Part 11

"MY DEAR SIR,--Though I have heard of nothing calculated to excite alarm, yet I do not feel quite easy as to what may be the result of the delegate meeting on the 7th inst. As Lt.-Gov. Church does not stand entirely unexposed to attacks on account of the canal lettings, I think it would be quite agreeable to him to be selected as one of the State delegates. Should his selection be pressed it may embarrass the proceedings. I have information from Washington that Dickinson's _man_, Birdsall, is here exhibiting much bitterness towards me, and has distinctly broke ground for Dickinson as a candidate. As he cannot carry the State it will be important for his object, as it would be to Gen. C.'s friends, to create an impression that no one can carry it. He will therefore endeavor to get up a scene of confusion here at the delegate meeting. Though I have no intimation on the subject, yet I do not doubt that he will propose a wholesale endorsement of the compromise. If so, the blow must be skilfully parried.

"I also fear the Hunker delegates favorable to me will stiffly insist on Hunker State delegates, but will go far to gratify the other section of my friends as to the particular persons.

"I allude to these things to enforce the request I make to have you be here a day or two before the delegates meet if you conveniently can.

"If we can surmount the embarrassments which may arise in this matter, I flatter myself that our future course will be more smooth.

"I am inspired with confidence from the information I get from Washington that things, as they appear there, are not _worsening_ for me, and if the business at the delegate meeting is done as it ought to be my prospects will be much improved.

"Yours truly, "W. L. MARCY.

"_Saml. J. Tilden, Esq._"

MARTIN VAN BUREN TO S. J. TILDEN

"LINDENWALD, _Sept. 17th, '52_.

"MY DEAR SIR,--Accept my thanks for your attention to my stock affair. Please deposit the balance to my credit in Mr. Worth's bank. I regret your inability to visit me, as I long to have an old-fashioned chat with you.

"In haste, "Very truly yours, "M. VAN BUREN."

TILDEN TO----

SUGGESTION FOR PRESIDENT PIERCE IN THE ORGANIZATION AND CONDUCT OF HIS ADMINISTRATION

"NEW YORK, _Jany. 15th, 1853_.

"MY DEAR SIR,--I thank you for the copy of Hawthorne's _Memoirs_. It would have reminded me, if I had forgotten, that I promised to write you my views on the subject of our conversation when I last had the pleasure to see you. I should have done so earlier, but engagements, which it is no exaggeration to call incessant, have left me no opportunity.

"The preliminary question is, on what general theory is the new administration to be formed? Is the Cabinet to be composed of those who are commonly regarded as Presidential men--who were candidates for the recent nomination--and are surrounded by the affiliations which naturally grow up around those occupying that position? It seems to me that this would be attempting to stand steadily and firmly on a half-dozen different stools. The President might himself look after the success of his administration, while his constitutional helpers were thinking how each measure and each appointment would affect their pretensions to the succession; or he might content himself with the formal honor of presiding over the councils of these heads of factions. But, in my judgment, he ought to be--not what Victoria is in the British government, not a grand Elector, as Sieyès would have made Napoleon, not a mere chooser of the actual rulers--but the real and responsible head of the administration. That he may be such, he should have, as far as practicable, a Cabinet able to perform its duty towards him, faithfully and effectively, and not inviting by the aspirations of its members internal dissension or external hostility. In the last term of an administration, it may be difficult to exclude pretensions to the succession. But why incur the embarrassments which they never fail to generate, during a first term, unless it be certain that it is also the last! And is it to be now assumed that the Democracy will look from the candidate through whom it solved the difficulties of a choice at the last convention, and to candidates through whom it found itself unable to solve those difficulties? It is not clear that the party can, after so recent a disorganization--if it could under other circumstances--be sufficiently consolidated in a single term to be instrumental to any great public service. But it is clear what will become of the family discipline and how the farm will be managed if the old gentleman begins by announcing his own decease and inviting the boys to scramble for the inheritance. Polk tried that, secretly meaning all the while to be his own heir; and while he contrived and they scrambled, the inheritance went to strangers. Let not Gen. Pierce content himself with being a loose and temporary bond of union between factions; but rather let him aim to fuse those factions, and constitute a single, compact party.

"Now what is to be done with New York? Some will say avoid all difficulties by taking no member of the Cabinet from that State. That would be better than to do worse; and, if on due reflection it should be deemed most expedient, I should not personally complain. But it is not a policy after my heart or my judgment; nor does it tend to constitute a party out of the fused elements of factions. An evasion policy, in such a case, is a feeble policy.

