"My dear Tilden,—Your Milwaukee speech has done me much good—a thing not to be thought of if it were not that this good done to one obscure individual extends to the whole country, when everybody is alike advantaged as I am. Your exposure of the terrible cost the whole nation is put to in maintaining an army to hold one portion of it in subjection makes it plain that the entire commonwealth is subjected. That section of ours which bears the tax (more than England and France both bear to enslave two empires), to keep the South under the foot of our quondam slaves, certainly gets less for its money, although laid out in producing a very thorough despotism, than the imperial dynasties abroad. You have made a capital demonstration of the enormity of the flight into tyranny which our Radicals have made in a short time, from the vantage-ground they obtained in the war over our free govt. The North sells itself into debt and slavery to enslave the South.
"But I owe you something more than the commonalty for your speech—your making my son a great man, giving him the heirship of Old Hickory's glory, although I know it is far beyond his reach, fills me with delight. You put a brilliant rainbow before my eyes, and tell me there is a pot of gold where it stands on the earth. The vision pleases, however, sensible that no effort will find its footing on the ground. Yet I hope Frank's aspirations will not all prove delusions to him or his father. He has all Old Hickory's devotion to his country, and he has the courage to attempt its redemption from the hands of the banditti that has for the time seized on all its wealth and all the defences of its liberties, and I have faith in a providence to overrule it, so that my young stripling who is put forward in the battle against the Philistines may do some execution with his sling.
"I beg you write me a line to say what promise you bring from the West. I have some influence with Bennett. If you think well of it I will write to him and urge him to open his columns to us. I think if Frank made well-considered speeches Bennett would Herald them.
"Yours afft.,
"F. P. Blair."
"My dear Tilden,—My father wished me to mail this for him. I agree in what he says about your Milwaukee speech. It was unanswerable in argument as to Frank's coming East. I am glad he has declined doing so. His letter to that effect came yesterday, saying he did so because you had advised him to confine himself to the West. He has made no speeches, except some off-hand efforts at receptions, etc., etc.
"Y'rs truly,
"M. Blair."
"Washn., Aug. 15, '68."
HORATIO SEYMOUR TO TILDEN
"Utica, August 17, 1868.
"My dear Sir,—I send you three letters got to-day: one from Chicago about Indiana and Illinois; one from Governor Haight, of California, about the Pacific States; one from Henry D. Barto, of this State, who writes about the mining States. You know him as a gentleman of sagacity and standing. Of course, candidates always get flattering statements which prove nothing. But these letters, like all the letters I get, use the same language. Indeed, if my letters were not dated from different States I should think they were all written from one locality. This uniformity of words and facts means a great deal. It foretells a political change.
"Truly yours, &c.,
"Horatio Seymour."
"Hon. Samuel J. Tilden."