He was the leader of the peace settlement in the Democratic Party, and narrowly lost the April 1863 gubernatorial election.

[4] He resigned from the governorship on October 13, 1853, and spent the next four years in Russia, where he built a warm and ongoing alliance with the Czar Nicholas and his son.

Seymour made two unsuccessful attempts to return to the governorship in 1860 and 1863 and unsuccessfully sought the Democratic nomination for President of the United States at the 1864 Democratic National Convention, losing to Civil War general George B. McClellan.

Seymour died of typhoid fever, in Hartford, Connecticut, on September 3, 1868 (age 60 years, 340 days).

This article incorporates public domain material from the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress