Seward Award: William Henry Seward

William Henry Seward
Born: May 16, 1801 in Florida, New York
Died: October 10, 1872 in Auburn, New York

Governor of New York (1839-42)
U.S. Senator from New York (1849-61)
U.S. Secretary of State (1861-69)

One of the most renowned statesmen of the mid-19th century, William Henry Seward was, first and foremost, a family man. Jovial, talkative and friendly, he was a devoted husband to Frances, his wife of 41 years, and loving father to Augustus, Frederick, Cornelia, William Jr. and Fanny. A lifelong resident of the state of New York, Seward also went on to become one of the most important secretaries of state in U.S. history.

A lawyer by trade, Seward entered politics relatively early in his career, winning election to the State Senate in 1830 at the age of 29. He would go on to become governor of New York, winning close elections in 1838 and 1840, as well as a distinguished U.S. senator, a position he held for 12 years, from 1849 to 1861.

But prior to his role as secretary of state, the role that shaped his career in public service, and gained him fame (and infamy) at home and abroad, was as an outspoken opponent of slavery. A family trip to the South in the 1830s left Seward and his wife scarred for life with images of the cruelty of the practice, and from his mid-30s on, through the governorship, Senate and State Department, Seward would forever be associated with his firm views against slavery. In a landmark legal case in 1846, Seward argued for the defendant William Freeman, a black man who had been accused of murdering four white people. Seward declared that Freeman, who was mentally ill, was not guilty by reason of insanity, a verdict that the Supreme Court of New York would eventually agree with on appeal. Though Freeman died in jail, Seward became renowned for his defense, and was both celebrated and reviled in different parts of the country.

By the time 1860 rolled around, Seward had two terms in the U.S. Senate under his belt and was easily the most renowned figure in the fledgling Republican Party. While the party included other notable men like former Ohio governor Salmon Chase, 1856 presidential nominee John Fremont of California, former Congressman Edward Bates of Missouri and former Congressman Abraham Lincoln of Illinois, Seward was well-connected, known all over, and was seen as having a virtual lock on the Republican nomination. When the convention opened in Chicago in May, however, fears that Seward's well-known opposition to slavery would cost the party the presidency derailed his path to the nomination. In a stunning reversal of fortune, Seward lost to Lincoln, by then a prairie lawyer from Springfield. Seward was crushed, humiliated and angry. Already 59 years of age, running for the presidency again seemed inconceivable. His life's ambition had slipped away.

It didn't take long for him to pick himself up. After a brief period of recluse, Seward campaigned tirelessly throughout the fall for candidate Lincoln. A gifted orator in his own right, he advocated for the Republican cause and urged Americans to vote for the man who had come out of nowhere to win the nomination in Chicago. In November, Lincoln won the presidency, and owed no small debt of gratitude to Seward.

Recognizing Seward's indispensable talents, Lincoln immediately asked him to serve as secretary of state in the new administration. Seward wavered on whether or not to accept the post, as he and Lincoln had been rivals for the nomination, but eventually agreed to come on board. Assuming that he, and not Lincoln, would really be the person running the government,
he was eager to exercise his power behind the throne. Lincoln, after all, was just a prairie lawyer, and didn't really know what he was getting himself into. With the country on the brink of civil war, Lincoln was unfit for command.

It wasn't long, however, that Seward realized his initial assumptions about Lincoln couldn't have been farther from the truth. While keeping the country from devolving into total chaos, Lincoln proved to be more than fit to be commander-in-chief in such a time of crisis, and his brilliance and strength of character were not lost on Seward. Seward became Lincoln's closest friend and most trusted adviser in the Cabinet. The two men spent virtually every night together, debating, philosophizing, sharing laughs and telling stories. On a great many issues, including the Emancipation Proclamation (on which Seward helped put the finishing touches), Seward was Lincoln's closest confidante - not the power behind the throne, per se, but certainly the right-hand man to a great leader.

The night Lincoln was assassinated, an attempt was also made at Seward's life. His face and neck were stabbed and he very nearly lost his life. As a result of the attack, which also injured several members of Seward's family, his beloved wife Frances collapsed and died two months later. But Seward miraculously recovered, and served as secretary of state throughout President Andrew Johnson's administration. After leaving public service, he traveled the world with his remaining family members and died at his beloved home in Auburn, New York in 1872, at the ripe old age of 71, his country better off for having known him.

