"_Confidential._
"NEW YORK, _April 20, '70_.
"MY DEAR SIR,--My letter, which passed yours in the mails, if I
recollect its contents aright, is, or implies a practical answer to
your last, so far as we can see until we meet in Rochester. I have
trusted to it for a day or two, while I am engrossed with measures not
capable of being deferred, and which seem essential to the convention
and election.
"As to candidates, I have carefully kept myself free; saying
uniformly--in quite a number of cases where communications have been
made to me personally or by letter--that I intended to be perfectly and
absolutely open when opportunity should be had, at the convention and
just before, for consultation with our friends to do what might seem
best. I am not committed to Comstock, unless it be implied that I would
not decide against him until that time, from such expressions made to
him and to others.
"He, undoubtedly, has counted on the nomination as chief judge; has
believed that Allen was for him, and only aimed to be associated with
him.
"While I have kept more cautiously free than Kernan and others, I
wish to treat Comstock with delicacy and kindness. Indeed, as I look
upon my own future, totally void of any conscious desire for the most
honorable of official labors, it seems to me I feel more difficulty in
wounding--any more than I at last must--those who are capable of fixing
strong affections on objects of an elevated ambition.
"I need not say how strong--and stronger than in other cases--is the
personal interest I feel in promoting what shall be finally agreed to
be best in respect to your future career, or how disposed I should be
to give the prevailing weight to your own ideas on that subject.
"While it is not safe to assume the action of a convention, I should
think that besides those who will go for you on public grounds and from
personal regard, there will be an element which would like to remove
you from the field of active politics. I thought, from December to very
recently, this was visible in respect to me, and perhaps there may be
even greater motive in respect to you in that you were more likely to
become a rival to some existing powers.
"Before I had quite finished my note, which lay over from last evening,
yours of yesterday came.
"You perhaps interpret it rather more strongly than I intended. I aimed
only to suggest the topic, and naturally stated the _cons_ rather than
the _pros_.
"I will endeavor to see you, as you suggest, at Albion, before the
convention, unless something happens to make this inadvisable.
"And letter-writing is so insufficient for such topics that I reserve
the discussion till then.
"Meantime, consider what is the method of proceeding in nominating the
_four_. Is that to be done singly, or on one ballot?
"In haste,
"Yours truly,
"S. J. TILDEN."
"_Hon. S. E. Church._
"Make my special regards to Mrs. and Miss Church."