Part 14

"Get me out of the scrape in the way you think right.

"Very truly yours, "HORATIO SEYMOUR."

"_S. J. Tilden, Esq._"

TILDEN TO----

"NEWPORT, (R. I.), _Aug. 26, 1854_.

"MY DEAR SIR,--Your last letter reached me just as I was hurrying from the city to fulfil a business engagement at Lebanon. I partly wrote an answer, while there, but left suddenly, and have not found another opportunity till I came here for a few days' relaxation and sea-bathing.

"The address of my brother, for which you inquire, is 'Henry A. Tilden, New Lebanon, Columbia Co., N. Y.'

"In my former letter I did not write in respect to politics because I was very busy, tho' I would not postpone acknowledging your letter, replying to the business matter it contained. If that reason had not existed a sufficient one might have been that I had added nothing to the impressions I entertained when there was an opportunity of expressing them more fully than could be done by correspondence.

"The truth is, the moment I return to the routine of my home-life there are, at present, so many business obligations and responsibilities claiming my thoughts and exhausting my activity that I could not, if disposed to do so, give much habitual attention to politics. It may be that, notwithstanding my necessary preoccupation, I should not acquiesce in so practical a retirement if I were able to propose to myself anything satisfactory which I could see a reasonable prospect of accomplishing in the present chaotic state of parties and politics. I have at least reflected enough, and discussed with others enough, to assure me that I _cannot_, at present, propose to myself any such thing.

"My opinions as to the promotion of a fusion party, whose object should be the restoration of the Missouri Compromise, have been more fully stated to you in conversation than they could be here, and have not been weakened by subsequent reflection. I do not think such a measure of any practical avail to rescue Kansas and Nebraska from slavery. Long before it could succeed, in the most sanguine view of its prospects, their destiny will be settled; and I hope that, through other agencies, it will be settled favorably. That being done, there is nothing in the Missouri Compromise which you or I would wish to have restored. This basis is not, then, broad or permanent enough to found upon it a party organization of much power or durability. So, I think, the public mind will regard the matter. Its action will be through the emigration societies, and to punish those whom it holds principally responsible for the breaking up of the armistice on the slavery question. In these modes Northern indignation will find complete vent, and will exhaust itself; and there will be another general calm. Nor do I now see any other kindred question able to change this result.

"In regard to bringing out Col. Benton as a Presidential candidate. He is very strong with the remnant of the old veterans of 1834 and 1840, and has great general respect from the whole country. But I have not changed the opinions formerly expressed to you in relation to his chances for 1856. The Democratic organization will run a candidate. If an organization, including the Northern Whigs, does the same, I do not see how Col. Benton could get an electoral vote. Presented, in the first instance, as an independent candidate, it would require the concentration upon him of the whole body of the Northern Whigs to give him any prospect of an election. Whether such a state of things can arise, it is too early to foresee.

"I greatly regret Col. Benton's defeat in his district, but cannot say I am much surprised. The Whigs do not seem to have aided him much. When he ran before, denouncing all against us, he was the novelty of the day. The Know-Nothings are that now. If he had been personally in the canvass it is _possible_ he might have saved himself.

"So far as my observation extends in this part of the State, a third-party organization, if attempted, would not, in my judgment, embody a quarter of the force or numbers our movement did in 1848. I do not know a man who bore any considerable share of the heat and burden of that day who would enter _actively_ into a similar campaign now.

"A few who did comparatively little then might wish its labors repeated, if themselves exempted. The general disposition among those most dissatisfied with the course of things at Washington is disgust, indifference, in some cases individual opposition, in many independent personal action; but very little towards organized, affirmative movement. They expect the Democratic party to be broken down for the time. They expect the folly of its leaders to inure to the benefit of the Whigs. Some will look on with indifference; some will frame a ticket to suit themselves; some will, perhaps, aid to produce the result which all look upon as inevitable. Most will expect the Democratic party to rise again, purified, and to resuming relations with it. I know of none--tho' doubtless there are such individuals--who intend permanent union with the Whigs. I know of few who would undertake the formation of a new party outside of existing organizations. The body of those who went with us in 1848 will continue within the organization in which they have since acted."

TILDEN TO----

"N. Y., _Sept. 5, 1854_.

"MY DEAR SIR,--I did not think I should desire to be at the convention; but as the time approaches, I suppose that, if it were possible, the knowledge that you and some like you are to be there would call me once more to commune with you. But all such uprisings of the old spirit are quelled by a round of engagements here to which I must attend.

