Part 13

"I left word at Dix's that I had named him for the Collectorship. I had some conversation with him about it the other day, and inferred from what he said he would not decline. On looking over the whole ground this seems to me the best thing the President can do--and I think Dix would be pleased with it. We cannot insist on a mission for him and the collectorship for a Barnburner. We must have the latter, and if Dix, after being gazetted to the Cabinet and to France, should get nothing it would be extremely awkward and almost ludicrous; this would mortify me extremely as well as him and his friends. I have been to see Havemeyer; he _says he will not accept_. I told him if he declined we would murder him. But it seems to me the President should choose between Kelly and Dix; if he can take Kelly and give Dix a mission that would be best of all. Write me at Albany, and telegraph if anything occurs.

"Truly Y'rs, "J. VAN BUREN."

"P. S.--If the President gives us a fair man for Collector, and the Navy ____ only, he might put in some Hunker for Marshal, P.-O., Apprsr., Surveyor, etc., leaving room for Dix's mission."

W. L. MARCY TO S. J. TILDEN

"_Private and confidl._ "WASH., _4 Apl., '53_.

"DEAR SIR,--The appraisers have been up, but I have got the appts. put off for a few days. Let me know who (you think) ought to be app'd.

"Dickinson is to be here to-morrow--and it is expected by his friends that he will interfere and have a potential voice in N. Y. appts. What of Thompson for Appr. at Large? Redfield has telegraphed me that he shall accept and come on here. See him if you can, as he passes thro' N. Y.

"Yours truly, "W. L. MARCY."

"_S. J. Tilden, Esq._

"P. S.--Pomeroy is nominated as Appraiser at Large."

The accession of Pierce to the Presidency was soon followed by the retirement of F. P. Blair, who had edited the _Globe_, a semi-official press since the inauguration of President Jackson, and by the establishment of the _Union_ as the new administration organ, under the editorship of Mr. Ritchie, the proprietor of the leading Democratic print in Virginia. This was the first unmistakable evidence of the deliberatively proscriptive policy of the new Cabinet.

Mr. Forney, who for many years had been the Washington correspondent of a Philadelphia print, was assigned to a prominent command on the skirmish-line of the allied pro-slavery press. Though not a wit himself, the following skit will warrant his friends to claim for him the credit of being once very nearly the cause of wit in another. Its chief interest to the reader now consists in its glimpses of many transitory political issues which only live in the daily press and private correspondence of the period.

PROSPECTUS OF THE "FORNEY-CATERER"

"A daily journal will be established in the City of New York under the title of the _Forney-caterer_, the first number of which will be issued Jan. 1st, 1854, or on some other first of January.

"This journal will profess radically _Democratic principles_. Believing in the largest liberty--especially in using the public moneys, it will insist on the extension of that liberty through all the domains of the public treasuries, national, state, and municipal, as the true idea of _Democratic progress_. It will be in favor of _free trade_, as practically illustrated in steamship contracts; and will particularly sustain the _Sloo_ contract, and the assignment thereof to George Law, Edwin Croswell, Prosper M. Wetmore, and Marshall O. Roberts; and the _Collins_ contract, which its editor will also personally advocate in the lobbies of Congress for a moderate compensation. Opposed to _internal improvement_ by the general government, it will urge liberal appropriations of the public funds to any private company which shall make satisfactory arrangements for grants in aid of the Pacific Railroad; and will take a small interest in the purchase by the United States of the property of the Hudson's Bay Company, should that beneficent measure be revived with a prospect of success.

"In respect to the foreign policy of this country, it will be equally explicit. Asserting the honor and dignity of this great and powerful people, it will uphold the claims of Messrs. Hargous with firmness, whether against belligerent or bankrupt nations or against refractory or unconvinced commissioners.

"Located at the great commercial centre, this journal will aim to be metropolitan in its character. Not indifferent to the concerns of sister States, it will take a large interest in maintaining the Camden & Amboy monopoly and other domestic institutions, the blessings of which no traveller ever can pass a sister State without feeling.

"Strangers to the city and State of New York, as the editor and founder of this journal both are, it cannot be expected that they should at the outset act without hesitation in purely local matters. In respect to the offal contract and the Broadway railroad, and as to the canal lettings and the timber contracts of John C. Mather, it may be as well to say that they are, as yet, wholly uncommitted. They are, however, not altogether unfamiliar with similar things elsewhere.

"An ample capital has been contributed by gentlemen who are interested in maintaining the great measures to which this journal is to be devoted; and no expedient has been omitted to ensure its success as a business undertaking in behalf of its stockholders and managers. It will be provided with editors, reporters, and other _attachés_, enough to perform all useful services in the lobbies of Congress, of the State Legislature, and of the city Councils; and with talent and democracy enough in the editorial rooms to make good the ordinary wear and tear of character and influence incident to the other departments of the business.

