of internal improvements been confined in its operation to the state of New York. He has never failed to cherish a deep interest in whatever was adapted to increase the business advantages, and promote the permanent welfare of the people in every portion of the Union.

In a recent speech in the senate, while advocating a railroad to the Pacific ocean, he thus reviews the progress already made in internal improvements:

"What are two thousand miles of railroad for the people of the United States to make, who, within eighteen years past, have made twelve thousand miles! The railroads which have been made in the state of New York alone have an aggregate length of two thousand three hundred and one miles, exceeding the distance from Lake Erie to the Pacific ocean. And if you add the canals, the chain would reach from the banks of the Hudson river to the shores of the Pacific ocean. The railroads already made in the United States, if drawn out into one lengthened chain, would reach from Liverpool to Canton. The railroads which have been made, and are now being made, in the United States, if stretched continuously along, would more than encircle the globe. Again, I shall be told of the cost of this railroad. And what will be its cost? One hundred millions of dollars. A cost not exceeding the revenue of the government of the United States for two years only—a cost not exceeding the revenue of the federal and state governments for one year. One hundred millions of dollars; why, we have offered that sum for one island in the Caribbean sea! One hundred millions of dollars; why, New York city spent one sixth of that sum in supplying itself with water, and grew all the while! One hundred millions of dollars; the state of New York has already spent, in making canals and railroads, one hundred and thirteen millions, and prospered while spending it as never state or nation prospered before. That one hundred millions of dollars, if it should never be directly reimbursed, will be indirectly replaced within ten years, by the economy which it would enable us to practise in the transportation of the army, and of the supplies of the army and navy over it, not to speak of the still more important benefits of bringing the public domain into cultivation, and into increased value, and developing rapidly the mineral wealth of California, which can be only imperfectly realized now, because labor on that side of the continent is worth four dollars a-day, while it is worth but one here.

As we write these lines (1854), we see the whole stupendous scheme recommended by Governor Seward on the eve of completion, in spite of commercial and political obstacles.

CHAPTER XII.

GOVERNOR, CONTINUED

THE PARDONING POWER- - BENJAMIN RATHBUN-JOHN C. COLT-VETO POWER-D'HAUTEVILLE CASE- THURLOW WEED- REGISTRY ACT.

WE have already alluded to the exercise of the pardoning power by Governor Seward. As the subject is one of such deep interest, we will here more fully illustrate the principles which guided his course in this respect.* Combining a natural generosity and tenderness of feeling with a lofty sense of justice, he could not permit his sympathy with the unfortunate to weaken his energy in the execution of laws, which were intimately connected with the order and safety of society. He allowed no conviction, ascertained to be unjust, to stand on any pretence.

An insane man who had committed homicide in Rensselaer county, under circumstances of revolting cruelty, was induced by the court, the public prosecutor, and his own counsel, to plead guilty to an indictment for murder. He was sentenced to be executed, under an arrangement between them, that, in consequence of thus pleading, the sentence of death should be commuted to confinement in the stateprison for life. The court and counsel urged the governor to adopt that course, on the ground that the public safety and public opinion both required the confinement of the offender. The governor answered that a man too insane to be executed was too insane to be imprisoned for life, and discharged the offender at once.

No woman, not abandoned to vice and crime, was suf fered to endure the full punishment prescribed by the law.

* See Vol. II., p. 615.

BENJAMIN RATHBUN

JOHN C. COLT.

77

And it must be a pleasant recollection to Governor Seward, that in no instance was a woman so pardoned ever afterward convicted of crime. Juvenile delinquents were pardoned for first offences not very atrocious. But, in these cases, preliminary arrangements were made through the agency of their friends, for their removal from the scenes of their temptations, and their establishment in pursuits favorable to their reformation.

The possession of social advantages, instead of aiding offenders to procure pardon, was always regarded as an objection. On the other hand, great allowance was made for ignorance, orphanage, or social neglect, as presenting incentives to crime.

