Part 6

"Still I have perhaps more fears than hopes. The administration is captured by the quasi-Van Buren men who went with us before Baltimore but deserted us there; who cannot risk the power of the government in those who understand and remember them; and confederate now against Wright. At least that seems to me the influence--which in spite of Polk's probable intentions--has shaped the Cabinet. Calhoun has no share. There will be no one in the Cabinet on whom N. Y. can rely. Buchanan you know. Walker has a strong will enough to predominate over all the rest. Marcy is taken by the same influence which selected Walker because while he answers some of the demands of decency towards N. Y. is least identified with Wright. Mason, Atty. Gen. (unless ____ to James) and R. Johnson. How can Bancroft stand up against all the others?

"Truly y'rs, "S. J. TILDEN."

NELSON J. WATERBURY TO TILDEN

"NEW YORK, _March 8, 1845_.

"DEAR SIR,--I have seen Secor. He says that he only contemplated speaking to Langley, if you had no objection, but to go no further. That he did not suppose you understood or thought or expected him to transfer to anybody unless for a price. That he would write to you immediately.

"You will see Purdy is going ahead for Collector. He has been recommended by both of the Genl. Committees, various ward associations, and a German meeting. Secor tells me he also has a strong letter from Van Buren, and he went to Albany last night to get testimonials from there, I suppose. If he is appointed he will fill the Custom House with a laughable assortment--good, bad, and indifferent. I am inclined to believe that he will be more thorough in turning out than we expected. Of course you understand that all his recommendations are bargained for; places are to be given to the men who get them up. If he succeeds you may rely that the dissatisfaction which his appointment will excite will be excessive. There is one way to [head?] him. That is a merchants' memorial, asking that none but a commercial man be appointed. This would do, and Havemeyer could be made Collector and Purdy Postmaster. But nothing ought to be done unless Polk is entirely straight.

"Henry, my brother, is just down, has been at Albany. Our friends are very much dissatisfied. Polk's offers to Wright and Butler are not regarded as having been made in good faith. It is supposed that he has his eye on a second term. I incline to concur in the first partially--that is, they were mere compliments--not in the second. I think Polk is as weak as dish-water, but honest. If he is really so, and could or would be wise, he should send in Havemeyer's name forthwith. I do not believe that our friends north of this can be induced to urge it. By the way, Purdy's movements to get this office are, and his appointments would be, a second edition of Jesse Hoyt's. This is by far the most important thing to be seen to now.

"I suppose if Bancroft is confirmed you will get on finely with the Renshaw business. There will be nothing to call you home in some days.

"Yours truly, "N. J. W.

"_S. J. Tilden, Esq._"

TILDEN TO----

"HUDSON, _March 17, 1845_.

"MY DEAR SIR,--An hour or so before I left Washington I learned of an act of my friend O'Sullivan which gave me some annoyance and which I intended at once to explain to you. I should have done so before except for a rapid current of business which hurried me here.

"You might, fairly enough, perhaps, suppose that O'S.'s act, although not instigated by me, was induced by his knowledge of my views. But such an inference would be unjust to me. I suppose the thing was suggested to him by two circumstances. First, his knowledge that Mr. Croswell had, in December, proposed it to me with some urgency, and, as (after casting about to discover his motive for a proposition which had until then never been presented to my own mind) I concluded to interest myself in behalf of Gov. Marcy for a Cabinet appointment, which I had at the time declined to do. Second, the arrival the night before of a gentleman from New York who said that my name had been discussed--in highly respectable quarters certainly--in reference to the Collectorship. In reply to some remarks of O'S. afterwards, I said that even if that idea had been seriously entertained I should not desire the place both from inadequacy to its physical labor and aversion to its hangman's duty at the present time. In that connection, the other place was spoken of as free from these objections and nearly as advantageous to me personally, and in reference to the political administration, as the Collectorship; but I said, that while the large value and light labor of it would be attractive, I should hesitate to take it, even if it were offered to me, which I certainly did not expect, from reluctance to hold a mere _pecuniary_, professional office, and to surrender or so far postpone my professional pursuits. I did not, I suppose, decide the question, because spoken of casually, as it was, I had no thought that it was, or was ever to become, a case to be decided.

"The moment I learned what O'S. had done, I told him that it was wrong--that you and Mr. V. B. ought, in no case, to make any recommendations until the Collectorship was settled and settled properly, because it might, on some pretence or claim of apportionment between the different sections of the party, embarrass that case. I should have written on my way back to that effect had not Gen. Dix, whom I saw just as I was starting, told me he had done so.

Aside from this, I considered the question a balanced one, which I could not decide in favor of acceptance without some consideration and advice. Under no circumstances which I now contemplate could I present myself as an _applicant_ for a place of this description. I did not know that after what has occurred you and Mr. V. B. would intermeddle at all in such matters."

GOVERNOR WRIGHT TO TILDEN

"ALBANY, _May 1, 1845_.

"MY DEAR SIR,--Your note of the 26. ult. was duly recd. and I will attempt to give you a brief reply to it.

"The pardon of Honoria Shepherd was granted upon the exclusive application of the Inspectors and Keepers of the Prison, upon the ground that she was effectually reformed, and that longer confinement would be injurious, and not beneficial. Miss Bruce, one of the Assistant Matrons of the prison, came up in person to get the pardon, and said her health compelled her to leave the prison, that she was about to go to Illinois to reside, and that she proposed to take Honoria with her, and keep her with her in Illinois.

"I have sent copies of all the papers in this case to Judge Edmonds, who was a leading person in the application, upon whom I principally relied, and he will show them to you, if you wish to look at them. He, too, will advise about any defence of men in this case.

"Thomas Henry was pardoned upon the recommendation of the Board of Inspectors of the prison, upon the ground that he was in a confirmed consumption, was a patient in the Hospital, a constant expense, and must remain so while he lived, and that he had friends who were willing to receive, nurse, and take care of him, if pardoned. This was a voluntary report of the Board of Inspectors, embracing the report of the Surgeon upon 13 permanent invalid Convicts, only two of whom were known to have friends able or willing to take and take care of them, and those the inspectors recommended for pardons, considering it inhumane to ask pardons for the others to turn them out sick and without home, or friends. I. Parsons of your city is the father-in-law of Henry, and takes him to take care of him. Parsons is a Ship joiner and Spar maker, and his daughter, the wife of Henry, who came for the pardon, has a highly respectable appearance.

"The pardon of George Potter was granted upon the application of William F. Godfrey of your City, who gave his address to me as No. 94 Grove Street. He brought a letter of introduction to Judge Edmonds, speaking of him as his neighbor, referring to his business and saying 'I beg to say that you can fully rely upon his representations in the matter.'

"Godfrey presented a petition numerous and respectably signed, representing Potter, though guilty, as the dupe of old offenders, the offence for which he was convicted as his first offence, and him as very penitent and subdued, and earnestly praying his pardon.

"Potter was arrested on fresh pursuit, on the charge of picking a pocket in Broadway, and the report of the testimony showed that he was one of 4 or 5 who must have committed the felony. One witness was very positive that Potter took the pocket book, but another witness testified that he arrested Potter, that he kept his eye upon him from the time he started to run, and that, upon search, no pocket book, or money, was found upon him. Yet that he was principal or accessory, there is no doubt.

"A letter from James M. Smith Jr., Attorney for Potter on his trial, says Potter always avowed that he did not pick the pocket, and expresses the belief that, though guilty, he was the dupe of others.

"A letter from the Keeper of the Prison says 'Potter has conducted _very_ well, since he has been an inmate of this prison, and he appears to show deep contrition for his "_crime_" and degradation; but he is a man of peculiar temperament, which renders it extremely difficult to judge, with any degree of certainty, the true state of his feelings.'

"This is a brief sketch of the paper case presented. Mr. Godfrey assumed to speak of Potter from personal knowledge, and said he came to this country from England, some year and a half ago, a young man, with a wife and two or three children, and with $15,000 in cash; that he fell into the company of some English blacklegs in New York, who induced him to gamble, drink, and carouse with them, until they stripped him of his money, and vitiated his habits, and rendered him desperate from want, when they commenced to initiate him into the art and mysteries of picking pockets; that in his first attempt he was caught and convicted, while the real rogues and the booty escaped; that his friends in England had been kept in ignorance of his course and his fate; that they were wealthy and respectable; that friends in New York had sent his wife and children to them, instructing her not to tell of his condition; and that they were satisfied his disgrace and punishment had prepared him, if pardoned and sent to them, to pursue a different and an honest and respectable course, and they only asked a pardon conditioned that he should leave the country, never to return to it.

"Confiding in these representations of Mr. Godfrey, I granted the pardon with such a condition, and I now suppose Potter sailed for England either on the 15th or 20th of April.

"Since I have seen the strictures in the newspapers upon this case, I have been very fearful that I was imposed upon by Mr. Godfrey, and especially as he has not come forward either to justify, or excuse, my act. I did act principally upon his representations, under Mr. Edmond's endorsement of him, and I should, at the least, have required him to put those statements upon paper, and made them upon his oath. I did neither.

"Now as to the matter of explanation and defense, I have felt in no haste, because I am sensible that I may deserve some castigation for having been too yielding in the first and last of these cases, and I have endeavored to school myself neither to wince, nor to be made sour by fault finding, which I am conscious I deserve, but to try to be improved and made better by it. If I were to make a defence for myself I should make about the substance of these remarks and this Confession a preface to it, and yet it might not be either very graceful, or very wise.

