My Dear Sir:-
Your much-esteemed favor of date July 28th last, has been too long neglected by me. It reached me in due course of mail and I intended replying to it immediately, but checkered health and a crowd of company interposed and prevented me that pleasure until now.
For your kind wishes, I tender you my sincere thanks—as to my fame, I rest it with my fellow-citizens—in their hands it is safe—posterity will do me justice.
The vile slanders that are heaped upon me by the calumniators of the day pass unheeded by me, and I trust will fall harmless at my feet.
What pleasure it affords to learn from you that the Keystone State of the Union are firmly united in the great Republican cause which now agitates the whole Union. This will give impulse throughout the Union to the Democratic cause, and the conflict now raging between the aristocracy of the few, aided by the banks and the paper-money credit system, against the democracy of numbers, will give a glorious triumph to Republican principles throughout our Union, and good old Republican Pennsylvania will be again hailed, as she deserves, the Keystone to our Republican arch and preserver of our glorious Union. I feel proud of her attitude, and my fervent prayers are that nothing may again occur to separate the Republican ranks, so as to give to the opposition or shinplaster party the ascendency. I feel to that State a debt of gratitude which I will cherish to my grave, and I shall ever delight in her prosperity.
I have no fears of the firmness of Mr. Van Buren; his message you will find, or my disappointment will be great, will meet the views and wishes of the great Democratic family of Pennsylvania; at present a temporizing policy would destroy him; I never knew it fail in destroying all who have adopted it. My motto is, to take principle for my guide to the public good. I have full confidence that Mr. Van Buren will adopt the same rule for his guide and all will be safe.
I have always opposed a union between Church and State. From the late combined treachery of the banks, in suspending specie payments in open violation of their charters and every honest and moral principle, and for the corrupt objects they must, from their acts, have had in view, I now think a union between banks and the Government is as dangerous as a union with the Church, and what condition would we now be in if engaged in a war with England? I trust Congress will keep this in view, and never permit the revenue of our country to be deposited with any but their own agents; it is collected by the agents of the Government, and why can it not be as safely kept and disbursed by her own agents under proper rules and restrictions by law? I can see none, nor can it add one grain of power to the executive branch more than it possesses at present; the agent can have as secure a deposit as any bank, and always at command by the Government to meet the appropriations by law; the revenue reduced to the wants of the Government never can be hoarded up, for as it comes in to-day, it will be disbursed to-morrow; and if all cash, no credits, will be more in favor of our home industry than all tariffs. This I hope will be recommended by the President and adopted by Congress, and then I will hail our Republic safe, and our Republican institutions permanent.
You will please pardon these hasty and crude hints. My family join me in kind salutations, and believe me your friend,
Andrew Jackson.
P. S.—Please let me occasionally hear from you. A. J.