A select joint committee of the Ohio General Assembly finally established January 22, 1849, that Weller lost by 311 votes to Whig Seabury Ford.

After Frémont resigned without beginning his duties, Taylor appointed John Russell Bartlett.

After running unsuccessfully for reelection to the Senate, in 1857 he was elected Governor of California and he served from 1858 to 1860.

As Governor, he intended to make California an independent republic if the North and South divided over slavery, and he personally led an assault on San Quentin Prison to take possession from a commercial contractor.

[3] After leaving the governorship, he was appointed Ambassador to Mexico near the end of 1860 by the lame-duck Buchanan administration.

That burying ground was destroyed in 1959 and unclaimed remains were commingled with 15,000 others and deposited beneath Hope Mausoleum, St. John's Cemetery, New Orleans.