Fifty years in Wall Street

by Henry Clews

General Dix’s Reply.

“Leafield, West Hampton, N. Y.,

August 28, 1872.

“My Dear General:

“I am very thankful to you for your kind letter of congratulation on my nomination for the office of Governor of this State. You are aware, no doubt, that I declined it before the Convention was held. I am deeply sensible of the honor conferred on me, especially by the manner in which it was tendered; but my objections to the acceptance of the nomination are so strong, that I would not think of it a moment, were it not for the deep concern I feel in the result of the election, and the great public interests at stake.

“I expect Mrs. Dix to arrive from Europe on the 2nd or 3rd proximo, and as soon as I am able to confer with her, I shall reply to the letter of the President of the Convention, advising me of my nomination.

“I am, dear General, very respectfully and sincerely yours,

JOHN A. DIX.”

“His Excellency, U. S. Grant.”

It is evident from this correspondence that General Grant’s letter, which I take the credit of having inspired, reinforced by the latent, loving power and good judgment of Mrs. Dix, assisted in the wise decision of the war Democrat to accept the Republican office which was judiciously thrust upon him.

The election of Dix made the second calling and election of Grant sure. The Republican party took General Dix into its fold, and the effect was, as I had anticipated, to bring thousands of others similarly situated, to vote, at the Presidential election, for General Grant.

The Dix nomination was the worst black eye that Mr. Greeley received during that campaign, and the Sage of Chappaqua acknowledged on his death bed that that event, together with the Grant mass meetings at the Cooper Institute, described in another chapter, sealed his political doom.

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CHAPTER XXX.
CONSEQUENCES OF THE UTICA (DIX’S) CONVENTION.

A Chapter of Secret History.—Conkling gets the Credit for Dix’s Nomination and his “Silence Gives Consent” to the Honor.—Robertson Regards him as a Marplot.—The Senator Innocently Condemned.—The Misunderstanding which Defeated Grant for the Third Term, and Elected Garfield.—How the Noble “306” were Discomfited.-“Anything to Beat Grant.”—The Stalwarts and the Half Breeds.-“Me Too.”—The Excitement which Aroused Guiteau’s Murderous Spirit to Kill Garfield.

The political events succeeding the Utica Convention and the nomination of General Dix for Governor contain some inside history of more than ordinary importance.

Had I not sprung General Dix on that Convention at the peculiar moment, as described in the last chapter, Judge Robertson would have carried the day with flying colors. It was a sudden and crushing blow to the prospects of himself and his political friends, and it dissipated some of the brightest hopes and brilliant schemes that had ever originated in the fertile brain of Senator Conkling. As a consequence of the unique turn that affairs took on that day, the Senator was placed in a false position in relation to some of his best friends. Several of the latter were put in an attitude whereby they misinterpreted the actions of Senator Conkling at that Convention, and unjustly accused him of betraying friends that he had promised to support. This was the result of a misconception on their part, that the Senator was the prime mover of the coup d’etat that surprised the Convention in the nomination of General Dix.

The credit was awarded to Conkling, without any hesitation or inquiry, and he was either too proud, or too indifferent to public opinion to explain. If he had explained his position candidly the chances are that his explanation would have been taken in a Pickwickian or political sense. In fact, he was in a position where he could hardly escape the responsibility of Dix’s nomination, and everybody was ready to believe that the movement in favor of Dix was too good a thing to be engineered by a man of less calibre.

It would have been useless, therefore, for anybody else to explain, as the person attempting to do so would only have been laughed to scorn.

Judge Robertson, himself the greatest sufferer by the curious turn affairs had taken, was the first to believe that the nomination of Dix was one of Conkling’s masterstrokes of political policy. He never thought of looking to any other source for its emanation. He believed in his soul it was the work of Conkling, and he thinks so to this day.

I happened to have been better informed, however; but my explanation would have hardly passed muster at that time, and I would have been charged with egotism if I had attempted to explain. I think an explanation is now in order, however, and may point a moral as well as help to adorn a tale.

History is said to be philosophy teaching by example, and one great historian has said that no one event in itself is any more important than another, except from what it teaches posterity by its example. So, for the benefit of posterity, I now state the facts on this historical principle.

I am willing to make affidavit on the revised edition of the good book that prior to the Utica Convention the name of General Dix was not even lisped by Senator Conkling within my hearing, nor was Dix ever thought of even remotely by the Senator as a possible candidate.

I am almost certain that the Senator had taken no action that could possibly conflict with the interests of Judge Robertson prior to the mention of the name of Dix at the Convention. In fact, with the exceptions previously stated, I am quite certain that the name of Dix was a genuine surprise to the entire Convention, managers and all.

Judge Robertson thought differently, however. He believed that Conkling was the cause of his defeat, and to this misapprehension is due the enmity that sprang up between these two men, and worked with various results to the defeat of the political aims of both ever since.

As I was Senator Conkling’s guest, this seemed to create a conviction in the mind of Judge Robertson, without any inquiry into the matter, that I had acted at the instigation of Conkling in bringing Dix to the front; whereas the conception of Dix as the best candidate originated solely with myself, nor did I ever suggest the idea to Conkling until I addressed the Convention, in favor of General Dix.

Believing as he did, that the Senator had played the marplot to such perfection at Utica, Robertson was naturally on the watch for the first opportunity that would enable him to get even with the friend whom he suspected of having so basely betrayed him, and with having blocked his way to political preferment.

This opportunity came at the Chicago Convention, when the Utica statesman was managing matters very successfully to nominate General Grant for a third term.

It is curious that the very circumstance which was most conducive to Grant’s success for the second term was the remote cause of his defeat for the third. Senator Conkling had no idea of the deep-seated enmity that lodged in the breast of Robertson. He had done nothing, knowingly, to merit it, and had been calculating on the co-operation of Robertson, as usual. He was not aware of the smouldering fire of vengeance that lay latent in the bosom of his friend. He supposed that Robertson and his co-mates in politics were with him as in days of yore in the support of General Grant. He imagined that he had gone to Chicago with a full hand, but instead of that he was short of some of his best cards, and his enemies had them stocked in a way that finally brought him to grief.

Conkling only discovered his dilemma after the Convention met, when he found to his dismay that Robertson had bolted the Grant ticket.

Robertson had first made an alliance with the Blaine party, but finding an insufficiency of power among that party to carry his point against the solid phalanx of the Grant movement, he joined forces with John Sherman’s supporters, who were under the management of James A. Garfield.

The able strategist from Utica, at the head of his 306 chosen followers, so disconcerted the Sherman contingent that it also failed to carry the necessary number of guns.

As day after day passed without any change, it seemed as if the Conkling forces had adopted the motto of Napoleon’s old guard, “The Guard dies, but does not surrender.”

At length Robertson and his lieutenants collected the shattered ranks of Blaine and Sherman, and with Garfield at their head, like Ney attacking the English centre at Waterloo, hurled them with desperation on the solid square of Conkling, which still remained unbroken.

The united forces, however, with the war cry, “Anything to beat Grant!” carried the day, Garfield was nominated and Conkling retired in good order, but greatly discomfited.

Robertson had taken up this cry at the Convention in the same spirit that was displayed by another man about whom a good story was told during that campaign. He had got that shibboleth on the brain, “Anything to beat Grant!” As the story goes, a prediction had been made by some religious enthusiast that the world was coming to an end early in November of that year. A preacher was reminding his congregation, one Sunday, of the prediction, and the possibility of its fulfilment—at least that it was well to be prepared for such an event. At the conclusion of his exhortation, a man in the congregation arose to his feet, and in a solemnly pathetic voice said, “Thank God.” At the end of the service the minister’s curiosity was excited to converse with the man who had so fervently thanked heaven for what most people regarded as a universal calamity. He saw the man, and asked why he had made such a remarkable ejaculation at the prospect of such a terrible consummation. “Anything to beat Grant,” was the reckless and self-sacrificing response.

It was in this spirit that the Robertson party made the fight at Chicago, and in this spirit that they triumphed. It was anything to beat Senator Conkling, however, so far as Judge Robertson was concerned, who on other grounds would probably have preferred Grant. Thus he avenged upon the wrong man his defeat at the Utica Convention, and I was permitted to escape scathless, though innocently responsible for blasting his Gubernatorial aspirations.

This was not the end of Judge Robertson’s enmity to Senator Conkling, however. When the new Government came into power, Garfield, in making up his cabinet, selected Blaine as a member of that special body. This created a bad feeling between Blaine and Conkling, as it seemed to the latter like a continuation of the conspiracy between Robertson and Blaine, hatched at the Chicago Convention. Thus the seeds of a strong and bitter antagonism were sown between these two leading spirits in the Republican party, each aspiring to be at least the power behind the throne.

