the Whigs. The September election in Maine, followed in October by the
result in Ohio and Indiana, both of which gave large Whig majorities,
anticipated Harrison's overwhelming election in November. In New York,
however, the returns were somewhat disappointing to the Whigs.
Harrison carried the State by thirteen thousand majority, receiving in
all 234 electoral votes to 60 for Van Buren; but Seward's majority of
ten thousand in 1838 now dropped to five thousand,[316] while the Whig
majority in the Assembly was reduced to four.

[Footnote 316: William H. Seward, 222,011; William C. Bouck,
216,808.--_Civil List, State of New York_ (1887), p. 166.]

Seward's weakness undoubtedly grew out of his message in the preceding
January. With the approval of Dr. Knott of Union College, and Dr.
Luckey, a distinguished Methodist divine, he recommended the
establishment of separate schools for the children of foreigners and
their instruction by teachers of the same faith and language. The
suggestion created an unexpected and bitter controversy. Influential
journals of both parties professed to see in it only a desire to win
Catholic favour, charging that Bishop Hughes of New York City had
inspired the recommendation. At that time, the Governor had neither
met nor been in communication, with the Catholic prelate; but, in the
excitement, truth could not outrun misstatement, nor could the
patriotism that made Seward solicitous to extend school advantages to
the children of foreign parents, who were growing up in ignorance, be
understood by zealous churchmen.

After his defeat, Van Buren retired to Lindenwald, in the vicinity of
Kinderhook, his native village, where he was to live twenty-one years,
dying at the age of eighty. Lindenwald was an old estate, whose acres
had been cultivated for one hundred and sixty years. William P. Van
Ness, the distinguished jurist and orator, once owned it, and, thirty
years before the ex-President bought it, Irving had secluded himself
amidst its hills, while he mourned the death of his betrothed, and
finished the _Knickerbocker_. As the home of Van Buren, Lindenwald did
not, perhaps, become a Monticello or a Montpelier. Jefferson and
Madison, having served eight years, the allotted term of honour, had
formally retired, and upon them settled the halo of peace and triumph
that belongs to the sage; but life at Lindenwald, with its leisure,
its rural quiet, and its freedom from public care, satisfied Van