It is neither wise nor reasonable that we should bear the
censure of defeat, when we have been deprived of not merely command,
but of a voice in council."--W.H. Seward to Thurlow Weed, _Ibid._,
Vol. 1, p. 720.]

As the campaign grew older, however, Clay's friends gladly availed
themselves of Seward's influence with anti-slavery Whigs and
naturalised citizens. "It is wonderful what an impulse the nomination
of Polk has given to the abolition sentiment," wrote Seward. "It has
already expelled other issues from the public mind. Our Whig central
committee, who, a year ago, voted me out of the party for being an
Abolitionist, has made abolition the war-cry in their call for a
mass-meeting."[341] Even the sleuth-hounds of No-popery were glad to
invite Seward to address the naturalised voters, whose hostility to
the Whigs, in 1844, resembled their dislike of the Federalists in
1800. "It is a sorry consolation for this ominous aspect of things,"
he wrote Weed, "that you and I are personally exempt from the
hostility of this class toward our political associates."[342]

[Footnote 341: F.W. Seward, _Life of W.H. Seward_, Vol. 1, p. 718.]

[Footnote 342: _Ibid._, p. 723.]

Yet no man toiled more sedulously in this campaign than Seward.
"Harrison had his admirers, Clay his lovers," is the old way of
putting it. To elect him, Whigs were ready to make any sacrifice, to
endure any hardship, and to yield every prejudice. Fillmore was
ubiquitous, delivering tariff and anti-Texas speeches that filled all
mouths with praise and all hearts with principle, as Seward expressed
it. An evident desire existed on the part of many in both parties, to
avoid a discussion of the annexation of Texas, and its consequent
extension of slavery, lest too much or too little be said; but leaders
like Seward and Fillmore were too wise to believe that they could fool
the people by concealing the real issue. "Texas and slavery are at war
with the interests, the principles, the sympathies of all," boldly
declared the unmuzzled Auburn statesman. "The integrity of the Union
depends on the result. To increase the slave-holding power is to
subvert the Constitution; to give a fearful preponderance which may,
and probably will, be speedily followed by demands to which the
Democratic free-labour States cannot yield, and the denial of which
will be made the ground of secession, nullification and disunion."[343]
This was another of Seward's famous prophecies. At th