"WASHINGTON, _May 10, 1844_.
"_Private._
"MY DEAR SIR,--Your letter came safely, but you will have conjectured,
from the public appearance of things here, that some of us have been
rather busy for some days past. I have but a single moment now to say
that if you shall have occasion to send papers here for distribution,
Mr. Stevenson will do the labor, so far as you shall direct addresses,
and we will see that others are obtained here, but we cannot send you
franks.
"I have only completed the speech to-day, and it certainly is not
better for having been written out amidst the unexampled excitement of
the last two weeks. A part of it will appear to-morrow, and the residue
on Monday evening, and I will take a pamphlet copy, when I get one, and
mark it off as you suggest, by proper heads to the divisions.
"Please inform me, as soon as you receive this, if Mr. Butler has
returned. I want to communicate to him on the subject of the convention
as soon as he reaches, if he is not yet home.
"A letter from Cambreling received to-day tells me that he is off for
Carolina only to return to the Convention. He ought to be at hand to
meet the delegates in New York when they should have a meeting.
"In very great haste,
"I am, truly yours,
"SILAS WRIGHT."
"_Saml. J. Tilden, Esq._"
The triumph of the Native American party and the election of Mr. Harper
for Mayor led to a general and prompt change of all movable officers of
the municipal administration. Mr. Tilden tried to anticipate the party
proscription, but by some mistake, the nature of which is illegible
in the following letter, he had to undergo the proscription of the
victors, which, however, neither politically nor financially involved
any personal sacrifice.
SAMUEL J. TILDEN TO R. L. SHIEFFELEN, ESQ., PRESIDENT OF THE COMMON
COUNCIL
"NEW YORK, _May 25, 1844_.
"_To the Honorable the Common Council of the City of New York:_
"I have expected at each of your meetings to be removed, but have been
disappointed. In case my successor as Attorney to the Corporation
shall not be selected this evening, I respectfully present to you my
resignation, to take effect on the day after your next joint meeting,
until which time the public interests entrusted to my care shall not be
embarrassed.
"I am, respectfully, your, &c.,
"SAMUEL J. TILDEN."
Comparatively recent note in pencil in Mr. Tilden's handwriting:
"In the haste of preparing to leave the city for the Baltimore
Convention this wish was omitted, and while I was there I was
removed."
Senator Wright yielded very reluctantly to the irresistible pressure
of both divisions of his party that he should accept the nomination
tendered him for Governor at the fall election of 1844. It was apparent
to the friends of Mr. Polk that he could not carry the State of New
York without the support of the friends of Mr. Van Buren and Wright,
and no less of a sacrifice than the transfer of Mr. Wright from the
Senate to the Governorship could make the State reasonably secure for
the Presidential ticket. How reluctantly Mr. Wright yielded to this
pressure is not to be measured solely by his far-sighted doubt of its
policy and of the advantages of a victory for the Slavery-Extension
party at that time. He had other reasons of a domestic nature presented
some three years before in a most pathetic and touching letter
addressed to Mr. Tilden's father.[5]
The logic of the situation presented by Mr. Wright's nomination for
Governor in 1844 required that he should by his election save the
Presidential ticket and then "succeed President Polk in 1848 or retire
from public life," and Mr. Marcy to defeat Mr. Wright's re-election
as Governor, or himself retire from public life. It was practically
to engage in such a duel that Mr. Wright went to Albany and took the
oath of office on the 1st of January, 1845. He had in his favor a great
parliamentary reputation, and a character for wisdom, probity, and
political sagacity, enjoyed in a superior degree by no other American
statesman of his generation.
On the other hand, he had to contend with an administration in whose
eyes all these virtues, when enlisted against slavery, were regarded
only as so many additional reasons for crushing their possessor. He
had also to contend with a very considerable number who still called
themselves Democrats, but who had deserted the party from mistrust of
the success of its financial policy, and who were impatient to recover
some sort of party standing.
Mr. Tilden engaged in this canvass for President Polk with more zeal
than in any other except, perhaps, the last, in which he was himself a
candidate, and in both instances was betrayed by his party.
Not the least efficient of his services in this campaign was the
establishment of the _Daily News_ in connection with John L. O'Sullivan.