After Garfield’s inauguration Blaine was made Secretary of State. Great credit for the Presidential success was not only due to Mr. Blaine, but in a large degree to Judge Robertson also, as without his assistance Garfield could not have been nominated. So it was necessary to take care of Judge Robertson too. This was done by making him Collector of the Port of New York. These appointments were severe political blows, which, in the nature of circumstances, fell with full force upon the devoted head of Senator Conkling.

These events led to the sudden resignation of Senator Conkling and Senator Platt, “Me Too,” and a very serious division in the ranks of the party, under the respective names and banners of the Stalwarts and the Half-Breeds.

The excitement growing out of the political battle between these factions aroused the intemperate zeal and insane delusions of Guiteau to kill the President. Thus the thread of cause and effect, when followed up in this way, is entangled in the deepest mystery.

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CHAPTER XXXI.
GRANT’S SECOND TERM.

The Best Man for the Position and Most Deserving of the Honor.—How the “Boom” was Worked Up in Favor of Grant.—The Great Financiers and Speculators all Come to the Front in the Interest of the Nation’s Prosperity and of the Man who had Saved the Country.—The Great Mass Meeting at Cooper Union.—Why A. T. Stewart Refused to Preside.—The Results of the Mass Meeting and how they were Appreciated by the Friends of the Candidate, Leading Representatives of the Business Community and the Public Press Generally, Irrespective of Party.

I wish to relate briefly the part which I took in the re-election of General Grant, whose defeat, when he was spoken of as a candidate for the second term, was foreshadowed among a large number of politicians of every stripe. There were serious divisions in the ranks of his former friends and adherents, and an organized effort was made to destroy his prospects a long time in advance of the meeting of the Philadelphia Convention.

All the political machinery of his enemies, and of disappointed office seekers and their friends, was put in force, and all the tactics and prejudices employed that were put into operation with greater success four years later.

I felt assured that the nomination of any other man might result in the defeat of the party, and that it was absolutely necessary to its strength, maintenance and autonomy that General Grant should again be our choice. He had been tried for one term and found to be a very satisfactory executive. There was no important risk involved in trying him for a second term while the experiment with another man in the then sensitive, unsettled and tentative condition of reconstruction, might have been injurious to the best political and industrial interests of the country; and the experiment would have been especially risky if the nominee should have been a Democrat.

The people of the South were not then in a proper frame of mind to be trusted with any power implying the mere possibility of obtaining a controlling influence in the affairs of the Government. I perceived it was important that the Republicans should make a nomination that had a fair prospect of being successful, and I felt satisfied that the result would be extremely doubtful if we should nominate any other man.

Besides, no other man was more deserving of the national compliment, considering that he had done so much to terminate the struggle for national existence, and had been the chief force in suppressing the Rebellion. His genius and courage had been chiefly instrumental in preserving to the country the blessing of a Republican form of Government. For this boon no people could ever be too profuse in the manifestations of their gratitude.

This was the patriotic feeling deep in the hearts of the people at large, but there was a secret movement engineered by “sore-head” politicians, behind whom were even more dangerous enemies, to thwart patriotic purposes. Some of these conspirators had been brooding over latent schemes of anarchy for a long period, and had been attempting to put them in organic shape before half the first term of General Grant had expired. They were hard at work training public opinion, by every means in their power, to prevent Grant’s renomination.

This hostile element was sedulously hatching scandals and ventilating them in subsidized newspapers, and through various other disreputable channels.

This opposition increased in violence and intensity, and as the time approached when the country was to choose its next President, the renomination of General Grant became a matter of serious doubt, even to some of his most enthusiastic supporters. It had become a foregone conclusion that the Democrats would draw largely from the Republican ranks, and the anxiety on this point was intensified by the hostility of the Tribune, and the prospect of Horace Greeley’s candidacy. It was absolutely necessary, therefore, that an energetic effort should be made, and the requisite steps taken to ensure General Grant’s success at the Convention.

I entered into this feeling with a great deal of personal enthusiasm. What was my motive? some one reading this may ask.

Because I believed the sacredness of contracts, the stability of wealth, the success of business enterprise, and the prosperity of the whole country depended on the election of Grant for President.

