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In Eighteen Hundred Thirty-four, Seward was the Whig candidate for
Governor of New York. He was defeated by W.L. Marcy. Four years later he
was again a candidate against Marcy and defeated him by ten thousand
majority.

Seward was then thirty-six years of age, and was counted one of the very
first among the lawyers of the State, and in accepting the office of
Governor he made decided financial sacrifices.

Seward was a man of positive ideas, and, although not arbitrary in manner,
yet had a silken strength of will that made great rents in the mesh of
other men's desires. Before a court, his quiet but firm persistence along
a certain line often dictated the verdict. The faculty of grasping a point
firmly and securely was his in a marked measure. And any man who can
quietly override the wishes and ambitions of other men is first well
feared, and then thoroughly hated.

One of Seward's first efforts on becoming Governor was to insure a
common-school education among the children of every class, and especially
among the foreign population of large cities. To this end he advocated a
distribution of public funds among all schools established with that
object; and if he were alive today it is quite needless to say he would
not belong to the A.P.A. nor to any other secret society. He knew too much
of all religions to have complete faith in any, yet his appreciation of
the fact that the Catholics minister to the needs of a class that no
other denomination reaches or can control was outspoken and plain. This,
with his connection with the Anti-Masonic Party, brought upon his name a
stigma that was at last to defeat him for the Presidency. Seward's clear
insight into practical things, backed by the quiet working energy of his
nature, brought about many changes, and the changes he effected and the
reforms he inaugurated must ever rank his name high among statesmen.

By his influence the law's delay in the courts of chancery was curtailed,
and this prepared the way for radical changes in the Constitution. He
inaugurated the geological survey that led to making "Potsdam outcrop"
classic, and "Medina sandstone" a product that is so known wherever a man
goes forth in the fields of earth carrying a geologist's hammer.

Largely through his efforts, a safe and general banking system was brought
about; and the establishment of a lunatic asylum was one of the best items
to his credit during that first term as Gove