The course I pursued towards them, and from which I have never swerved, but have succeeded in carrying out, is clearly disclosed in these letters. I had no agency in bringing them out. I have not seen them since they were written, and did not know that they were to be published.
Mr. Dickinson and a few of his friends are very decided—not to say bitter—against me, and scarcely less so against all the other candidates except General Cass. They are professedly for him. Mr. D.’s friends—it would be uncharitable to say he himself has any such thoughts—hope to bring about his nomination, and are shaping things so far as they can for such a result. They believe that his and their advocacy of General Cass, and sturdy opposition to all others, will give him nearly all of the General’s friends in the event he has to be abandoned, an event which will not deeply grieve them; and they flatter themselves that the great favor with which Mr. D. is regarded in the South will render it easy to detach from you and transfer to him most of your supporters in that quarter. If you and General Cass are killed off, and he inherits the estate of both, his fortune will certainly be made. I do not comment upon the practicability of this theory. Well, if he is nominated, we must turn in and do what we can for him. Here, where he has been so bitter against the C——rs and against me, because they are willing to give me their support—where he denounces them as not belonging to the Democratic party—we shall have a hard task on our hands, and can hardly hope to give him the vote of the State; it will therefore be the more necessary that you and your friends should secure for him that of Pennsylvania. I know it is not kind to speculate on the chances of another rising upon your downfall, and therefore I will dismiss the subject; nor is it friendly to trouble you with this long letter at a critical conjuncture, when you want your time to cheer and guide your friends at Baltimore.
My epistle would be defective if it did not contain Mrs. M.’s express desire to be kindly remembered to you.
Yours truly,
W. L. Marcy.
[MARCY TO BUCHANAN.]
Albany, June 6, 1852.
My Dear Sir:—
In my most hopeful mood, if it can be truly said I have been in such a state of mind, I did not look to anything but a remote contingent remainder. I cannot, therefore, say that for myself I feel any disappointment at the result of the convention.
None of its proceedings—not even some of the latter ballottings—changed my settled convictions. There was a time when reflecting sober-minded men felt more than I expected they would feel at the prospect of success of Young America. Some of the agents and agencies at work in that direction caused considerable alarm.