Team of Rivals_ The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln - Doris Kearns Goodwin [56]
In a statement that brought condemnation throughout the South, Seward argued that the seamen were charged with a crime that New York State did not recognize: people were not property, and therefore no crime had been committed. On the contrary, “the universal sentiment of civilized nations” considered helping a slave escape from bondage “not only innocent, but humane and praiseworthy.”
As controversy over the fate of the three sailors was prolonged, the Commonwealth of Virginia enacted a series of retaliatory measures to damage the commerce of New York, calling upon other Southern states to pass resolutions denouncing Seward and the state of New York for “intermeddling” with their time-honored “domestic institutions.” Democratic periodicals in the North warned that the governor’s stance would compromise highly profitable New York trade connections with Virginia and other slave states. Seward was branded “a bigoted New England fanatic.” This only emboldened Seward’s resolve to press the issue. He spurred the Whig-dominated state legislature to pass a series of antislavery laws affirming the rights of black citizens against seizure by Southern agents, guaranteeing a trial by jury for any person so apprehended, and prohibiting New York police officers and jails from involvement in the apprehension of fugitive slaves.
Such divisive incidents—the “new irritation” foreseen by Jefferson in 1820—widened the schism between North and South. Though few slaves actually escaped to the North each year—an estimated one or two hundred out of the millions held in bondage—the issue exacerbated rancor on both sides. In the North, William Lloyd Garrison’s newspaper, the Liberator, called for immediate emancipation and racial equality, denouncing slavery as sinful and inhumane, advocating “all actions, even in defiance of the Constitution,” to bring an end to “The Empire of Satan.” Such scathing criticisms moved Southern leaders to equally fierce defenses. They proclaimed slavery a “positive good” rather than a mere necessity, of immense benefit to whites and blacks alike. As discord between North and South escalated, many Northerners turned against the abolitionists. Fear that the movement would destroy the Union incited attacks on abolitionist printers in the North and West. Presses were burned, editors threatened with death should their campaign persist.
In 1840, Seward was reelected governor, but by a significantly smaller margin. His dwindling support was blamed on the parochial school controversy, the protracted fight with Virginia, and a waning enthusiasm for social reform. Horace Greeley editorialized that Seward would “henceforth be honored more for the three thousand votes he has lost, considering the causes, than for all he has received in his life.” Nonetheless, Seward decided not to run a third time: “All that can now be worthy of my ambition,” he explained to a friend, “is to leave the State better for my having been here, and to entitle myself to a favorable judgment in its history.”
Throughout the dispute with the state of Virginia, and every other controversy that threatened Seward’s highly successful tenure, Weed had proved a staunch ally and friend, answering critics in the legislature, publishing editorials in the Albany Evening Journal, ever sustaining Seward’s spirits. “What am I to deserve such friendship and affection?” Seward asked him in 1842 as his second term drew to its close.