an integrity that gave him
high place among the men who guided his party. "I like Wilkin for
lieutenant-governor," wrote Seward, although he had been partial to
the selection of John A. King.

[Footnote 335: Thurlow Weed Barnes, _Life of Thurlow Weed_, Vol. 2, p.
121.]

Without doubt, each party had put forward, for governor, its most
available man. Fillmore was well known and at the height of his
popularity. During the protracted and exciting tariff struggle of
1842, he had sustained himself as chairman of the Ways and Means
Committee with marked ability. It added to his popularity, too, that
he had seemed indifferent to the nomination. In some respects Fillmore
and Silas Wright were not unlike. They were distinguished for their
suavity of manners. Both were impressive and interesting characters,
wise in council, and able in debate, with a large knowledge of their
State and country; and, although belonging to opposite parties and in
different wings of the capitol at Washington, their service in
Congress had brought to the debates a genius which compelled
attention, and a purity of life that raised in the public estimation
the whole level of congressional proceedings. Neither was an orator;
they were clear, forcible, and logical; but their speeches were not
quoted as models of eloquence. In spite of an unpleasant voice and a
slow, measured utterance, there was a charm about Wright's speaking;
for, like Fillmore, he had earnestness and warmth. With all their
power, however, they lacked the enthusiasm and the boldness that
captivate the crowd and inspire majorities. Yet they had led
majorities. In no sphere of Wright's activities, was he more strenuous
than in the contest for the independent treasury plan which he
recommended to Van Buren, and which, largely through his efforts as
chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, was finally forced into law
on the 4th of July, 1840. Fillmore, in putting some of the hated
taxes of 1828 into the tariff act of 1842, was no less strenuous,
grappling facts with infinite labour, until, at last, he overcame a
current of public opinion that seemed far too powerful for resistance.

Of the two men, Silas Wright was undoubtedly the stronger character.
He was five years older than Fillmore, and his legislative experience
had been four or five years longer. His great intellectual power
peculiarly fitted him for the United States Senate. He had chosen
finance as his specialty, and in its