ere was, for fifty years, an intimate and unbroken attachment, unique
in political annals.

In 1838 he was again the Whig candidate for governor, and defeated
Governor Marcy, his former rival, his victory being the precursor of the
national Whig triumph in 1840, in which year he was re-elected. He was
inaugurated, January 1, 1839, his message to the Legislature embracing,
with a masterly exposition of Whig policies, certain suggestions of his
own concerning immigration, education, and eleemosynary institutions
that revealed the catholic spirit and the philosophical habit which,
despite his party fealty, he consistently exhibited. This message
outlined the conduct of the administration that succeeded--enlightened
in its scope, liberal to all classes, distinctly loyal to the Union, yet
jealously guarding against any infringement of the rights of the State.
It widened educational privileges, urged the prosecution of the public
works, including the enlargement of the Erie Canal, granted franchises
to railways, removed imprisonment for debt and the remaining guarantees
of slavery from the statute-books, composed the anti-rent troubles and
executed the laws within the insurrectionary section, perfected the
banking system, and proposed jury trials for fugitive slaves and a
constitutional amendment abolishing the property qualification for the
colored suffrage.

Governor Seward's regard for the dignity of the State was displayed by
his refusal to discharge from custody, without trial, one Alexander
McLeod, a citizen of Canada, held for the burning of the steamer
Caroline, in New York waters, although the demand of the British
government, to that effect, was supplemented by the request of
Presidents Harrison and Tyler. His abhorrence of slavery was accentuated
in his denial of the application of the Governor of Virginia for the
rendition of seamen charged with the abduction of a slave, upon the
ground that the offence, if defined as a crime in Virginia, was not so
in New York, and he did not hesitate to add that his feelings coincided
with his conception of his constitutional prerogative. When a Democratic
Assembly subsequently passed resolutions disapproving his action, he
declined to transmit them to the Virginia authorities, and he also
failed to respond to a similar requisition from South Carolina. His
proposition for the employment of Roman Catholic teachers in the common
schools showed his independence of partisan behest