"My dear Sir,—Your letters by Mr. Cutting, Dean Richmond's friend, were duly recd., and I did what I could for him during his brief stay in Paris.
"Though withdrawn from politics, I have not lost my interest in things at home, and therefore I write a few lines confidentially.
"I notice a disposition in some quarters—how extensive it is I have no means of knowing—to confine the approaching contest to a single issue—constitutional or unconstitutional government. It would be a fatal error. The contest will be severe; and, if the conservative men of the country are faultless in their tactics, it will nevertheless be close. They cannot afford to dispense with the strength they would derive from opposition to practical abuses, which are apart from constitutional questions—the financial and commercial mismanagement, and the reckless expenditure by Congress. To ignore these issues would be to dishearten all the friends of honest reform in the administration of the government and make them passive spectators of the contest.
"The power of the old Albany regency consisted in the frankness and intrepidity with which they met all public questions. The people never give their confidence to artful dodgers. Nothing will save you but a bold, manly policy. You ought to take ground in language not to be misunderstood:
"1. In favor of bringing back the Southern States on the same terms as the others.
"2. Of maintaining inviolate the public credit.
"3. Of returning as speedily as possible to specie payments, and of reducing forthwith the paper circulation.
"4. Of repealing, simultaneously with the resumption of specie payment, the act of Congress making paper a legal-tender.
"5. Of reducing the enormous duties on imports, which are destroying our commerce, and will ultimately react most injuriously on our agriculture and manufactures; and