"This matter of pardons is the most troublesome to me of anything I yet find connected with my troublesome office. The applications will, I think, average from 3 to 5 per day, from the day I took the oath of office. My predecessor left an enormous legacy of undecided cases, and several with promises of pardons after specific periods, which are occasionally falling in, and this has greatly increased my labor.

"I do not intend to exercise this fearful power carelessly, or loosely, and yet I feel daily that I am in danger of doing it. I find that Courts, and Judges, and Jurors, and District Attorneys, sign with some of the facility which attends applications for office, and that the officers of the prison are also sometimes under the influence of the amiable weakness, so that there is no standard by which I can govern my action, and it is probably impossible to avoid occasional impositions.

"I thank you most sincerely for your friendly care, manifested by your note, and will now leave these cases with you, and Mr. O'Sullivan, with whom I had a hasty verbal conversation about them yesterday.

"Will you do me the favor to read this hasty letter to my friend Judge Vanderpoel, and say to him that I should have written it to him, if I had not preferred to trouble you with it, that I thank him most earnestly for his letter to Mr. Van Buren, and have intended to write him daily, since I saw that letter, but have not been able to find the time; and that, while I will hold this as the necessary answer from me to the part of it touching pardons, I will soon write him a satisfactory reply to the personal portions of it, for which I also thank him, as he is one of the last men I would have intentionally wounded by a careless, and what was intended to be a jocose remark.

"I am Very Truly Y'rs, "SILAS WRIGHT."

TILDEN TO J. L. O'SULLIVAN

"WASHINGTON, _May 31_ (_Sat._), _2:30 P.M., 1845_.

"MY DEAR O'S.,--At the levee last evening which I attended for the purpose, I made an appointment with the Pres., and am now waiting in the War for the Cabinet to disperse.

"In the afternoon I had seen Ritchie for a few moments, and made an engagement with him. I had a considerable talk with Seth Barton at the levee and with Tom Green at breakfast. All of them introduced the subject of the Collectorship, and all of them especially warned me against imprudence or menace in the interview which they seem to assume I am to have with the Pres.--all tell me he is very sensitive to the idea of compulsion--and that the greatest obstacle we have is the indiscretion of some of us or of those who favor us. They all are exceedingly afraid that they may be thought to be afraid, which shows, I suppose, that they are only calmly conscious of their own courage. But only think of it--such admonitions to _me_! the very incarnation of Falstaffian valor!

"I replied to Ritchie's caution--which was the first I received; and which was given when I was talking with some decision, with great dignity. I _ought_ to have thanked him for its good intention while I intimated that it was superfluous--I told him that I did not come here to forget what was due to Mr. Polk or what was due to myself; I had no design to obtrude upon the President; I had no personal interest in the question about Van Ness or any solicitude except as it should affect the party and the administration; my only doubt was whether I should seek an interview on the subject; I was willing to state facts, make explanations, expose the whole truth, if the President desired to hear it, respectfully but frankly; the administration was mainly interested in coming to a right decision. We had no idea of hostility to it if it was faithful to our principles--the only question was whether it was to assail us. All we asked of it was to let us alone. Our politics were now in excellent condition. We could take care of the Whigs and Conservatives together if the administration would not systematically embarrass us, and I rather thought we could if it did. But we thought we were entitled to an amnesty from our friends at least while we were so busy with our enemies. The old gentleman seemed greatly mystified, but I promised to explain hereafter.

"(_Confidential._)

