TILDEN TO——
"New York, Dec. 28, '55.
"My dear Sir,—Your letter in answer to mine in respect to your debt to the Bk. N. A., on which I am endorser, came to hand. It was not what I supposed from your previous assurances I had a right to expect, nor what seems to me just. Whether it be even wise for yourself, I will not undertake to judge.
"An endorsement made for a man's accommodation is called confidential, because it is supposed to impart a very high and sacred obligation to protect the friend who incurs such a liability in your behalf and for your benefit. It was a departure from my usual habit and settled rule, wrung from me by the importunity of friendship. With a good deal of trouble to me, it has been deferred from time to time at your instance, and in the last case with a strong assurance on your part.
"You must pardon me if I say that I am not advised of any circumstance that can excuse the failure of so high an obligation. I have no reason to believe that an absolute inability exists.
"You allude, in this connection, to other liabilities hanging over you; by which, I suppose, you mean the claim on the drafts held by the Stark Bank. I should think that if anything could add to the obligation to protect me from a liability on your confidential paper, it would be that I have been engaged, and am still, with infinite care, labor and trouble, in trying to rescue you from that unjust claim—that the intricacies of the case, the complexity of the transactions out of which the claim grows, the witnesses being out of the State—" [The rest wanting.]
M. VAN BUREN TO MOSES TILDEN[24]
"Lindenwald, Septr. 1st, '56.
"My dear Sir,—I am happy to find that the 'sober second thought' has brought you to the right conclusion, as I was quite sure it must do. I may add, too, that I honor the scruples by which you have been embarrassed. It requires no small share of moral courage for men of our antecedents to keep the posts of right and duty against the influence of such resentments as we have been exposed to. But it would have been a crying shame to have had a single link broken in a family so pre-eminently Democratic as yours has been—from Dr. and Mrs. Younglove to Sammy.
"We are not only right, but the crisis is, in my judgment, the most imminent and critical of any we have ever experienced. That union should so long have been preserved in a confederacy which contains an element of discord of such magnitude and of so disturbing a nature as that of slavery, is a wonder—more surprising than its dissolution would be. This has been owing to the fact, I firmly believe, the single fact that there have always been neutralizing considerations of sufficient force to maintain party cohesions between men of the free and slave States. Slavery questions have from the beginning had more or less to do with our political contests, but have never before had the effect of dissolving old party connections and sympathies, and the balance-wheel has thus been preserved. Now, for the first time in our history, one side, and that the one in which we reside, has undertaken to carry an election, including the control of the Federal government, and against the united wishes of the other. It has placed itself in a position which, for the first time cuts itself loose from all hope, if not desire, of assistance in the slave States. It not only admits that this is its position, but avows that it is a desirable one. It wishes to accomplish its mastery by its own unaided arm. Now, it needs no ghost to tell us that one successful effort of this description will be followed by another, for men have too much the quality of wild beasts in them to stop the pursuit when they have once tasted blood, and it would be against reason and experience to expect a Union, in which political mastery is so plainly exhibited and organized, to continue. From this evil we have been saved by the state of parties which hitherto existed, and to this danger are we exposed from the new and extraordinary thing which has taken the place of it.
"Slavery agitation must be eradicated in some way or another, or our institutions cannot continue in their present form. I was so indignant against the repeal of the Missouri Compromise that I could not do justice to the Kansas Organic Act, as that was the instrument by which the outrage was perpetrated. But I am now satisfied that if Mr. Pierce had from the beginning taken the stand he now seems to be taking, and interfered against all foreign interference the moment he saw the disposition to interfere, of which he had at least notice in the movements of the Missourians, the country would have been saved from the disgrace to which our institutions have been exposed in the estimation of the world, Kansas would have been a Territory so decidedly free as to put an end to attempts to make it a slave State, the country would have been quiet, the party united, and he renominated. All that is now wanted to secure many of the most important of these results is a rigid and effectual execution of the Kansas Organic Act. Although I am not a particular admirer of Mr. Buchanan, I have reasons that satisfy my mind that he will, if elected, secure to the country this great advantage, and therefore, and because he is the regular nominee of the party, I should vote for him. If I did not think so I would not go to the polls. I do have a very favorable opinion of Col. Fremont personally, but cannot for a moment doubt, from his utter want of experience in the affairs of government, and his inexperience in everything that belongs to it, that he would, if elected, inevitably be thrown into the hands of Seward, Greeley, and Weed, and I do not think the difficulties in Kansas could be brought to anything like a satisfactory result through such agencies. I, on the contrary, think there is the greatest reason to fear that to commit the power of the government into such hands, at a moment so critical as the present, would be but 'the beginning of the end' in regard to the confederacy. There are, I trust, few Democrats who would like to subject to their control and to the plundering propensities of their followers, the treasury, much less the government itself. Our friends who think they can go with the so-called Republicans this once and then return, make a dangerous experiment. Their party has always been a bourne from whence very few Democratic travellers have ever returned. The reasons for this are numerous and too obvious to make it necessary to detail them. They have, therefore, but one of two courses to pursue—that is to trust to the Democratic nominee and the conservative characters of the Democratic party, or to fly to evils they know not of, save only that except upon a single point, out of a great many, they cannot even hope for favorable results.
"But I must stop. This is the first private letter I have written about the election, and it will probably be the last, and nothing but my very great respect for yourself and your race, and my desire to preserve their Democratic consistency, could have induced me to write this. If it gets into the newspapers I would leave no stone unturned to have you punished.
"Upon the subject of your last inquiry, I do not possess definite knowledge. I believe no final resolution has yet been come to. But I can tell you nothing encouraging. If ancient Federalism gain its long-lost ascendancy in that quarter, as it is so apt to do one time or another, I should give up judging of character.
"Remember me very kindly to your mother, sister and brother, and believe me,
"Very truly,
"Your friend,
"M. Van Buren."
"Moses Tilden, Esq."