great leader, New York again passed under the control of the Democrats
by a majority of nearly twenty-two thousand.[321] It was not an
ordinary defeat; it was an avalanche. Only one Whig senator, thirty
Whig assemblymen, and nine or ten congressmen were saved in the wreck.
"I fear the party must break up from its very foundations," Fillmore
wrote Weed. "There is no cohesive principle--no common head."[322]

[Footnote 321: William C. Bouck, 208,072; Luther Bradish,
186,091.--_Civil List, State of New York_ (1887), p. 166.]

[Footnote 322: Thurlow Weed Barnes, _Life of Thurlow Weed_, Vol. 2, p.
96.]

Seward took no such pessimistic view. He had the promise of the future
in him, a capacity for action, a ready sympathy with men of all
classes, occupations, and interests, and he saw rays of light where
others looked only into darkness. "It is not a bad thing to be left
out of Congress," he wrote Christopher Morgan, depressed by his
defeat. "You will soon be wanted in the State, and that is a better
field."[323] Seward had the faculty of slow, reflective brooding, and
he often saw both deep and far. In the night of that blinding defeat
only such a nature could find comfort in the outlook.

[Footnote 323: F.W. Seward, _Life of W.H. Seward_, Vol. 1, p. 627.]

CHAPTER V

DEMOCRATS DIVIDE INTO FACTIONS

1842-1844

From the moment of William C. Bouck's inauguration as governor, in
January, 1843, Democratic harmony disappeared. It was supposed the
question of canal improvement had been settled by the "stop and tax
law" of 1842, and by the subsequent agreement of the Conservatives, at
the Syracuse convention, in the following October. No one believed
that any serious disposition existed on the part of the Governor to
open the wound, since he knew a large majority of his party opposed
the resumption of the work, and that the state officers, who had
viewed his nomination with coldness, were watching his acts and
critically weighing his words.

But he also knew that his most zealous and devoted friends, living
along the line of the Erie, Black River, and Genesee Valley canals,
earnestly desired the speedy completion of certain parts of these
waterways. In order to please them, his message suggested the
propriety of taking advantage of the low prices of labour and
provisions to finish some of the work. He did it timidly. There was no
positive recommendation. He touched the subject as one handles a live
electric wir