"As conveyancing will form a large element of the business, expert legal counsel will be provided in the person of Mr. D. E. Sickles, who is recommended for this purpose by his rare skill in _taking_ mortgages.

"Before concluding, it is a painful necessity to advert to the unhappy divisions of the Democracy of New York, which it is the main object of this undertaking to heal. An exact impartiality between those who are for preserving the party and those who are for breaking it up, was intended to be secured by dividing the ownership of the paper equally between them, and then putting its absolute editorial control in the hands of a gentleman whose associations, sympathies, affiliations, and tendencies are entirely and irresistibly--with the latter.

"That equitable and sensible plan having met some unexpected objection, it has been slightly modified; but it will nevertheless be carried out as if unchanged. The business arrangements are most profound and comprehensive. The proprietors who invest a large capital in the enterprise are to have no voice in its editorial management, because that department--the doctrines it maintains, the degree of its ability, its consistency, its integrity, in a word, its whole editorial character--is not supposed to make any difference with the subscription-list or advertising of a newspaper. The modern idea of a complete separation between those who spend and those who pay is to be carried out more fully than in any other joint-stock speculation heretofore known; and gentlemen of first-rate ability in both these departments have been secured. It is not doubted that the result will eclipse anything that has gone before it in the newspaper line. The editor will be paid a double salary for his shares and the sacrifice he will make in relinquishing a lucrative place in the House of Representatives, but without prejudice to his continuance in that post, to which he will be a candidate for re-election.

"The issue of this journal having been postponed from the period first announced, an explanation is due to the public. The paper had become deeply pledged to support the State ticket to be nominated at the Syracuse convention and the regular organization of the Democracy of New York, under the expectation that both would be in _adamantine_ conformity to the principles herein avowed. The editor and founder and their associates were assembled in this city to await the issue of that body; and at the very moment of the bloody scenes of Syracuse were having recourse to the private perusal of the riot act, when, lo! they were themselves thereby incontinently dispersed, and cannot be at once reassembled.

"NEW YORK, _September 19th, 1853_."

TILDEN [INCOMPLETE]

"NEW YORK, _Sep. 10th, 1853_.

"DEAR SIR,--Your letter was received yesterday. I do not think there will be any considerable difficulty in respect to resolutions. The general disposition will be to go to every reasonable extent to disarm those who are predetermined to make mischief. The true and only serious difficulty is to get the convention organized. The plan of those who are hostile to the union of the party is to have two conventions, if it be possible to confuse the public mind as to which really represents the party and its organization. All the moderation, prudence, and liberality consistent with the preservation of the convention must be exercised to avoid a disorganization; or, if that cannot be avoided (as it cannot be, if any considerable minority are bent on it), to leave the disorganizers with as little of a case as possible. The danger is in the large number of contested seats--real and pretended. In about half of the cases there is no shadow of claim on the part of the hard-shell contestants; and such cases can be multiplied indefinitely, so as to form with the extreme men in the convention and the contestants out of it a sufficient number to be a quorum of a separate body. I think we can stand the large number of these now known, if the moderate and union Hunkers can be held, as we anticipate. I have heard from various sources that the President feels the same solicitude which your letter expresses, and that he thinks that the defeat of the party here would revive and reorganize the Whigs all over the country. In that he is quite right. On the encouragement of a disaster in this State, the Whig party would spring to new and full life. It was so in 1837 and in 1846, and in both those cases the results spread over the whole country. Neither you nor the President need doubt that we are fully aware of the peril, both to the party in the Union and in this State; or that any reasonable effort will be omitted to avert it.

"But we are put to great odds when 30 or 35 of our districts are neutralized by contested claims, and in all this part of the State the mass of the patronage of the genl. government is used most unscrupulously against us, and--"

WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT TO TILDEN

"NEW YORK, _Nov. 23, 1854_.

"MY DEAR SIR,--I have called at your office twice to-day on some business of my own. Will you oblige me by letting me know when you are in your office, that I may come and bore you?

"Yours truly, "W. C. BRYANT."

S. J. TILDEN TO MARCY (PROBABLY)

"NEW YORK, _Oct. 12, 1853_.

"MY DEAR SIR,--I take the first moment I have been able to command to answer your note recd. on Monday.

