William H. Seward

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This article about the New York Governor and Secretary of State. For his son, see William H. Seward, Jr. For others with that name, see William Henry Seward (disambiguation).

William Henry Seward
Image:William Seward, Secretary of State, bw photo portrait circa 1860-1865.jpg
24th United States Secretary of State
In office March 5, 1861 – March 4, 1869
Preceded by	Jeremiah S. Black
Succeeded by	Elihu B. Washburne
Born	May 16 1801(1801-05-16) Florida, New York, U.S.
Died	October 10 1872 (aged 71) Auburn, New York, U.S.
Political party	Whig, Republican
Spouse	Frances Adeline Seward
Profession	Lawyer, Land Agent, Politician
Religion	Episcopalian

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.

Contents 1 Early life and career 2 Services to the United States 3 Assassination attempt 4 Later life 5 Legacy 6 References 7 Works 8 External links

[edit] Early life and career

Seward was born in Florida, NY, 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:

• Augustus Henry Seward (1826–1876)
• Frederick William Seward (1830–1915)
• Cornelia Seward (1836–1837)
• William Henry Seward, Jr. (1839–1920)
• Frances Adeline "Fanny" Seward (1844–1866)

Some years after his wife's death, in 1870, William formally adopted his companion Olive Risley Seward (1841-1908) as his "daughter."

In his early career he was a radical opponent of slavery. He opposed the expansion of slavery and resisted attempts by Southern states to hand over those who enabled fugitive slaves to escape. His views were formed in part by his experiences observing the conditions of slavery while working in Georgia. He then read law in Florida, New York and Goshen, New York and joined his practice with his father-in-law, Judge Elijah Miller, in Auburn, New York. He suspended his law practice to become a politician when he was elected, at the age of 29, as an anti-Mason candidate for the Whig to the New York senate. In 1838, he was elected Governor of New York, serving for two terms until 1842. As a state senator and governor, Seward promoted progressive political policies including prison reform and increased spending on education, including the idea of schools for immigrants taught in their own language and by members of their own religion.

In 1846 William Seward became the center of controversy within his hometown when he decided to defend, in separate cases, two African American men accused of murder. Henry Wyatt had stabbed a fellow 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:

The color of the prisoner’s skin, and the form of his features, are not impressed upon the spiritual immortal mind which works beneath. In spite of human pride, 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.^[1]

Later, Seward quoted Freeman’s brother in law praising its 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.”^[2] In the end both men were convicted with Wyatt being executed and Freeman dying in prison while Seward vigorously pursued an appeal.

[edit] Services to the United States

He was elected United States Senator as a Whig in 1849 and emerged as the leader of its anti-slavery wing. Being a fellow Whig, Seward was a friend and supporter of President Zachary Taylor's during his run for the presidency saying, "He is the most gentle-looking and amiable of men." Seward was an opponent of the Fugitive Slave Act, and he defended runaway slaves in court. Seward believed that there was a "higher law" than the Constitution, claiming that slavery was morally wrong. He used this as a justification in defending runaways and in his support of personal liberty laws. In 1850 Seward voted against the Compromise of 1850 and claimed in a speech that if slavery were not abolished, America would become embroiled in a civil war. 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.

With the decline in the fortunes of the Whig political Party, Seward joined the Republican Party in 1855 and was reelected senator from New York. By this time Seward had moderated his views and became less associated with the group known as the Radical Republicans. Seward lost the presidential nomination to John C. Frémont in 1856. He was expected to get the nomination in 1860 but many of the delegates feared that his radical past would prevent him from winning the election. However, radicals such as Horace Greeley also opposed him because they were angry at his shift to the right. 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. When Abraham 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 as "Seward's Folly", "Seward's Icebox", and Andrew Johnson's "polar bear garden," by the public. Currently, Alaska celebrates the purchase on Seward's Day, the last Monday of March.