In the well-known case of Benjamin Rathbun,* whose forgeries were understood to have amounted to the sum of one million five hundred thousand dollars, pardon was earnestly demanded on the ground of extenuating circumstances, and the social position of the criminal. His case was warmly pressed. Petitions for a commutation of punishment were signed by more than ten thousand persons, of all parties and ranks. But, closing his eyes to every consideration but the claims of justice and the integrity of the law, and believing their vindication, in such a case, to be highly important, Governor Seward steadfastly refused all entreaties to extend pardon, although urged by strong political and personal friends. At the same time, pardons were granted to ignorant and obscure persons who had committed forgeries and larcenies for trivial amounts, under the excuse of absolute want, in their own case, or that of their families. The discrimination against John C. Colt, whose case excited deep interest at the time, proceeded upon similar grounds.

Nor did Governor Seward allow the pardoning power in his hands, to become converted to purposes of oppression. It is gratifying to know, that while the popular approbation *See Vol. II., p. 630. + See Vol. II., p. 646.

of his administration in other respects, owing generally to political rancor, was delayed until the prejudices and passions of the day had subsided, no such delay occurred in regard to his conduct in the matter of pardons. His acts in this department of his duty, generally received immediate and wide-spread commendation. But what probably was esteemed by him as more important, was the approving testimony of his own mind. We can hardly conceive of a higher pleasure than he must have experienced in writing the following letter to Catharine Wilkins (a convict he had pardoned), unless it was surpassed by his satisfaction in learning how effectual the letter had been in saving her to whom it was addressed.

EXECUTIVE DEPARTMENT, May 1, 1839.

You have been convicted of Grand Larceny and have been adjudged to suffer imprisonment in the stateprison for three years. You were made known to benevolent individuals in this city by your crime and the consequent trial upon it. These gentlemen have made unsparing exertions to ascertain your real name and history and to call your distant friends to your aid. Those friends when informed of your unhappy situation have only answered that they were too humble to exercise any influence in your behalf and too poor even to visit you in your distress. Whatever willingness I might have had to interpose for your relief you must be aware that it has been accidental, if it is not rather to be regarded as providential, that those gentlemen were moved to solicit that interference. But you ought also to understand that executive interference was by no means to have been expected, even upon such solicitation as has prevailed in your behalf. Very many applications have been made to me for pardon after conviction and before the sentence was carried into execution. I have granted none under such circumstances where I was not satisfied that the conviction was unjust. Yours is a case of manifest and confessed guilt. You are pardoned. It is because you are young; because this is your first exposure to the law; because you are a woman and a stranger, and it may in charity be believed that your virtue would have resisted temptation had not want and seduction combined to effect your ruin. If confined to a stateprison your good name would be irretrievable and the associates to which you would be exposed would forbid all hope of reformation. I have thought it my duty to accompany the pardon now freely sent to you with my advice that you return as speedily as possible to your aged and afflicted mother: that you justify this extraordinary act of mercy by humble and persevering assiduity in domestic duties which is the only way to regain the respect and confidence of your friends and neighbors. If you will do this you will carry consola

tion to the hearts of your parents and I shall have the satisfaction of knowing that I have not done injustice to the public in yielding, for once, to the impulses of sympathy.

To CATHARINE WILKINS.

A gentleman who had interested himself in this case in passing through New Jersey, recently, found this young woman there enjoying the entire respect of the community. She drew the governor's letter from her bosom and said that its advice had saved her from ruin and that it had never been for one moment out of her immediate possession. Governor Seward no doubt enjoyed a similar pleasure in the surprise exhibited by a slaveholder, who applied for the pardon of his slave, convicted of crime in New York, and sent to the stateprison at Sing-Sing. The master urged his petition on the ground that it would relieve the state of the expense of the slave's imprisonment; and he presented the record of a case where a slave had been thus pardoned by one of the governor's predecessors. Governor Seward answered that notwithstanding the precedent, he did not think it right to pervert a power intrusted to him for purposes of humanity, to accomplish an act of oppression.

The same independence of character was manifested in the case of James Watson Webb.* Colonel Webb had fought a duel with Hon. Thomas F. Marshall, in the state of Delaware, and was convicted under a law of this state, passed as early as 1817, and sentenced to the stateprison. There had been no attempt to enforce this law, except in two cases which occurred immediately after its passage, and in these instances, the offenders were pardoned by the governor who then filled the executive chair. Afterward the law became obsolete, for want of public opinion to sustain it. Duelling was still practised in the state of New York, notwithstanding this law was on the pages of the statutebook, and that too by men enjoying the highest distinctions and honors, including De Witt Clinton himself. It is easy

*See Vol. II., p 661.