"5th. Hancock, I believe, would make a President of whom not only our party, but our country, would be proud. He would unite and strengthen the party, and his firmness, good judgment, and total disregard of political trickery would lead us safely through the coming crisis of our national affairs.
"6th. No man can foreshadow the events of the next four years. Are they to be peaceful or warlike? And how is the latter condition to be avoided? We must nominate a man who can certainly be elected, and whose name at the head of our Presidential ticket, whilst giving us the prestige of certain success in that campaign, will give us strength to carry the Congressional elections. Has any such man been thought or spoken of except Hancock? I have heard of none. Besides, you will recollect that, by unconstitutional legislation, Grant has been made the virtual commander-in-chief of the armies of the United States. We must have for his commander-in-chief a man who has the ability, the courage, and the firmness to command him. Such a man is Genl. Hancock.
"This will be the great struggle for the supremacy of one or the other great party of the country. A written Constitution against a popular, if not a military, despotism. If we fail now we may be lost forever, for a civil war alone could tear down the barriers which the Radical party would erect against our liberties. They would then have, as now, the Senate and the House, the legislative departments. Then, as now, by similar intimidation, carried to a greater excess by their victory, they would suspend the functions, as they pleased, of the Supreme Court, the judicial department. They would have also the executive department, thus securing substantially all the departments of the government. Do you doubt the extent to which they would carry their revolutionary doctrines? And would the Senate any longer be a curb upon the frenzy of the House, with an addition of 20 members from the negro-ized South? We must start out, casting aside all personal preferences and prejudices, determined to succeed. We must select the man who can secure the most votes, and who will be supported with enthusiasm by every Democrat, war or peace, so-called, by every conservative Democrat or Republican soldier, and by the thousands of new recruits and conservative Republicans. I think that Genl. W. S. Hancock is the only man who would receive the combined, enthusiastic support of the people South and North.
"I know that, if you concur with me in these views, you will not hesitate to use every effort to secure by this means the success of that party which is dear to us both. I have written you because I knew that you would not misconstrue my motives, and because I believe that you can exert great influence for the good of our country. If there be reasons which I may have overlooked, in forming a deliberate judgment upon a subject which has caused me much anxious thought, I should be very much pleased to hear them from a friend like yourself. Let us have harmony in our councils, and with wisdom success is ours.
"Very truly your friend,
"R. J. Walker."
TILDEN TO THE TAMMANY SOCIETY
"July, 1868.
"Gentlemen,—Regretting that I cannot personally attend the celebration of the Fourth of July by the Tammany Society, to which you have invited me, I nevertheless concur most cordially in the patriotic sentiments so eloquently expressed in the address of the sachems.
"Your venerable society may well felicitate itself upon its political retrospect. It did everything in its power to avert civil strife by a policy which was represented as too conciliatory by those who did not comprehend the danger. When the conflict of arms came it cordially maintained the nationality of our people in a confederated republic, which Jefferson and Madison and Jackson always held to be incapable of being dissolved except by a revolutionary destruction of the Constitution. And now that peace has once more happily returned, it claims that constitutional rights shall be restored throughout our whole country; that every State shall be replaced in its constitutional orbit; that we shall once more present to the world a continental system of States, bound together by a constitutional union—founded on the twin principles of local self-government and industrial liberty, and sustained by the voluntary action of a people among whom government is everywhere carried on by the consent of the governed.
"Alas! that this benign work of peace should be more difficult than the fierce struggle of war. But so it is.