o wane, until, in
1860, it lapsed into the _World_.

Webb's chief title to distinction in political life was allegiance to
his own principles regardless of the party with which he happened to
be affiliated, and his fidelity to men who had shown him kindness. He
followed President Jackson until the latter turned against the United
States Bank, and he supported the radical Whigs until Clay, in 1849,
defeated his confirmation for minister to Austria; but, to the last,
he seems to have remained true to Seward, possibly because Seward kept
him out of state's prison, although, in the contest for United States
senator in 1851, Hamilton Fish was the candidate of the Seward Whigs.
Fish had grown rapidly as governor. People formerly recognised him as
an accomplished gentleman, modest in manners and moderate in speech,
but his conduct and messages as an executive revealed those higher
qualities of statesmanship that ranked him among the wisest public men
of the State. Thurlow Weed had accepted rather than selected him for
governor in 1848. "I came here without claims upon your kindness,"
Fish wrote on December 31, 1850, the last day of his term. "I shall
leave here full of the most grateful recollections of your favours and
good will."[403] This admission was sufficient to dishonour him with
the Fillmore Whigs, and, although he became the caucus nominee for
senator on the 30th of January, his opponents, marshalled by Fillmore
office-holders in support of James Watson Webb, succeeded in
deadlocking his election for nearly two months.[404]

[Footnote 403: Thurlow Weed Barnes, _Life of Thurlow Weed_, Vol. 2, p.
190.]

[Footnote 404: "The Whigs held the Senate by only two majority, and
when the day for electing a United States senator arrived, sixteen
Whigs voted for Fish, and fifteen Democrats voted for as many
different candidates, so that the Fish Whigs could not double over
upon them. James W. Beekman, a Whig senator of New York City, who
claimed that Fish had fallen too much under the control of Weed, voted
for Francis Granger. Upon a motion to adjourn, Beekman voted 'yes'
with the Democrats, creating a tie, which the lieutenant-governor
broke by also voting in the affirmative. The Whigs then waited for a
few weeks, but one morning, when two Democrats were in New York City,
they sprung a resolution to go into an election, and, after an
unbroken struggle of fourteen hours, Fish was elected. The exultant
cannon of the victors s