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William H. Seward

1801–1872 · 71 years

The man everyone expected to be president in 1860

Portrait of William H. Seward — Unknown authorUnknown author Restoration by Adam Cuerden — 1859 — Public domain via Wikimedia Commons

His father owned slaves. Samuel Sweezy Seward was a wealthy landowner in Florida, a village in Orange County, New York, and slavery would not be fully abolished in the state until 1827. His fourth son was born there on May 16, 1801. Sent to Union College at 15, Seward quarreled with his father over money in his final year and walked out, turning up at 17 to run a school in Putnam County, Georgia. He came home in 1819, took his degree with highest honors in 1820, passed the bar in 1822, and settled in Auburn in the law office of Judge Elijah Miller, whose daughter Frances he married two years later. A broken carriage wheel in Rochester that year introduced him to a newspaperman named Thurlow Weed.

He was sworn in as governor of New York on January 1, 1839, and entered the Senate 10 years later, but the job that mattered was the State Department, which he ran from 1861 to 1869. His assignment was Europe. Britain and France had granted the Confederacy belligerent rights and might have gone further. When an American captain seized two Confederate envoys off the British mail packet Trent in November 1861, London drew up war plans. Seward stalled the British minister, then told Lincoln the prisoners had to go. They went, and the Confederacy never got a European ally.

He was supposed to be president. Seward went into the May 1860 Republican convention the overwhelming favorite and lost on the third ballot to a one-term congressman from Illinois, beaten partly by his quotable record: the higher law above the Constitution he had invoked in 1850, the irrepressible conflict he had predicted at Rochester in 1858. Southerners had read those lines as a declaration of war. He took the State Department still assuming he would effectively run the administration, and on April 1, 1861, sent Lincoln a memorandum saying the government had no policy and offering to supply one himself. Lincoln drafted a reply — whatever was to be done, I must do it — never sent it, and met Seward alone instead. No record of that conversation survives. Seward became the closest colleague Lincoln had.

Lewis Powell forced his way in on the night of April 14, 1865, and stabbed Seward in his bed, where a carriage accident nine days earlier had left him. Two of his sons, a soldier and a messenger were hurt. Everyone survived. A splint on his broken jaw is credited with turning most of the blows. Frances died that June. He stayed on under Johnson, was content to leave Black suffrage to the states, and in 1867 bought Alaska for 7.2 million dollars. The ridicule was real but thinner than legend holds — most papers backed the treaty, and Seward's Folly attached to it later. He died in Auburn on October 10, 1872. The state kept his name.

Lifespan

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William H. Seward's life against the full span of the corpus.

Notable works

New York acts protecting free and fugitive Black residents law
Backed as governor. One guaranteed alleged fugitive slaves a jury trial in New York. 1840
Defense of William Freeman other
An insanity defense for a Black man accused of murder. Locally ruinous, and it made his name across the North. 1846
Higher Law speech speech
March 11, 1850. He told the Senate there was a higher law than the Constitution, and the South never forgot it. 1850
Irrepressible Conflict speech speech
Corinthian Hall, Rochester, October 25, 1858. It probably cost him the nomination. 1858
Thanksgiving Day proclamation other
Proposed to Lincoln and drafted by Seward. It made Thanksgiving an annual national observance. 1863
Treaty with Russia for the purchase of Alaska other
Signed March 30, 1867, for 7.2 million dollars. The transfer at Sitka followed that October. 1867

Life in brief

with age at each point

January 1, 1839 aged 37 Sworn in as governor of New York He was 37. Two acts passed in 1840 with his backing took aim at Southern slave-catchers working the state.
March 11, 1850 aged 48 Invokes a higher law than the Constitution on the Senate floor The speech was reprinted everywhere and made him the leading antislavery voice in Congress.
October 25, 1858 aged 57 Predicts an irrepressible conflict in a speech at Rochester White southerners read it as a declaration of war.
May 18, 1860 aged 59 Loses the Republican nomination to Lincoln on the third ballot He had gone into the Chicago convention the overwhelming favorite. He campaigned for Lincoln anyway.
April 1, 1861 aged 59 Sends Lincoln "Some Thoughts for the President's Consideration" The memo said the administration had no policy and offered to supply one himself. Lincoln declined, in private.
November 8, 1861 aged 60 The Trent Affair begins when a US warship seizes two Confederate envoys Seward talked the British minister out of an ultimatum and had the prisoners released.
April 14, 1865 aged 63 Attacked in his bed by Lewis Powell on the night Booth shot Lincoln Seward was already bedridden from a carriage accident. All five people hurt in the house survived.
March 30, 1867 aged 65 Signs the treaty buying Alaska from Russia The price was 7.2 million dollars. The formal transfer at Sitka came on October 18 that year.
October 10, 1872 aged 71 Dies at home in Auburn, New York Thurlow Weed came to the burial. Harriet Tubman, whom the Sewards had aided, sent flowers.