"_Sund. Morn._

"I was not able to send my letter yesterday, and now add a word. I had an interview with the President yesterday. I ran over the case of Van Ness pretty freely. He replied at considerable length, _ascribing the delay in his removal to the improper manner in which it had been demanded_. He did not _say_, but implied that he had never intended not to remove him; made no defence or argument on the question of its propriety; merely excused the delay. Mr. Butler, he said, had written to him that it would do no harm to retain him until the year expired, if it were immediately announced that a particular man would then be appointed. He complained bitterly of the attempts to intimidate and coerce him--talking magnificently about being himself President and the _locum tenen_ for nobody; said that in his own time, perhaps Monday, perhaps afterwards, Van Ness should be removed, but swore with that terrible oath, "if the heavens and the earth come together," by which Ritchie and Green and Barton had successively warned me he might refuse if a mischance word of mine should chafe his angry mood, that he would not appoint Coddington. He should select a man, he said, who would be received with applause throughout the State; on his own judgment, whom he knew and had served with. Who that man was he did not say and I did not inquire, though I did express myself with some freedom as to what the man should do. Probably the question may now be deemed settled; for you remember he employed the same planetary concussion to illustrate the fixed irrevocable fate by which Marcy was to represent New York in the Cabinet. His solemn form of fiat, I suppose, answers as the "By the Eternal" of the younger Hickory, and, being partly of earth and partly of heaven, is undoubtedly of an improved quality of imaginary thunder. Still it did not shake my nerves, as a lady's displeasure might. I took it quietly, and talked occasionally as I had a chance, not so fully on all points as I wished, or mean, if an opportunity comes unsought; but, although I was conscious of having exposed myself to a part of a very respectable performance for the benefit of the rebellious Butler, Dix, and O'Sullivan, in which, perhaps, I might lose a little when it came to be privately repeated to the Cabinet and confidants, I thought that, nevertheless, I should not be justified in converting farce into tragedy. So I behaved well and was myself well treated. I inquired what was the 'intimidation' and 'coercion' referred to, and I believe was not very definitely answered. The only specification I got was letters from three--not more, he said, than three persons, whose names, he said, he would not tell me--who might never know about it themselves, whom he could not answer without getting into a correspondence inconsistent with his dignity, who might not be aware of the expressions they had incautiously and rashly used. Your letter to Bancroft was distinctly alluded to as, among other offences, alleging 'violated pledges.' I expressed great doubts whether its contents had not been exaggerated, and when he said he had not seen it, and it was not intended for him, advised him to get it and read it. The warmth of these communications I vindicated as true representations of public feeling, expressed in honest freedom; though this part of the subject came up when the interview was forced to a close, and I could not do full justice. Some explanations, which it was not prudent to make in the danger of exoneration, I have since made to his intimates with kindness but clearness and coldness, and shall to him if circumstances solicit. Am not I a lucky fellow? Soothed all day by the fiery Southerns, and then sitting quietly, as in a summer shower, when the storm is beating fiercely on those imprudent young men, Butler, Dix, O'Sullivan--even, while refreshing myself, putting up my umbrella to protect them! I only _talked_ treason.

"He felt deeply the warm letter of his old friend Hoffman--an honest man. He would swear by him, live by him, die by him. I added Mr. H. was a true-hearted man--he was the last man almost from whom I parted; I had a long conversation with him. He fully concurred in the indispensable necessity of removing Van Ness--in the earnest and strong convictions expressed by the others on that subject. The Pr. replied not. I think it was he that told me, and then that there had been letters saying that Hoffman would make his own acceptance conditional on V. N.'s removal. No, it was Cave Johnson afterwards.

"The President expressed great sorrow that he could not see Silas Wright for an hour and have his advice. As to what, I did not certainly understand."

JOHN A. DIX TO TILDEN

"_Private._

EAST HAMPTON, _June 21, 1845_.

"MY DEAR SIR,--I wrote to you some time ago in relation to the N. Y. collectorship. Since then the matter has been disposed of; but in such a way that I naturally feel a curiosity to know, as far as it is proper that I should, the ground taken by the President in declining to appoint Mr. Coddington. I have seen a letter designed as a justification of the Cabinet in the matter; but there is no allusion in it to assurances given to others as well as myself that the appointment would be made in accordance with the wishes of Mr. Wright and his friends.

"My letter, I presume, reached you; but as I have heard nothing from you in relation to your visit to Washington, it has occurred to me that there might have been some mistake about it.

I am, Dr. Sir, Yours truly, "JOHN A. DIX."

TILDEN TO HON. CHARLES P. BROWN

"NEW YORK, _October 13, 1845_.

"HON. CHARLES P. BROWN.

"MY DEAR SIR,--Contrary to my expectations, I find my name among those from which your convention are about to select candidates for the Assembly. I had so uniformly expressed my strong repugnance to any nomination this fall, and the grounds of it, that I did not suppose any misapprehension could exist on the subject; but I am now compelled to ask you to lay this communication before the body over which you preside.

"If the present were an occasion of peculiar or unusual importance, and if I flattered myself that I was capable of rendering essential service on such an occasion--nothing, in my power and consistent with other obligations, would be withheld, or ever will be withheld, from the interest, the honor, or the wishes of the Democratic party. But I am not able to take any view of the time or of myself which does not allow me, in this political calm, to devote myself to professional and private business on which alone I rely for an independent livelihood, and which the more imperatively claims my attention now from the partial withdrawal of it during the great contest of last year. I, therefore, respectfully decline a nomination.

Truly Y'r Friend, "S. J. TILDEN."

As Mr. Wright had yielded very reluctantly, and more to Mr. Tilden's solicitations than probably to those of any other person, to leave the Federal Senate to be the Governor of New York, he had a right to insist upon Mr. Tilden's coming to the legislature, where his services were regarded by Mr. Wright as practically indispensable to him in the discharge of his executive duties. Mr. Tilden therefore did not press his objection to the nomination he had declined.

TILDEN TO----

"NEW YORK, _November 4 (1 P.M.), 1845_.

"MY DEAR SIR,--I thank you for your two letters, tho' I have not before been able to reply to them.