"I do not suppose that in the doings of the convention I can be entirely pleased--perhaps no one man will be. I cannot judge, as well as you who are present, precisely what should be done in a state of things at once so chaotic and so complex; and I have great faith in the wisdom that comes up from the counties. It seems to me, however, that there is more _not_ to be done than _to be_ done. It is a safe rule in affairs--and not less so in mere declarations that simply commit you without producing any practical result--that when you are in doubt what to do, do as little as possible. There is nothing to be achieved in this campaign but to preserve, as far as may be, the connections and harmony of the radical Democracy--a confederacy of men that has done some public service and is worth keeping."

M. VAN BUREN TO S. J. TILDEN

"LINDENWALD, _August 3d, '55_.

"MY DEAR TILDEN,--I regretted not to see you during my short stay at New York, but was happy to hear that you are about to do what you ought to have done long ago, and if the young lady I had the pleasure to see at Rome is the happy fair one, you have my ready and hearty consent.

"I am engaged in putting my house in order, and will thank you to hand me a statement of my affairs in your hands and the papers by the first convenient opportunity.

"In haste, "Very truly yours, "M. VAN BUREN." _"S. J. Tilden, Esq."_

S. J. TILDEN TO----

"NEW YORK, _August 23rd, 1855_.

"MY DEAR SIR,--After I received your letter, some three months ago, proposing to confess judgment to the Bk. of North America for the note due to it, I saw Wm. Henry, who desired me, if possible, to get the matter postponed, in order that some different arrangement might be made. I applied to the bk., and they consented to some further delay, willing to receive part payment and to renew the residue. But no plan of that kind having been acted on, the bk. has been latterly speaking to me every time I meet its officers, and urge some proceeding so strongly that it cannot be further delayed.

"The bk. prefers an action which may bring in all the parties to a confession of judt., and I have had Mr. Green take the proceedings to save any unnecessary expenses. A copy of a summons and complaint is sent, with an admission of service endorsed, which you will please sign and return.

"At the same time, I cannot forbear expressing my regret that the matter has not been put in a shape which would render this course unnecessary. Persuaded in this instance, not without great reluctance, to violate the rule on which I habitually and almost without an exception in my whole life--act, and which requires me to refuse all endorsements and suretyships--I feel that I ought to be prevented from annoyance from this transaction. If I have submitted and am submitting to have the trouble and care growing out of the affairs of the company thrown upon me most disproportionately, it is simply from a friendly disposition, as far as I can within any bounds of reason, to see through a matter in which my friends are involved, and at least to get it in the best shape I may for them. From the beginning I resisted connecting myself with the enterprise, into which I was, nevertheless, drawn; and except, for the considerations mentioned above, I would dismiss the affair from my mind forever. Under the circumstances, it is not strange that I feel that the trouble and care thrown upon me thro' my regard for the interests of friends should not be added to by their omission to take care of their confidential paper.

"Mr. Green has recently spent some days in Vermont in making investigations into the circumstances under which the Stark Bk. became the owner (if it is so) of your acceptance. The results are very satisfactory. It will be necessary to make some additional inquiries of the corresponding banks. I think we shall be able to show that the Stark Bank took the paper for antecedent debt which will dispose of their claims effectually and forever.

"Authority has been given to Mr. Thompson to sell 1,000,000 of the bonds, as W. H. & Co. is dissolved.

"Very respectfully, "S. J. TILDEN."

S. J. TILDEN TO----

"NEW YORK, _Aug. 26th, 1855_.

"MY DEAR SIR,--My name having been connected by some of the delegates with a nomination by the Democratic convention for the office of Comptroller, and in the public journals with that of Secretary of State--it is due to those who may do me the honor to think of me for either of these distinguished trusts that they should not be allowed to be under any misapprehension as to the true state of the facts. The old friends whose names I see on the list of delegates will recollect that I have never permitted personal feelings or taste to govern my political action, or been wanting in deference to the general interests or judgment of my associates; and will do me the justice to believe that I act in the same considerate spirit when I say that obligations which I am at present under and have no right to renounce are, in my judgment, incompatible with my undertaking properly to discharge the duties of either of the offices mentioned. As I do not deem it consistent with propriety to be nominated for either of them under such circumstances, you will do me the favor to communicate this determination to any of my friends who may be disposed to present my name to the convention, and in case of its being so presented to withdraw it from the consideration of that body."

JOHN B. MILLER, WM. CASSIDY, THOS. G. ALVORD TO TILDEN

"UTICA, _Sept. 8, 1855_.

"SIR,--Pursuant to the direction of the convention of the Democratic party of the State of New York, assembled at Syracuse on the 29th ultimo, the undersigned were commissioned to notify of their nomination the various candidates recommended by the convention to the people for election. The delegates convened, as above stated, have signified their unanimous desire that the votes of their constituents be cast for your name at the coming election for the office of Attorney General. The Democracy of the State await an official announcement of the acceptance of the candidacy from those upon whom the choice of their representatives has so satisfactorily fallen.

