t now as if your zeal had been blind; but I may,
perhaps, get over this. God grant, at all events, that I be spared
from committing the sin of ingratitude. I hate it as the foulest in
the catalogue."[302]

[Footnote 300: William H. Seward, 192,882; William L. Marcy,
182,461.--_Civil List, State of New York_ (1887), p. 166.]

[Footnote 301: F.W. Seward, _Life of W.H. Seward_, Vol. 1, p. 379.]

[Footnote 302: Thurlow Weed Barnes, _Life of Thurlow Weed_, Vol. 2, p.
61.]

Marcy seemed to accept his defeat good-naturedly. "Even before the
ballot-boxes were closed," he wrote, facetiously, "I had partly
persuaded myself to engage in a work for _my_ posterity, by writing
the history of the rise, progress, and termination of the Regency. It
will embrace the transactions of the golden days of the Republic
(Empire State). It began with my entrance into public life, and
terminates with my exit from it. The figures in the tableau will not
be of the largest size, but the ascendancy of honest men, for such I
think them to have been (_Ilium fuit_), will be interesting on account
of great rarity." But, to the same friend, a few weeks later, he took
a desponding view, expressing the fear that the power which had passed
from the Democratic party would not return to as honest hands. His
financial condition, too, caused him much uneasiness. He had given
eighteen years to the State, he said, the largest portion of an active
and vigorous life, and now found himself poorer than when he took
office. "If my acquisitions in a pecuniary way have probably been less
and my labours and exertions greater," he asks, "what compensating
advantages are to be brought into the calculation to balance the
account?" An office-holder rarely asks such a question until thrown
out of a position; while in office, it is evident he thinks the
privilege of holding it sufficient compensation; otherwise, it may be
presumed, he would resign. Marcy, however, was not forgotten. Indeed,
his political career had scarcely begun, since the governorship became
only a stepping-stone to continued honours. Within a few months,
President Van Buren appointed him, under the convention of April,
1839, to the Mexican Claims Commission, and a few years later he was
to become a member of two Cabinets.

CHAPTER III

THE DEFEAT OF VAN BUREN FOR PRESIDENT

1840

After Seward's election, the Whig party in New York may be fairly
described as under the control of Thurlow Wee