If the reader wants to get at the selfish motive, as all readers do, I shall be perfectly candid with him in that respect also. Of course I knew that Wall Street business would boom in the wake of this general prosperity. That was the selfish motive, from which no man is free. Of course, I expected to share in Wall Street’s consequent prosperity.

I did not want office, as several of the highest were offered me which I respectfully declined; and no office in the gift of the people would have compensated me financially; and moreover, my highest ambition has been satisfied in my own line of business.

I went to work then in the interest of Grant for the second term. I employed numerous canvassers at my own expense, to find out the minds of the representative business men on the subject, and to talk the matter up with those interested in Republican success. These men reported to me daily, and in a short time I had sounded the minds of that part of the business community who had the greatest stake in the country, and whose influence is always most felt when any important achievement is to be compassed. I sent out a petition, and obtained the names of a splendid array of merchants and business men of all shades of opinion and politics in favor of Grant. Following is the heading of the petition:

“A Public Meeting.

“To the merchants, bankers, manufacturers and other business men in favor of the re-election of General Grant:

“The undersigned, desiring publicly to express their earnest confidence in the sagacity, fidelity, energy and unfaltering patriotism, so signally displayed by Ulysses S. Grant in securing the restoration of peace at home, upholding national rights abroad, and in maintaining throughout the world the honor of the American name, do hereby invite their fellow citizens to assemble in mass meeting at the Cooper Institute, on Wednesday evening, the 17th of April, 1872.”

This call was chiefly the result of the personal canvass which I had instituted a few weeks previously. I selected the names of the persons to be called on from day to day, and kept these men working the matter up, until I had secured almost all the reputable business firms in the city of New York. The following, whose original signatures I have still in my possession, were prominent in the list:

WILLIAM E. DODGE,

JOHN C. GREEN,

HENRY F. VAIL,

GEORGE T. ADEE,

REV. SAMUEL OSGOOD,

WILLIAM H. FOGG,

BENJAMIN B. SHERMAN,

ROBERT L. STEWART,

WILLIAM HENRY ANTHON,

E. D. MORGAN,

JAMES BUELL,

H. B. CLAFLIN,

W. R. VERMILYE,

WM. M. VERMILYE,

CHARLES L. FROST,

NATHANIEL HAYDEN,

JESSE HOYT,

WILLIAM BARTON PEAKE,

EMIL SAUER,

JACOB OTTO,

JOSEPH STUART,

J. STUART,

THOS. GARNER ANTHONY,

FREDERICK S. WINSTON,

MORRIS FRANKLIN,

WM. C. BRYANT,

R. H. McCURDY,

JOSEPH SELIGMAN,

THEODORE ROOSEVELT,

WILLIAM ORTON,

CHARLES P. KIRKLAND,

PETER COOPER,

HUGH J. HASTINGS,

SAMUEL B. RUGGLES,

CORTLANDT PALMER,

JONATHAN EDWARDS,

CHARLES KNEELAND,

S. R. COMSTOCK,

PITT COOK,

THOMAS J. OWEN,

OTIS D. SWAN,

GEORGE OPDYKE,

HARPER & BROS.,

JOHN C. HAMILTON,

GEO. W. T. LORD,

SAMUEL T. SKIDMORE,

JONATHAN STURGES,

WM. H. VANDERBILT,

SHEPARD KNAPP,

WM. H. ASPINWALL,

J. S. ROCKWELL.

It is sad to reflect that these are all now numbered with the mighty dead.

These names will serve to show the great number of prominent people gradually departing from us every few years.

The name of the number of those yet alive who signed that petition is legion. In fact those who did not sign it were those whose names were not worth having. To put it mildly, I secured through their own signatures, by this method, all whose names were desirable. Our forces having been mustered in this way, the next thing was to disconcert the enemy, and inspire our own party by showing our available strength, and the power and enthusiasm behind the movement. This we proceeded to do by calling a mass meeting at the Cooper Institute for April 17, 1872.

The meeting was an immense success, in numbers, brains and respectability. The hall was crowded and the outside meeting was several times larger.

