Note 12 — Chapter II · SEWARD ELECTED GOVERNOR 1836-1838

"Apart from politics, I liked Seward, though not blind to his faults. His natural instincts were humane and progressive. He hated slavery and all its belongings, though a seeming necessity constrained him to write, in 1838, to this intensely pro-slavery city, a pro-slavery letter, which was at war with his real, or at least with his subsequent convictions. Though of Democratic parentage, he had been an Adams man, an anti-Mason, and was now thoroughly a Whig. The policy of more extensive and vigorous internal improvement had no more zealous champion. By nature, genial and averse to pomp, ceremony, and formality, few public men of his early prime were better calculated to attract and fascinate young men of his own party, and holding views accordant on most points with his.... Weed was of coarser mould and fibre than Seward—tall, robust, dark-featured, shrewd, resolute, and not over-scrupulous—keen-sighted, though not far-seeing."—Horace Greeley, Recollections of a Busy Life, pp. 311, 312.