"There is no truth whatever in the story that Grover[21] voted against or dissented from the resolutions of the late Syracuse convention. As the question was then taken _viva voce_ it is foolish to say that any man actually voted for them unless you happened to see his lips move or distinguished his voice, but as _Grover_ did _not_ express dissent or apparently reserve his vote, I suppose he must be deemed to have concurred in their adoption. I have no doubt that he did so, for in the caucus the evening before he was openly in favor of adopting the Baltimore resolutions. My own knowledge of his sentiments, as expressed before, correspond with this course on his part. I state this as matter of fact, because it is fact; and not that I do _not_ think it idle to expect to silence those clamors in respect to Mr. Grover. They must have something to say. The convictions I expressed to you as the true policy in respect to the collectorship would have been strengthened by subsequent events if they had not been before so clear and strong.

"The safe issue with Bronson was on the charge that he has lent his official character and influence to disorganize the party in this State, and to aid the formation of an organized opposition to the administration, and has abused the appointing power entrusted to him to accomplish those objects both of hostility alike to the Democracy and the administration. He would be easily convicted of the first charge by his overt act in taking part with the bolters from the character of the ticket he sustains and from the declarations of the body of his associates. Indeed, his practical position in that respect is already sufficiently recognized by the general public. The second charge that he had exerted his official influence and the appointing power to further the ends of the new combination into which he has openly entered would be readily believed, and its truth could be abundantly shown at leisure. These charges, if well founded, as they unquestionably are, are of a character to justify and, indeed, demand of the administration, by its duty of self-preservation and its duty to maintain the Democracy as an organized party, to intervene for objects so important and so elevated. It can act on such grounds without loss of dignity, and with a justice that is capable of triumphant vindication. That action should correspond with the nature of the case--the clear legal [obligations] of the Collector to the President and to the character of the administration. In my opinion such action is to be performed only in the exercise of the power of removal. The efforts of the administration to come to an amicable understanding with this 'refractory subordinate,' as the _Globe_ used to say, have all failed hopelessly. Any attempt to coerce his discretion while retaining him in office is inconsistent with every attribute which ought to characterize the action of the administration, as the case now stands, and will entirely fail of results except to weaken and besmirch the administration itself.

"The failures to coerce his discretion, even his unfairness and his infidelity to the policy of the administration in the distribution of the subordinate appointments, are by no means the strongest grounds on which to place his removal. On the contrary, I think it a godsend that he has furnished other grounds proved to your hands, of impregnable strength, on which to justify a removal made necessary by petty wrongs and frauds, but now becomes at once indispensable at the hands of the administration and capable of being done without loss of dignity.

"There is still another ground besides those mentioned where the movement in this State has for its _avowed_ object to compel the President to remove his Cabinet. This object is daily manifest through the press and by speeches and by resolutions. The Collector has taken open part with this movement, and, while disclaiming these objects, he is fairly to be held to concur in them, and I presume nobody has any doubt that he, in fact, does so. He at the same time holds an office of most power and of more importance to the administration than any member of the Cabinet. Now is it possible to suppose that if a member of the Cabinet were taking part in public meetings of men, whose object was to expel the rest of the Cabinet, the administration could omit to interfere in the matter without a total loss of all public respect? The principle that the heads of the departments should be in relations of harmony and confidence with the President has been applied as much to the Collectorship of this port as to the Cabinet offices, and with at least as much reason. Prudence as well as principle has always sustained the President through all change of parties and of individuals in bringing the chief officers of the government into this harmony with it whenever he has found them otherwise. These are the grounds on which the removal of Bronson should be placed, and his unfairness and infidelity to the policy of the administration in appointments only incidental as constituting or being part of a systematic abuse of the appointing power to aid his general object. This latter should be very incidental.

"It is important that the issue should be made on _his_ conduct and in its moral, general, and public aspect, and not on the conduct of the administration in interfering with his appointments. It is important, in a word, that the administration should have the _affirmative_ of the issue--that it should be charging the attacking party, and not the defending.

"You are now pausing on the edge of a marsh, when you should be in full march on solid ground, so at least it seems to me nothing remains but to recover as soon as possible a firm and strong position.

"If Bronson answers at once, his reply will afford the occasion for an instant removal.

"In that event, care should be taken, by a well-considered and powerful article in the _Union_ of a semi-official character to place the removal on the true grounds--and as little as possible on the one by which the correspondence will probably be used by him and by the Whigs to frame; and that article should be especially shaped to carry the war into Africa.

