ig national convention at Baltimore, in 1844, had
returned, at the age of eighty-one, to the quiet of his agricultural
pursuits in the vicinity of Lyons; Martin Van Buren, still rebellious
against his party, was watching from his retreat at Lindenwald the
strife over the Wilmot Proviso, embodying the opposition to the
extension of slavery into new territories; Erastus Root, at the age of
seventy-four, was dying in New York City; and Samuel Young, famous by
his knightly service in the cause of the Radicals, had just finished
in the Assembly, with the acerbity of temper that characterised his
greatest oratorical efforts during nearly half a century of public
life, an eloquent indictment of the Hunkers, whom he charged with
being the friends of monopoly, the advocates of profuse and
unnecessary expenditures of the public funds, and the cause of much
corrupt legislation.

But of all men in the State the absence of William H. Seward was the
most noticeable. For four years, as governor, he had stood for
internal improvements, for the reorganisation of the judiciary along
lines of progress, for diminishing official patronage, for modifying,
and ultimately doing away with, feudal tenures, and for free schools
and universal suffrage. His experience and ability would have been
most helpful in the formation of the new constitution; but he would
not become a delegate except from Auburn, and a majority of the people
of his own assembly district did not want him. "The world are all mad
with me here," he wrote Weed, "because I defended Wyatt too
faithfully. God help them to a better morality. The prejudices against
me grows by reason of the Van Nest murder!"[355] Political friends
offered him a nomination and election from Chautauqua, but he
declined, urging as a further reason that the Whigs would be in the
minority, and his presence might stimulate fresh discords among them.

[Footnote 355: F.W. Seward, _Life of W.H. Seward_, Vol. 1, p. 791.]

Horace Greeley had expected a nomination from Chautauqua. He had
relations who promised him support, and with their failure to elect
him began that yearning for office which was destined to doom him to
many bitter disappointments. Until now, he had kept his desires to
himself. He wanted to be postmaster of New York in 1841; and, when
Seward failed to anticipate his ambition, he recalled the scriptural
injunction, "Ask, and it shall be given you." So, he conferred with
Weed about the constit