
An 1864 cartoon featuring Seward, William Fessenden, Edwin Stanton, Abraham Lincoln and Gideon Welles takes a swing at the Lincoln administration. Assassination attempt
On April 14, 1865, Lewis Powell, an associate of John Wilkes Booth, attempted to assassinate Seward, the same night and at the same moment Abraham Lincoln was shot. Powell gained access to Seward's home by telling a servant, William Bell, that he was delivering medicine for Seward, who was recovering from a recent near-fatal carriage accident on April 5, 1865. Powell started up the stairs when then confronted by one of Seward's sons, Frederick. He told the intruder that his father was asleep and Powell began to start down the stairs, but suddenly swung around and pointed a gun at Frederick's head. After the gun misfired, Powell panicked, then repeatedly struck Frederick over the head with the pistol, leaving Frederick in critical condition on the floor. Powell then burst into William Seward's bedroom with a bowie knife and stabbed him several times in the face and neck. Powell also attacked and injured another son (Augustus), a soldier (Private George Robinson), who had been assigned to stay with Seward, and a messenger (Emerick Hansell), who arrived just as Powell was escaping.[8] Image:Frances Adeline Miller Seward.jpg
Seward's wife Frances Adeline Seward.
During the attack Seward was wearing a jaw splint (often incorrectly reported as a 'neck brace') as a result of a carriage accident, and it is said that this saved his life. However, he carried the facial scars from the attack for the remainder of his life. The events of that night took their toll on his wife, Frances, who died June 1865. His daughter Fanny died of tuberculosis in October 1866. Powell was captured the next day and was executed on July 7, 1865, along with David Herold, George Atzerodt, and Mary Surratt, three other conspirators in the Lincoln assassination. Image:WilliamHSeward.JPG
Statue of Seward in Madison Square in New York City.
Later lifeSeward retired as Secretary of State after Ulysses S. Grant took office as president. During his last years, Seward traveled and wrote prolifically. Most notably, he traveled around the world in fourteen months and two days from July, 1869 to September, 1871. On October 10, 1872, Seward died in his office in his home in Auburn, New York, after having difficulty breathing. His last words were to his children saying, "Love one another." He was buried in Fort Hill Cemetery in Auburn, New York, with his wife and two children, Cornelia and Fanny. His headstone reads, “He was faithful.” His son, Frederick, edited and published his memoirs in three volumes. Legacy
MemorialsImage:Volunteer Park Seward.jpg
Statue of Seward in Volunteer Park, Seattle, Washington.
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