Seward was neither precocious nor gifted beyond his years. He had spirit and gifts, with sufficient temper and stubbornness to defend him against impositions at home or in college; but the love for adventure and the strenuous life, that characterised Weed's capricious youth, were entirely absent. As a boy, Weed, untidy even to slovenliness, explored the mountain and the valley, drifted among the resolute lads of the town, and lingered in gardens and orchards, infinitely lovable and capable of the noblest tenderness. On the contrary, Seward was precise, self-restrained, possessing the gravity and stillness of a youth who husbanded his resources as if conscious of physical frailty, yet wholesome and generous, and once, at least, splendidly reckless in his race for independence of a father who denied him the means of dressing in the fashion of other college students. By the time he reached the age of nineteen, he had run away to Georgia, taught school six months, studied law six months, and graduated with honour from Union College. Two years later, in 1822, he was admitted to the bar, and, having accepted a partnership with Elijah Miller, located at Auburn. To make this arrangement the more binding, he married his partner's daughter and became a member of his family.

Seward retained the political affiliations of his father, who was a Republican and a Bucktail, until the journey on the canal to Auburn opened his eyes to the importance of internal improvements. This so completely changed him into a Clintonian, that, in the autumn of 1824, he assailed the Albany Regency with great vigour and voted for DeWitt Clinton for governor. Four years later, he presided over a state convention of young National Republicans, favourable to the re-election of John Quincy Adams; and then witnessed that party's defeat and dispersion under the murderous fire of the Jackson forces, aided by Southwick and Crary on the anti-masonic ticket. Seward had not taken kindly to the anti-masonic party. What would have been his final attitude toward it is problematical had he not fallen under the influence of Weed. The first meeting of this illustrious pair, a very casual meeting, occurred in the summer of 1824 while Seward was passing through Rochester on his return from a visit to Niagara Falls. A wheel of the coach came off, and among the curious who quickly assembled "one taller and more effective, while more deferential and sympathising than the rest," says Seward, in his autobiography, "lent his assistance."[266] This was Thurlow Weed. "My acquaintance with William H. Seward grew rapidly on subsequent occasions," adds Weed, "when he was called to Rochester on professional business. Our views in relation to public affairs, and our estimate of public men, rarely differed, and in regard to anti-Masonry he soon became imbued with my own opinions."[267]

This was the key that opened the way to great achievement. Tracy listened to others and was lost; Fillmore finally preferred the judgment of his associates in Washington, and is to-day without a statue even in his own home; but Seward kept closely in touch with the man whose political judgment inspired him with confidence. "Come now and let us reason together," said Weed, and together these two friends worked out the policy of success. "I saw in him, in a remarkable degree," continued Weed, "rapidly developing elements of character which could not fail to render him eminently useful in public life. I discerned also unmistakable evidences of stern integrity, earnest patriotism, and unswerving fidelity. I saw also in him a rare capacity for intellectual labour, with an industry that never tired and required no relaxation; to all of which was added a purity and delicacy of habit and character almost feminine."[268]

In his Autobiography, Seward says he joined the anti-masonic party because he thought it the only active political organisation opposed to Jackson and Van Buren, whose policy seemed to him to involve "not only the loss of our national system of revenue, and of enterprises of state and national improvement, but also the future disunion of the States, and ultimately the universal prevalence of slavery."[269] Once an Anti-Mason, he became, like Weed, a zealous and aggressive member of the party. He embodied its creed in resolutions, he attended its first national convention at Philadelphia, he visited John Quincy Adams at Quincy—just then an anti-masonic candidate for Congress—he aided in the establishment of the Albany Evening Journal, and, a little later, as a delegate to the party's second national convention at Baltimore, he saw Chief Justice Marshall upon the platform, sat beside Thaddeus Stevens, and voted for William Wirt as an anti-masonic candidate for President. It was during his attendance upon the Philadelphia convention that Thurlow Weed had him nominated, without his knowledge, for state senator. "While stopping at Albany on my way south," he says,[270] "Weed made some friendly but earnest inquiries concerning my pecuniary ability, whether it was sufficient to enable me to give a portion of my time to public office. When I answered my ability was sufficient, but I had neither expectation nor wish for office, he replied that he had learned from my district enough to induce him to think it possible that the party might desire my nomination to the Senate."

Thurlow Weed had many claims to the regard of his contemporaries, but the greatest was the intelligence that enabled him to discern the rising genius of a recruit to anti-Masonry whose name was to help make illustrious any cause which he served.

CHAPTER XXXIV
VAN BUREN’S ENEMIES MAKE HIM
VICE PRESIDENT
1829-1832

Martin Van Buren’s single message as governor exhibited a knowledge of conditions and needs that must rank it among the ablest state-papers in the archives of the capitol. Unlike some of his predecessors, with their sentences of stilted formality, he wrote easily and with vigour. His message, however, was marred by the insincerity which shows the politician. He approved canals, but, by cunningly advising "the utmost prudence" in taking up new enterprises, he coolly disparaged the Chenango project; he shrewdly recommended the choice of presidential electors by general ticket instead of by congressional districts, knowing that opposition to the change died with DeWitt Clinton. With full knowledge of what he himself had done, in the last campaign, in urging upon John A. Hamilton the necessity of raising funds, he boldly attacked the use of money in elections, proposing "the imposition of severe penalties upon the advance of money by individuals for any purposes connected with elections except the single one of printing." It is not surprising, perhaps, that a man of Van Buren's personal ambition found himself often compelled, for the sake of his own career, to make his public devotion to principle radically different from his practice; but it is amazing that he should thus brazenly assume the character of a reformer before the ink used in writing Hamilton was dry.

The prominent feature of Van Buren's message was the bank question, which, to do him credit, he discussed with courage, urging a general law for chartering banks without the payment of money bonus, and declaring that the only concern of the State should be to make banks and their circulation secure. In accord with this suggestion, he submitted the "safety fund" project, subsequently enacted into law, providing that all banks should contribute to a fund, administered under state supervision, to secure dishonoured banknotes. There was a great deal of force in Van Buren's reasoning, and the New York City banks, which, at first, declined to recharter under the law, finally accepted the scheme with apparent cheerfulness. Had the real test, which came with the hard times of 1837, not broken it down, Van Buren's confidence in the project might have continued. After that catastrophe, which was destined to prove his Waterloo, he had confidence in nothing except gold and silver.