"Well, who then shall be taken? The public regard Messrs. O'Conor, Dickinson, Marcy, and Dix as candidates; and therefore I may be justified in remarking upon them as such. The first two I shall not say much about, because I do not suppose their present relations to the prevailing policies of the State will make them regarded as admissible selections.

"Mr. O'Conor is a man of extensive and accurate legal learning, of an acuteness of reason somewhat excessive even for the higher uses of his profession--of great mental activity, indefatigable, vehement and sarcastic in controversy; remarked at the bar as able rather than wise, and remarkable for a want of tact. What these qualities--not weakened by a life almost exclusively forensic--would naturally make him in politics, where they are not counteracted by the large knowledge, long experience, and settled rules and habits that modify their effects in his profession, and where the opposite qualities, the power, not of dissenting or contesting, but of moulding, constructing, and organizing, of determining one's self and representing others, are mainly required, may be imagined. Add inexperience in politics, very limited acquaintance with its subjects, its questions, its history, its methods or its men--unsettled convictions, a tendency to capriciousness, and as little as can easily be found of that capacity which enables a man instinctively to act with others or make them act with him, and you have the political aspects of his character. Whether in personal judgment or action in politics, in administrative council, in a deliberative assembly, or in leading or aiding to lead a party of a nation or a ward, his destiny is to illustrate how little fitted to such purposes may be talents conceded to be eminent in a peculiar sphere. This opinion is the result of many years' observation. It was confirmed when I was associated with him in the convention that formed the present Constitution of this State, and, in an intercourse constant and never unfriendly, was a daily witness of the development of his characteristics. The partiality of his friends would not change the nature, though it might lessen the degree, of this criticism. No one has suggested him except as Attorney Genl.; and for that station, I presume, on the idea that its duties are purely professional. If that office did not share in the general administrative councils of the President; if, as a legal adviser, he were not required to look at the mixed questions that come up before him somewhat with the eye of a statesman as well as that of a mere lawyer--or at least with the largeness and comprehensiveness of a judicial view; if he had no duty or utility beyond conducting the cases in the courts in which he occasionally appears for the United States, certainly there could be no objection to the personal adaptation of this gentleman, and, if that member of the Cabinet from New York need have no relation to the majority of the party there, which has the entire State government, and whose ascendency is every day becoming more complete and solid, and but a very ineffective relation to the minority, if he need represent nobody and be capable of representing nobody, such a selection might not be injudicious as respects the Democracy of the largest State in the Union.

"I ought perhaps to add a matter of information without going into discussion of political antecedents that in our great financial controversy from 1836-7 this gentleman was with the Whigs, and was not again visible in our ranks until 1844.

"Inferior to either of the other gentlemen mentioned in general abilities and acquirements, and to either of them, except Mr. O'Conor, as a politician--and not strong with his State in any of his political antecedents--Mr. Dickinson has brought himself into his present unfortunate relations with a great majority of the party here by the extreme positions he has occupied on questions which have divided the State, and still more by the fatuity with which he has followed Judge Beardsley and Mr. Croswell in a policy which must have been fatal to the party if it had not sooner been fatal to its advocate. I mean the policy of resisting every attempt at an honorable or practicable union of the Democracy of the State--on the chance that, while the prominent men of the section, which formed a majority of the whole and had many sympathizers from the rank and file of that section, could be made through the influence of association with the party in other States; and that, while the Democracy of the Union should take the risks of the experiment, those who got it up would, at least, own the wreck. Fairer and wiser men saw that such an experiment in a party which rarely commands a majority exceeding two or three per cent. of the aggregate vote, even if more successful than could be reasonably hoped for, could have no result but to leave New York as thoroughly federalized as Massachusetts or Vermont for a generation to come. But the folly of the scheme was no less in its personal aspects. It mistook the sentiments as it underrated the sense of the masses of the party. They, as everybody ought to have seen, were in favor of a reunion on equal and honorable terms. And the attempt to resist it--which, if openly made, would have been generally rejected--was sufficiently perceived to break the hold of its authors upon the masses of their own section, who, although sometimes in a collateral question where old associations or prejudices could be appealed to showing a large minority have been drifting from these gentlemen ever since, and many of them resuming relations with the radicals with whom they formerly acted.

"Gov. Marcy and Genl. Dix both possess the important requisite of being of the union Democracy of the State, and are both capable of fulfilling the duties of a Cabinet station with signal ability and distinction. I express my judgment between these gentlemen, not without regret arising from kindly personal disposition towards the one against whom that judgment, under all the circumstances, must be. But I shall state it frankly, and briefly some of the reasons on which it is founded.