The one big mistake in his remarkable life? The purchase of Alaska. Known as "Seward's Folly" at the time, it did end up being a hotbed of gold, oil and gorgeous scenery - but also produced the vice presidential nomination of Sarah Palin some 150 years later, rendering all its other benefits moot. In recognition for his otherwise outstanding service, however, The Danifesto forgives Seward for that isolated error in judgment, and thanks him for his important and inspiring service to his country.

Introducing the William Henry Seward Award

Last night, in the wee small hours of the morning, I finished reading Team of Rivals. The book, by Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Doris Kearns Goodwin, chronicles the Abraham Lincoln administration, and specifically Lincoln's relationship with William Seward, Salmon Chase and Edward Bates, onetime rivals for the Republican presidential nomination whom Lincoln ended up naming to his Cabinet.

It is a remarkable read, and I urge everyone to read it. Having learned how Lincoln's America was able to prevail through the Civil War, I have more faith than ever that our generation will survive the perils facing us at present. People forget just how many obstacles this country has overcome in the past.

So, yeah, read the book. But this post is about something more than just a quickie book review.

Goodwin goes into rich detail of the lives of Lincoln, Seward, Chase and Bates - to varying degrees. Bates gets the least attention, though he was indeed a mountain of a man. Chase gets a good deal of coverage but he was, while a good man and a true abolitionist at heart, so ambitious that it served almost as a detriment, and reading about him can be tiresome at times. Lincoln, as our 16th president and arguably one of the greatest minds in the history of man, is an absolute pleasure to read about. I learned much about him that I had not known before, though I came into the book already familiar with his esteemed place in history.

The real discovery in the book, therefore, was William Henry Seward, who served as Governor and Senator from New York and eventually as Lincoln's Secretary of State. Seward was an uncommonly brilliant, wise and warm-hearted man, and a patriot in every sense of the word. When 1860 opened, he was by far the largest figure in the Republican Party, and was seen by virtually every observer as the "inevitable" presidential nominee of the party and, quite likely, the next president. But Lincoln stunned him at the Republican convention in Chicago, snatching the nomination away and, with it, the presidency. Seward, who had worked his entire life to be president, was humiliated.

But in a (dare I say) Hillary Clinton-like fashion, Seward got over it. He campaigned all over the country for Lincoln and was the first Cabinet officer appointed to the new administration. While initially assuming that he would be the "power behind the throne" of the president, Seward soon realized that Lincoln, genius that he was, needed to sit on no one's shoulders but his own. While other ex-rivals like Chase never allowed themselves to appreciate Lincoln's greatness, Seward did. He and Lincoln became great friends, and Lincoln ended up trusting Seward more than any of the other men in the Cabinet. By the time Lincoln was assassinated in 1865, Seward was already predicting that his name would be revered throughout history, on par with men like Washington and Jefferson, if not above them entirely.

My fondness for Seward grew with each page I turned, and I found myself in utter awe and appreciation of his selflessness, intelligence, good humor and supreme sense of loyalty and duty. I realized that he was the ultimate unsung hero. Without his advice and friendship, Lincoln may not have been able to get through his presidency, and the fate of the country may have been very different. Seward might not be on a coin, no state capital is named after him and most Americans don't know him by name, but all Americans owe him a tremendous amount of gratitude for his service to this nation.

It is in his honor that I dedicate this latest Danifesto Award, the William Henry Seward Award, in recognition of the unsung heroes that I come across as I go about my days. I will update this as frequently as is required. I encourage anyone who would like to feel free to nominate a candidate to receive this award. They can be living or dead, real-life or make-believe, male or female, rich or poor, anything. This is the space where we recognize unsung heroes whom history has largely neglected. Oh, Seward's got a statue in Madison Square Park in NYC, sure, and a museum and lots of other things. But, in my mind, he was on an intellectual par with perhaps even Lincoln himself. He certainly loved this country just as much.

With Thanksgiving just around the corner, it is with that spirit of gratitude that I dedicate this award to the most unsung hero of them all, William Henry Seward.