When I took Paul Simon's History of the Abolitionist Movement class at Southern Illinois University I did a research paper on William Seward. He's one of the most interesting characters in American political history and I've been thinking about Seward often as the 2008 Presidential campaign rolls on.
What I respect most about him is his life long commitment to fighting for the most vulnerable in society. He spoke up for the rights of prisoners, recent immigrants, the mentally insane, and slaves. He earned a long list of accomplishments even before becoming Lincoln's Secretary of State including public funding for universal education and prison reform in New York.
In 1860 Seward was a nationally recognized leader of the anti-slavery movement and the new Republican Party. As a former Governor and current Senator from New York he had the experience, national recognition, and political allies to secure the Republican nomination for President. Most people believed his selection as the party nominee at the 1860 Republican convention in Chicago was inevitable.
The primary political experience of his obscure rival, Abraham Lincoln, was in the Illinois State Legislature and two years in Congress. What little national recognition he had was for publicizing a series of debates during his US Senate campaign against Stephen Douglas.
The central argument used against Seward was that he was too polarizing to win a national election. His statements about laws higher than the constitution and a looming irrepressible conflict with the South were highly controversial. If opinion polls existed at the time the press would have pointed out his high negative ratings despite his popularity among those against slavery.
Seward underestimated the Republican convention's desire for a fresh face and the political skills of Lincoln's campaign manager, David Davis. A convention hall packed with Lincoln supporters from Illinois didn't hurt either.
Of course, I'm not trying to compare Barack Obama to Abraham Lincoln. But its one of those peculiar oddities of history that almost 200 years after Lincoln was born, another relative political newcomer from Illinois, who also came to national prominence for delivering good speeches, is once again ready to upset a more experienced, polarizing, and supposedly inevitable Senator from New York.
If you'd like to read more about Seward and the 1860 election (or confirm what I wrote) a recent book I enjoyed is "Team of Rivals" by Doris Kearns Goodwin. The biography of Seward I read in college is out of print.