"I cheerfully concur in the foregoing recommendation:

The nomination, election, and inauguration of Senator Wright as Governor of New York State, in 1844, gave Mr. Tilden a greater influence perhaps than was possessed by any other individual in the dispensation of the patronage of the Executive at this time. His friend, John W. Edmonds, in whose office he had studied his profession, a native of the same county as himself, and a lawyer of considerable ability, was anxious for the appointment of Surrogate of New York city. Though he failed in this effort, he subsequently was appointed one of the Justices of the Supreme Court, largely, not to say entirely, through Mr. Tilden's influence.

By the spring elections of 1844 both the old parties were thrown into confusion and driven from the field by the "Native American" party, so called, which appeared with a suddenness and force of a tropical cyclone and swept the country.

The friends of Mr. Van Buren in New York naturally looked to Mr. Van Buren as their candidate for a renomination to the Presidency. He was defeated, however, in the national convention, and James K. Polk, of Tennessee, received the nomination. The following letter from Mr. Tilden to his brother is the only account we have from his pen of his experiences in that convention to which he was a delegate. Unhappily, the manuscript is incomplete.

S. J. TILDEN TO HIS BROTHER

"Baltimore, May 27, 1844.

"My dear Brother,—Here we are in a state of extraordinary excitement and great uncertainty. There is a deep and almost universal disaffection in the South. Virginia is against us by a large majority, also North Carolina, Ga., Miss., Ark., La., probably Maryland, Indiana; New Jersey, Michigan, Alabama, Ill., Conn. doubtful; N. Y., Missouri, Ohio, N. H., Vermont, R. I. reliable; Penn. instructed and ready to vote with us on the main question, but liable, some of them, to cheat on collaterals.

"We have a small fixed majority certain on the first ballotings, but some of the Penn. delegates and probably some others may be and probably will be inclined very soon to desert. But the plan of the disaffected is to require a two-third vote to make a nomination. This, they think, and probably with correctness, that Mr. V. B. cannot get, and then they may bargain with those who vote with us but are not hearty in our cause. Some of the Penn. men who are instructed and are therefore obliged to vote for V. B. would prefer Buchanan—have been approached by propositions from the South to bargain with them, with what effect we cannot know."