"With great respect, "JOHN B. MILLER, "WM. CASSIDY, "THOS. G. ALVORD."

"_To Hon. Samuel J. Tilden, New York._"

TILDEN TO DEAN RICHMOND

"NEW YORK, _Sept. 9th, 1855_.

"MY DEAR RICHMOND,--I expected to find you here yesterday on my return from Lebanon, where I had occasion to go on Sat. But I suppose you stopped at Albany.

"Since our conversation I have thought over the question of my running for Atty. Gen. The ground you put it on--expediency for our friends, without much prospect of success to me--is not one which makes it easy for me to decline. I could not render that reason or, with such friends as you, act on it while rendering another. Nor do I, in truth, care much for any consequences I can conceive as resulting from defeat. But I am worn from overwork. I have upon my hands now more than I can do for the next six months. And if upon the ticket I shall be expected to share in the canvass more than will be possible, and subjected to those special annoyances that are peculiar to a candidate residing in this city. I therefore greatly desire that you should make up the ticket so as to let me off."

"NEW YORK, _Sept 14th, 1855_.

"GENTLEMEN,--Your letter appraising me that the recent Democratic State Convention 'have signified their unanimous desire that the votes of their constituents should be cast for "my" name for the office of Attorney General,' has been received.

"In accepting their nomination thus tendered, I acknowledge my deep sense of an honor, conferred by a convention in which was assembled so much of remarkable and varied abilities, of political virtue and personal worth, and enhanced by association with a ticket which, in my judgment, will, if elected, constitute a working body, capable of acting with unity, wisdom and effect, for a restoration of the honest and wise policy indicated by the convention, and for _reestablishing good government within this State_."

"With great respect, gentlemen, I remain,

"Very truly, yours, &c., "S. J. TILDEN.[23]

"_Messrs. John B. Miller, "Wm. Cassidy, and "Thos. O. Alvord, "Committee, &c._"

TILDEN TO----

"NEW YORK, _Dec. 28, '55_.

"MY DEAR SIR,--Your letter in answer to mine in respect to your debt to the Bk. N. A., on which I am endorser, came to hand. It was not what I supposed from your previous assurances I had a right to expect, nor what seems to me just. Whether it be even wise for yourself, I will not undertake to judge.

"An endorsement made for a man's accommodation is called _confidential_, because it is supposed to impart a very high and sacred obligation to protect the friend who incurs such a liability in your behalf and for your benefit. It was a departure from my usual habit and settled rule, wrung from me by the importunity of friendship. With a good deal of trouble to me, it has been deferred from time to time at your instance, and in the last case with a strong assurance on your part.

"You must pardon me if I say that I am not advised of any circumstance that can excuse the failure of so high an obligation. I have no reason to believe that an _absolute inability_ exists.

"You allude, in this connection, to other liabilities hanging over you; by which, I suppose, you mean the claim on the drafts held by the Stark Bank. I should think that if anything _could_ add to the obligation to protect me from a liability on your confidential paper, it would be that I have been engaged, and am still, with infinite care, labor and trouble, in trying to rescue you from that unjust claim--that the intricacies of the case, the complexity of the transactions out of which the claim grows, the witnesses being out of the State--" [The rest wanting.]

M. VAN BUREN TO MOSES TILDEN[24]

"LINDENWALD, _Septr. 1st, '56_.

"MY DEAR SIR,--I am happy to find that the 'sober second thought' has brought you to the right conclusion, as I was quite sure it must do. I may add, too, that I honor the scruples by which you have been embarrassed. It requires no small share of moral courage for men of our antecedents to keep the posts of right and duty against the influence of such resentments as we have been exposed to. But it would have been a crying shame to have had a single link broken in a family so pre-eminently Democratic as yours has been--from Dr. and Mrs. Younglove to Sammy.

"We are not only right, but the crisis is, in my judgment, the most imminent and critical of any we have ever experienced. That union should so long have been preserved in a confederacy which contains an element of discord of such magnitude and of so disturbing a nature as that of slavery, is a wonder--more surprising than its dissolution would be. This has been owing to the fact, I firmly believe, the single fact that there have always been neutralizing considerations of sufficient force to maintain party cohesions between men of the free and slave States. Slavery questions have from the beginning had more or less to do with our political contests, but have never before had the effect of dissolving old party connections and sympathies, and the balance-wheel has thus been preserved. Now, for the first time in our history, one side, and that the one in which we reside, has undertaken to carry an election, including the control of the Federal government, and against the united wishes of the other. It has placed itself in a position which, for the first time cuts itself loose from all hope, if not desire, of assistance in the slave States. It not only admits that this is its position, but avows that it is a desirable one. It wishes to accomplish its mastery by its own unaided arm. Now, it needs no ghost to tell us that one successful effort of this description will be followed by another, for men have too much the quality of wild beasts in them to stop the pursuit when they have once tasted blood, and it would be against reason and experience to expect a Union, in which political mastery is so plainly exhibited and organized, to continue. From this evil we have been saved by the state of parties which hitherto existed, and to this danger are we exposed from the new and extraordinary thing which has taken the place of it.