He also engineered the annexation of the Danish Virgin Islands and the Bay of Samaná, and for American control of Panama; but the Senate did not ratify these treaties.

[edit] Assassination attempt

Main Article: Abraham Lincoln assassination: William H. Seward

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 and stabbed him several times in the face and neck. Powell also attacked and injured two of Seward's other children, Augustus and Fanny, his nurse, Sergeant George F. Robinson, and a messenger, Emerick Hansell, who arrived just as Powell was escaping.

It is reported that when Seward awoke, his wife Frances Adeline Seward was attempting to serve him tea with a spoon. During the attack Seward was wearing a jaw splint (often incorrectly reported as a 'neck brace') as a result of the 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 that happened that night put his wife and his daughter Fanny into complete shock and worry. Frances died June of 1865 and Fanny in October of 1866.

Powell was captured the next day and executed on July 7, 1865, along with David Herold, George Atzerodt, and Mary Surratt, three other conspirators in the Lincoln assassination.

[edit] Later life

Seward retired as Secretary of State after Ulysses S. Grant took office as president. During his last years, Seward traveled prolifically and wrote. Most notably, he traveled around the world in fourteen months and two days from July, 1870 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.

[edit] Legacy

• Purchase of Alaska.
• $50-dollar Treasury notes, also called Coin notes, of the Series 1891, features a portrait of Seward on the obverse. Examples of this note are very rare and would likely sell for about $50,000.00 at auction.
• His house in Auburn, New York is open as a public museum.
• There is a street named after him in the city of Auburn, NY: Seward Ave. There are three other streets in Auburn, NY named after members of Seward's family. They are Frances St, Augustus St, and Frederick St. The four streets form a block.
• There is a street named after him, also Seward Ave, in Schenectady, New York, which forms the western border of the Union College campus.
• Also at his former college, Union College, there is a campus transportation known as Seward's Trolley, a pun on Seward's Folly.
• The city of Auburn, NY named one of its elementary school after him. Seward Elementary School. The village of Florida, NY, his birthplace, named its only high school after his father, Samuel Swazy Seward.
• The towns of Seward, Nebraska, Seward, Alaska, and the Seward Peninsula, also in Alaska, are named for him, as are Seward Park in Seattle, Washington, Seward Square park in Washington, D.C., and the Town of Seward, NY.
  Image:Volunteer Park Seward.jpg

  Statue of Seward in Volunteer Park, Seattle, Washington.
• There is a statue of him in Seward Park in Auburn, New York, in Madison Square Park in New York City and in Volunteer Park in Seattle (not facing towards Alaska).
• There is a memorial to him in his hometown of Florida, with a bust sculpted by Daniel Chester French.
• One of the Adirondack High Peaks is named after the former senator: Seward Mountain (4,361 feet, 1,329 m), the highest in Franklin County.
• A park in the Lower East Side of Manhattan, as well the nearby housing cooperative are named after him.
• The Guano Islands Act of 1856

[edit] References

[edit] Works

[edit] External links

• William H. Seward at the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress
• Seward House, Auburn, NY
• Brief Seward biography
• Mr. Lincoln and Friends: William H. Seward
• Mr. Lincoln and New York: William H. Seward
• Mr. Lincoln's White House: William H. Seward
• Works by William H. Seward at Project Gutenberg
• Pictures of US Treasury Notes featuring William Seward, provided by the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco.
• William Henry Seward, the Virginia controversy, and the anti-slavery movement, 1839-1841

Preceded by William L. Marcy	Governor of New York 1839 – 1842	Succeeded by William C. Bouck
Preceded by John A. Dix	United States Senator (Class 3) from New York March 4, 1849 – March 3, 1861 Served alongside: Daniel S. Dickinson, Hamilton Fish and Preston King	Succeeded by Ira Harris
Preceded by Jeremiah S. Black	United States Secretary of State March 5, 1861 – March 4, 1869	Succeeded by Elihu B. Washburne

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