Mr. A. T. Stewart had been invited to preside. He had been a warm friend of General Grant, but had then become lukewarm and indifferent, owing to the fact that he had failed to obtain a Custom House promotion for one of his wife’s near relations. I had endeavored for several days to soften Stewart’s heart and get him to consent to be chairman of the meeting, but he was incorrigible. Finally, I succeeded in extorting a promise from him that if he did not vote for General Grant he would not vote against him, but beyond this it was impossible to mollify him. He was a paragon of obduracy when he had once resolved upon any course. Even the recollection that he, though an alien born, had been offered the second highest position of trust in the nation, Secretary of the Treasury, which he could not accept on account of being in business, failed to draw out his feelings of gratitude sufficiently to forget the fancied slight of refusing his wife’s relative promotion.

Failing to secure Mr. Stewart, I invited Mr. William E. Dodge to preside. He graciously accepted the invitation and made a very good chairman indeed.

The array of Vice-Presidents was said to excel anything that had ever appeared in a similar list of the proceedings of any meeting in this city.

I had invited Fred. Douglas and P. B. S. Pinchback, the eminent colored orators, to the meeting, but they could not attend, as they were at a New Orleans convention of their own people. Mr. Rainey, a colored gentleman, spoke most eloquently and with telling effect. This was the first time since the war that a colored orator had addressed a meeting of whites on politics in New York, or probably in the North. Prior to this the colored vote for Grant had been in doubt, as Horace Greeley, whose name was a word to conjure with among these people, had recently been swinging around the circle down South, with a view of capturing alike the vote of the colored people, who loved him, and that of the Democrats, who hated him. By a curious fatality he failed to capture either. As Blaine has truly said of him: “No other candidate could have presented such an antithesis of strength and weakness.”

There had been no meeting for a long time previous to this that had been the cause of such an enthusiastic awakening in the party and among politicians generally over the whole country, as this great demonstration of the people at the Cooper Union. It crushed the aspirations of the so-called Independents and smothered the lingering hopes of the Democratic party.

In order to show the influence of this mass meeting upon the destiny of political parties in the Presidential election of 1872, it will be necessary to take a retrospect of the impression it made on parties most deeply interested in the result, and to make known their private opinions on the subject. Inside history of this nature is always instructive, and time has clothed with the attribute of public property, what at one time was a very precious political secret.

Among the striking incidents of the night of that meeting I distinctly recollect one that was truly prophetic, in regard to Senator Henry Wilson, of Massachusetts. A number of the speakers and other prominent men took supper with me at the Union League Club after the meeting, and in proposing the health of Senator Wilson, who had spoken so eloquently, I nominated him for the Vice-Presidency, and sure enough he was afterwards elected to that position.

I shall take the liberty in this place of introducing to the reader a few letters hitherto unpublished, which throw considerable light on the value of the political work done by myself and friends at that time, and how it was appreciated by those most deeply interested in its outcome.

The following from the White House shows how anxiously the current of events was being watched from that great centre:

“Executive Mansion, }

Washington, D. C., April 17, 1872 }

My Dear Clews:

I have received your several interesting letters in regard to the great meeting in New York, and have shown them to the President, who read them with deep interest. I have not written any suggestions, because I know you, being on the ground, could judge so much better of the situation, and the temper of the New York people. You have done a great work, and this evening’s success will, I have no doubt, be the reward of your efforts. We shall look anxiously for the reports. What you say is curious about the use of Dix’s name and others. Our people are at work in Congress getting up telegrams signed by the Republican members of all the State delegations endorsing the administration of General Grant. I wish we had thought of these sooner, but still we can get them all in time, I hope. I have just come from the House, where I was looking after this matter. Wishing you every success,

I remain yours very sincerely,

HORACE PORTER,

(Sec’y to President Grant.)

After the meeting the President’s Secretary writes as follows:

Executive Mansion, }

Washington, D. C., }

April 19, 1872. }

My Dear Clews:

I have only a moment before the mail closes to say how earnestly all congratulate you upon the great success of the meeting.

It was glorious and genuine. We read the proceedings in full in the Times last night. It has created a marked effect in Congress and elsewhere. Nearly every Republican in the House would have signed the congratulatory telegrams, but the movement was started so late in the day that the paper was not presented to any one.

Yours very truly,

HORACE PORTER.

The following, from the Hon. Roscoe Conkling, is a very flattering reminiscence, which I highly appreciate:

United States Senate Chamber, }

Washington, April 19, 1872. }

My Dear Sir:

As a New Yorker and a Republican, I want to thank you for the great service you have rendered our country and our cause in conceiving and carrying forward the great meeting of night before last.

