The Republicans in Maine supported him for governor in the same year, and he won a landslide victory. He was inaugurated as governor on the 8th of January 1857. In late February, however, he gave up the governorship, and was in the Senate from 1857 to 1861. From 1861 to 1865, during the Civil War, he was Vice-President of the United States. While in this office he gave a large amount of advice to then President Lincoln, and supported both the Emancipation Proclamation and the arming of the slaves. After the war he served in the Senate (1869-1881), was minister to Spain (1881-1883), and then left public life. He died at Bangor, Maine, on the 4th of July 1891.