"ALBANY, _March 30th, 1851_.
"MY DEAR SIR,--I presume you have observed the canal bill, which
increases the State debt $9,000,000. Will you not devote some time
to-morrow to get letters from the money kings--Messrs. Beekman and
Morgan and Williams--to have the bill defeated?
"An effort is to be made to press the bill through this week, and it is
very important there should be some delay.
"I write you because I know you will feel an interest in defending
those constitutional provisions you contributed so essentially to
form. I have heard that many of the sound financial men of Wall Street
are opposed to this new scheme of debt, and particularly Mr. C. W.
Lawrence, of the Bank of the State of New York. I hope you will devote
one day more to defend the public faith.
"I should not write, but I really feel it a solemn duty to urge every
one I can think of to the defence of the Constitution.
"If you could get up a short remonstrance you would do something worthy
of your past labors; but have it sent up by Tuesday or Wednesday.
"Yours truly,
"D. BURWELL."
By the death of President Taylor, in 1850, the Vice-President, Millard
Fillmore, of New York, became Acting President.
Whether, and if any, to what extent, the free State and the slave State
partisans in New York, on whose political course the next Presidential
election was largely dependent, would be able to act together at
the ensuing Presidential election, had become an absorbing question
throughout the nation in 1851. Gideon Welles had for many years been
prominent among political journalists as editor of the _Hartford
Times_. He had also been a devoted champion of the principles and
policies of Presidents Jackson and Van Buren, and was at this time a
warm partisan of the Free-soil wing of the Democratic party. He later
had the honor to be selected by President Lincoln in 1861 for his
Secretary of the Navy, the department of the military service which
during the Civil War of 1861-5 proved most uniformly victorious and
efficient.