The effect of it will be wholesome and widefelt; it was most timely, and its whole management was a success. Our friends all, I think, know and appreciate the large debt due you in the premises.

Noting your suggestions as to the future, I lay them to heart.

Yours sincerely,

ROSCOE CONKLING.

Henry Clews, Esq.

The New York Herald’s special from Washington next day after the meeting said:

“The President, in conversation with Senators who called upon him this morning, expressed himself as much pleased with the demonstration in New York last night, which he regards only as evidence of the popularity of the Republican party. He has been assured, from reliable sources, that the leading Democratic merchants and bankers in different parts of the country are anxious that the Republican party may completely triumph at the coming Presidential election, as the surest way of maintaining our credit, and resisting anything like a financial crisis, which they regard as certain if their own party should succeed.”

Following are the address and resolutions expressed through the representatives of a grateful people in favor of the hero who had saved the country:

Grant Meeting at Cooper Institute, March 17, 1872.—Address and Resolutions.

ADDRESS.

Hon. E. Delafield Smith, on behalf of the Committee of Arrangements, read the following address, remarking that it was prepared by one of the most eminent and substantial of our business men:

The administration of public affairs under the government of President Grant has been eminently wise, conservative and patriotic; our foreign relations have been conducted with a scrupulous respect for the rights of other nations, a jealous regard for the honor of our own; the noble aspiration with which General Grant emphasized his acceptance of his great office, “Let us have peace,” has been happily realized; the Union has been completely re-established on such principles of justice and equity as to insure its perpetuity; the Constitution, with all its amendments, has been adhered to with rigid fidelity; domestic tranquility has been restored; a spirit of humanity has been infused into our Indian policy; the revenues of the country have been faithfully collected and honestly disbursed, so that, while the burdens of taxation have been materially lightened, the public debt has been largely reduced, and the national credit appreciably strengthened; all branches of industry have been stimulated to healthy activity; and throughout the length and breadth of the land security, prosperity and happiness reward the perils and sacrifices by which the rebellion was suppressed and the Union preserved.

It is an act of poetic justice that the soldier whose victories in war, and the statesman whose triumphs of peace have made the last decade the most glorious in the annals of American history, should receive an earnest of the gratitude of his countrymen by his re-election to the Presidency.

It is an auspicious circumstance that the people are evidently awakening to a higher sense of the duties and responsibilities of public officials. There is a general disposition to hold men entrusted with place and power to a strict accountability for their acts, and to demand that honesty and capability shall be the inflexible conditions of appointment to office. The recommendations of the president in favor of the principles enunciated in the report of the Civil Service Commission, were timely and apposite, and deserve universal endorsement.

Numerous investigations have been set on foot during the present session of Congress, having for their object the discovery of corruption in the public service. Disaffected Republicans and partisan Democrats have made common cause in the endeavor to elicit evidence tending to show acts of wrong doing, and to implicate the President in knowledge or toleration of such acts. As in the days of Daniel, “they sought to find occasion against him.” But, like the enemies of Daniel, “they could find none occasion nor fault, forasmuch as he was faithful, neither was there any error or fault found with him.”

The more incisive the scrutiny, the more palpable the demonstration of his purity. The cost of pursuing these investigations has exceeded the aggregate loss incurred by the Government through the dishonesty of its subordinates since the administration came into power.

A record so clear and honorable challenges the admiration, and compels the approval of citizens whose only aim is to secure a stable and beneficent Government—to preserve inviolate the faith of the nation—to give security to capital, adequate reward to labor, and equal rights to all.

With the grievances of disappointed office seekers, the masses who thrive by their own toil, cannot be expected to find time or patience to sympathize. Whether this Senator has had more or that Senator less than his share of patronage, are insignificant questions compared with the grave issues involved in a Presidential canvass. It is the constitutional prerogative of the President to make appointments to office. That he has not exercised these functions unwisely, the success of his administration abundantly proves.

Believing that General Grant’s civic career fitly supplements his military greatness, that he has brought to the discharge of his duties to the State the same energy, foresight and judgment which marked his achievements in the field, and made his campaigns from Donelson to Appomatox for ever illustrious; and that he possesses and deserves the confidence of the American people, we pledge to him our united and hearty support as a candidate for re-election.