e. He remained
standing in the centre of the room, conversing with those about him
and shaking hands with new-comers; but there was nothing in his
manner to indicate the slightest mystery or excitement so common with
politicians."[389]

[Footnote 389: Thurlow Weed Barnes, _Life of Thurlow Weed_, Vol. 2, p.
174.]

The Whig senators met in caucus on January 29, and by a vote of twelve
to eleven decided to join the Assembly. Then the fight began. William
S. Johnson, a Whig senator from New York City, declared that he would
neither vote for Seward in caucus nor support him in the Legislature.
"It would be equivalent," he continued, "to throwing a firebrand into
the South and aiding in the dissolution of the Whig party and of the
Union." Thereupon the eleven withdrew from further participation in
the proceedings. When the caucus of the two houses convened, fourteen
members declared it inexpedient to support either Seward or Collier;
but an informal ballot gave Seward eighty-eight votes and Collier
twelve, with twenty-two scattering. Three days later, on joint ballot,
Seward received one hundred and twenty-one out of one hundred and
thirty Whig votes. "We were always confident that the caucus could
have but one result," said the _Tribune_, "and the lofty anticipations
which the prospect of Seward's election has excited will not be
disappointed."

Successful as Seward had been in his profession since leaving the
office of governor, he was not entirely happy. "I look upon my life,
busy as it is, as a waste," he wrote, in 1847. "I live in a world that
needs my sympathies, but I have not even time nor opportunity to do
good."[390] His warm and affectionate heart seemed to envy the strife
and obloquy that came to champions of freedom; yet his published
correspondence nowhere directly indicates a desire to return to public
life. "You are not to suppose me solicitous on the subject that drags
me so unpleasantly before the public," he wrote Weed on January 26,
1849, three days before the caucus. "I have looked at it in all its
relations, and cannot satisfy myself that it would be any better for
me to succeed than to be beaten."[391] This assumed indifference,
however, was written with a feeling of absolute confidence that he
was to succeed, a confidence that brought with it great content, since
the United States Senate offered the "opportunity" for which he sighed
in his despondent letter of 1847. On the announcement of his elect