"Slavery agitation must be eradicated in some way or another, or our institutions cannot continue in their present form. I was so indignant against the repeal of the Missouri Compromise that I could not do justice to the Kansas Organic Act, as that was the instrument by which the outrage was perpetrated. But I am now satisfied that if Mr. Pierce had from the beginning taken the stand he now seems to be taking, and interfered against all foreign interference the moment he saw the disposition to interfere, of which he had at least notice in the movements of the Missourians, the country would have been saved from the disgrace to which our institutions have been exposed in the estimation of the world, Kansas would have been a Territory so decidedly free as to put an end to attempts to make it a slave State, the country would have been quiet, the party united, and he renominated. All that is now wanted to secure many of the most important of these results is a rigid and effectual execution of the Kansas Organic Act. Although I am not a particular admirer of Mr. Buchanan, I have reasons that satisfy my mind that he will, if elected, secure to the country this great advantage, and therefore, and because he is the regular nominee of the party, I should vote for him. If I did not think so I would not go to the polls. I do have a very favorable opinion of Col. Fremont personally, but cannot for a moment doubt, from his utter want of experience in the affairs of government, and his inexperience in everything that belongs to it, that he would, if elected, inevitably be thrown into the hands of Seward, Greeley, and Weed, and I do not think the difficulties in Kansas could be brought to anything like a satisfactory result through such agencies. I, on the contrary, think there is the greatest reason to fear that to commit the power of the government into such hands, at a moment so critical as the present, would be but 'the beginning of the end' in regard to the confederacy. There are, I trust, few Democrats who would like to subject to their control and to the plundering propensities of their followers, the treasury, much less the government itself. Our friends who think they can go with the so-called Republicans this once and then return, make a dangerous experiment. Their party has always been a bourne from whence very few Democratic travellers have ever returned. The reasons for this are numerous and too obvious to make it necessary to detail them. They have, therefore, but one of two courses to pursue--that is to trust to the Democratic nominee and the conservative characters of the Democratic party, or to fly to evils they know not of, save only that except upon a single point, out of a great many, they cannot even hope for favorable results.

"But I must stop. This is the first private letter I have written about the election, and it will probably be the last, and nothing but my very great respect for yourself and your race, and my desire to preserve their Democratic consistency, could have induced me to write this. If it gets into the newspapers I would leave no stone unturned to have you punished.

"Upon the subject of your last inquiry, I do not possess definite knowledge. I believe no final resolution has yet been come to. But I can tell you nothing encouraging. If ancient Federalism gain its long-lost ascendancy in that quarter, as it is so apt to do one time or another, I should give up judging of character.

"Remember me very kindly to your mother, sister and brother, and believe me,

"Very truly, "Your friend, "M. VAN BUREN."

"_Moses Tilden, Esq._"

W. L. MARCY TO TILDEN

"_Confidential._

"WASHINGTON, _8th Oct._ (_1857_).

"DR. SIR,--- The course _by letter_ having been taken, an instant removal cannot be effected. I have pointed out the error, but there is now no help for it. Removal is the object aimed at and intended to be reached circuitously. After a long correspondence the _thunder_ will be used, and it will be said it is used because worsted in the argument.

"I believe most of the Cabinet were for bold action. I have pointed out very clearly the _equivocal_ position in which the administration now stands and the disrepute into which it is fast falling, and have showed the only remedy--_decisive action_. The Prest. sees this _now_ as plainly as anybody, and is willing to apply the remedy. I have endeavored to convince him that he is missing the very best occasion for using it.

"Some impression has been made on the mind of the Prest. as to Grover. It is said that he was opposed to, and did vote for, the resolutions at Syracuse. I hope there is no truth in this allegation, for if there is it weakens our position very much. A _bolt_ from a Free-soiler will be easily excused. It will be awkward to punish men for not voting for a ticket--regular though it be--if it is tainted with Free-soilism. The bolters are laboring hard on that point. Let me know if there really is anything wrong in this matter.

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

S. J. TILDEN TO MESSRS. KNOX & MORGAN