"If, as I fear, Bronson should delay answering in the knowledge that time lost is all in their favor and against us, there is one other resource. Let the administration treat the open avowals of our organized movement to change the Cabinet, which have been made since the correspondence commenced, as a _new development_ of the designs and character of the movement with which Bronson is implicated, and as a new offence which calls for immediate action. I see no difficulty in doing this if the administration is really earnest for action instead of wishing occasion for temporizing. Take an affirmative, energetic course, and the details will work out themselves or be easily brought into conformity with the broad grounds on which you act. The administration is perishing by slow disease, the result of indecision and want of energy. I do not say this because I am willing to think it is the administration's duty to come up to any personal wishes or opinions of mine, but I should be blind if I failed to see the indication of a general and prevalent public opinion.

"If you had not known me, and I have known you more than twenty years, and will not think I speak rashly, I would not speak so frankly, though it is at once the highest office and best testimony of my friendship to convey early what is slow and late to reach the ears of men in power.

"The bolting movement in this State would have utterly failed if it could have been understood at the outset that this administration were united in discountenancing it. We should have carried the State, and the President's policy, wise and right as it was, would have had the double triumph of carrying at once Georgia and New York, and faction would have been silenced in and out of Congress. The main force of the movement here has been the false pretence that it was favored by a part of them, representations of this nature being readily believed when made by local leaders in whom they have confidence. It is idle to say that enough has been done to counteract this evil, when we are daily argued with by respectable men to show the contrary.

"But yesterday John Bowdish, of Montezuma, came to see me on the subject, saying that Thomas B. Mitchell has assured him that the President and part of the Cabinet were with the Hards. I heard also from Putnam Co. that such is the general opinion there. It takes more time than there is before the election to penetrate the localities with the truth, and in the mean time men are getting committed too strongly to change. An unmistakable act at the outset would have saved all and would do infinite good yet. In addition to the general considerations respecting the character of the administration it is desirable [the next three lines undecipherable]. Excuse the haste in which I write.

"Very Truly Your Friend, "S. J. TILDEN."

W. L. MARCY TO TILDEN

(This letter is obviously in answer to Tilden's last preceding.)

"_Confidential._ "WASH., _Oct. 16, '53_.

"DR. SIR,--I received yesterday yr. letter of three sheets, and before I read more than one of them the President came in and interrupted me. The tenor of our conversation was such that I thought that yr. letter would be good reading-matter, and I handed it to him. Now, sir, if there is anything wrong in it--not fit for the Presidential eye, the fault will be yours for writing and mine for not guarding agt. yr. confidence in my discretion.

"Bronson's reply is not here, and fears begin to be entertained that it will not come. To tell you frankly what I apprehend, I am bound to say that it is possible there will be no decisive action before election if he does not reply; and perhaps none if he does reply, as I fear he will, that he has fairly divided his appts. among the sections, etc., etc.

"One thing I am much afraid of, and that is the course of J. V. B.[22] He told me at Albany that if the President did not stand by himself, he would not stand by him, and, further, would denounce him. I have just opened a letter from him in which he intimates an intention to carry out this policy. If he does, you may depend upon it the cause will suffer beyond measure. I entreat you and all his friends to warn him of the fatal consequences of such a course. I have good hopes that things here will in the end be brought right--but I shall have none if he carries out his mad suggestion. I beg you will interest yourself in this matter. I see more mischief lowering in that quarter than in any other. I shall write to him, but my warning may not be much heeded.

"Yours truly, W. L. MARCY."

"_Hon. S. J. Tilden, N. Y._"

HORATIO SEYMOUR TO S. J. TILDEN

"APPLETON, _Wis., Aug. 8, 1854_.

"MY DEAR SIR,--I have been upon the point of writing to you for the past two months, but I have been constantly upon the wing. I regret I was not in this State with you. I travelled with Messrs. Corning and Delavan over this region; they were delighted with the crops and the appearance of the country. The wheat is now nearly gathered. The quantity and quality are unequalled by any previous harvest. I think it will give a new tone to affairs here. Your road is making good progress. I wish it was done. It will be of great advantage to this section when the two lines are united. Something will be gained when the Watertown Road is reached. I hear this will be done in about ten days. We must make an united effort to get immigration turned into northern Wisconsin. It now goes to Iowa and Minnesota. A few of the many thousands coming to our country from Europe would give life and riches to the region if they would come here. It is the best country for them. The Wisconsin roads make great efforts to carry them over the length of their lines. This carries the immigrants into other States. You and Mr. Ogden must devise a plan to correct this.

"I am very much disturbed about Secor's note in the Merchants' Exchange Bank. My losses have been very great during the past two years, but I do not like to come short of high honor in my dealings. I do not think I ought to pay the note, but I may be wrong. In my doubt, like most weak-minded men, I have done nothing. I have no right to trouble you, but I must. I send you a letter from the bank. My continued absence from home has prevented me from answering it. This is another offence.