"It seems to me, in the first place, that the selection of Genl. Dix is most wise and right in respect to the mutual relations of those who, acting generally with both these gentlemen, since the reunion of the party in 1849, would be divided in preference between them. On the first nomination of Gov. Seymour, in selecting a State candidate for the recent Presidential nomination--in choosing the two State delegates to the national convention on the renomination of Gov. Seymour--indeed, on most of the important occasions since the reunion, the radicals, while constituting far the larger and more effective element of that union, have conceded almost everything. The magnanimity with which they have done so, and the fidelity with which they have carried out the measures in which it has been done, have been strongly recognized by Gov. Marcy and his friends. These concessions have sometimes been not without dissatisfaction at the extent and frequent repetition of them; nor without large demand on the credit and patience of those who have been the means of inducing acquiescence in arrangements, in which, while one side contributed most of the capital of the partnership, the other received nearly its entire benefits. I feel some right to speak on this point without suspicion that I am swerved by personal associations from a fair judgment as respects all parties, as well from the general position I have held on these occasions as from the part I took in some of them.

"It may not be improper to mention an instance. When the two State delegates to the national convention were to be chosen, Gov. Marcy, as desiring to be presented as the State candidate for the Presidency, and Gov. Seymour as a candidate before his own party the first time after his defeat before the people, felt their fortunes very deeply involved in the result. Gov. Marcy wrote to me requesting me to attend the meeting of the district delegates at Albany, and I did so. I never knew either of those gentlemen manifest more anxiety or having to confront more serious embarrassments. It had been the settled understanding that one Hunker and one radical should be taken for the State delegates. Most of the votes relied on to make the choice were radicals; and prominent men of that section, some of whom the radicals most desired to send, strongly wished to go. It seemed to Gov. Marcy necessary to take two Hunkers, but he felt the embarrassment of asking it, especially on the grounds that could alone be rendered; and others, who had to make the choice or were in firmer association with those who had to make it, were not easily convinced of the necessity or propriety of such a course. The difficulty was at length solved by our passing our favorite men and assenting to elect Mr. Seymour and another Hunker. Those of us who have, on this and other occasions, felt the strain with our own friends of keeping the elements of the union Democracy working harmoniously and efficiently under such circumstances, have a right to be heard when we express the conviction that the present is a fit time for Gov. Marcy and his friends to evince some mutuality in their relations towards the radicals; and that a more safe, proper, and unobjectionable opportunity to reciprocate the magnanimity with which they have been treated cannot be offered than in assenting to the selection of Genl. Dix for the Cabinet. Such I believe to be the general sense of those who have formed four-fifths of the majorities in our State conventions and elsewhere since the reunion of the party from which Gov. Marcy and Gov. Seymour have received support.

"Regarding the question simply as it affects the party in this State, I think it highly desirable and important that the occasion should be embraced to manifest that mutuality towards the radicals without which the elements of a party cannot be kept in cordial or lasting union, and I think that, on such a question, the general sense of fair men is more wisely conformed to than disregarded. Certainly I do not mean to censure Gov. Marcy for allowing his name to be presented, or that we have any right or disposition to limit the range of selection by Genl. Pierce; but simply to state considerations which, in my judgment, are important in deciding the choice.

"This brings me to the question how the party in New York, as a whole, stand affected as between these two gentlemen? The radicals, who are a full majority in numbers and more in efficiency, are for Gen. Dix, and would, under the circumstances, feel some sense of exclusion in a choice of a different nature. Gov. Marcy and his personal friends, though preferring him, cannot, as the case stands, make any actual opposition to the appointment of Gen. Dix; and, if it be made, will acquiesce--most, if not all of them, with cordiality. The considerations I have alluded to appeal strongly to their judgment and sense of justice, if failing to change their wishes; and with the relations which have grown up with many who are for Genl. Dix, secure this result. The opposition of the extreme Hunkers to Marcy or Dix will be most manifest towards the one appearing most likely at the moment to be appointed; but I think that they are generally less repugnant to the selection of Dix, towards whom there is less of violence and bitterness in individual leaders. So far as this may be supposed to arise from the part Gov. Marcy took in promoting the union of the party, I regard it as a merit; and for that, with a friendly construction of acts and motives, we have handsomely acquitted ourselves towards him. This animosity has other causes, among which is that he has been in the way of other gentlemen who have grown faster in their own esteem than in his appreciation (in which difference I think he is more right than they); and especially that Mr. Dickinson regards him as having, by being a candidate for the Presidency, kept that distinction from alighting on fitter shoulders--which it is certain that Mr. D. confidentially calculated the convention would find, after trying Cass' awhile, to be of exactly his own management.

"Looking to this State, therefore, I think the appointment of Genl. Dix would be the most wise, expedient, and prudent, with his moderation and conciliatory conduct always, and conciliatory disposition, it will prove generally satisfactory. Not that all can be pleased. Still less that a few impracticables in this city will be--who never have been for twenty years, when the party was strong and prosperous--I mean the leading spirits. Their idea of building up the party has been to exclude from it a majority as Barnburners, and the most of the Hunkers as having traitorous sympathies and affiliations with the Barnburners; and, incapable of more than one idea at a time, they have continued faithful to this, until they have pretty much exhausted the credit they acquired in 1848 with the masses of those who voted for Gen. Cass; and have lost their influence in the organization of the party even in this city, while their crotchets are not and have not been shared in by a tenth of those who were nominally classified with them. They may be safely disregarded. There will be no local dissatisfaction in this city arising from appointments, if those which are of a local nature be judiciously made. The truth is the divisions and factions which appear on the surface of our city politics are pretty much confined to the petty leaders, and excite attention or interest in but a very small portion of the masses. They are generated by the very large number of offices, contracts, and other objects of cupidity, municipal, State, and national, which are concentrated here, and perhaps in some degree by the stirring and heterogeneous character of our population. They always exist, and have little to do with any settled general classification. Their effect is to render opinion and individual character less influential than in the more natural and sound condition of the rural districts, and to make the organization of the party, always scrambled for to promote personal ends, a much less true index of the real sentiments of the party. So far as the relations of the administration with the party in this city are to be effected at all by its appointments, assuming them, of course, to be intrinsically proper and reputable, it would be incomparably more by the multitude of little ones than by the large. While the appointments here should be made with primary reference to the honest and efficient discharge of official duties, a judicious care should be had for the harmonizing and conciliating the entire party. The one or two which have extensive subordinate patronage should not be surrendered to the bigotry of clique or of individuals on the idea of a partition between factions, but should be entrusted to persons who have largeness of views, judgments, and local knowledge enough to administer the subordinate patronage on the same principle on which the administration itself acts. With such a policy the disturbing causes will be reduced to a minimum and the party will move on in general unity and strongly ascendant. I will venture what character I have for political judgment that no perceptible obstacle to this result would be found in the selection of Gen. Dix for the Cabinet.

"There is another consideration in respect to that gentleman. He is a model of a Cabinet officer. Able, accomplished, and judicious, capable of doing a given quantity of work in a specified time, not having made himself or been made a candidate for the Presidency, he will serve the administration faithfully, and without aiming to control or manage it to personal ends; and being in nobody's way for the succession, with no affiliations formed to secure it to him, not looked to with any such view by those who present his name, he will draw on the administration no jealousies on that score from those who fear passive not less than active rivals, and will not believe that Presidential ambition, once entertained, can ever be practically relinquished.

"To the force of all these considerations is opposed nothing but an alleged repugnance of the South or portions of it to Genl. Dix's appointment arising from his position in 1848. I do not suppose Genl. Pierce will be disposed to, or can listen to, an objection of this nature, and I think it will be found to have as little real existence as it has cogency. Mr. Dickinson's friends thought before the last convention that they should ruin Gov. Marcy by charging him with having allied with the Barnburners; but it rather proved an element of strength, and the votes he received were, notwithstanding, from the extreme South. Our friends there, as elsewhere, wanted a candidate who could win. Every man of sense, then, must see now that if the party would maintain itself, it must do so by the same policy by which it regained the ascendency. The real difficulty in respect to the South will be in composing their own dissensions, in which all sides there will feel infinitely stronger interest than in any New York question. Such an objection to Genl. Dix may be entertained by bigotry or the narrowness of views of some, or more likely it may be the pretence of men dissatisfied on grounds interesting them personally. If this pretence be wanting to such, others equally available will be found.

"Whatever it be, the sooner the administration shall show that it does not intend to reverse the policy which brought it into existence the better. Without a prompt, firm, and decisive course in this respect, we shall have nothing--from cabinet minister down to tide-waiter--but discussions of past dissensions, which it is the policy and duty of Genl. Pierce, with all his power as the head of the party, to bury. It is a case in which boldness is the highest prudence. If the party cannot be kept large enough to contain all the great divisions of it which have predominated in powerful States or sections of the Union, it cannot be kept in the majority. In the face of the certain results of any other system, I feel courageous in supporting this, on the principle on which Moreau said he rendered his soldiers brave--by making them fear more to run than to fight.