"The Cincinnati movement has been so early and long encouraged by you and by me and by many who thought with us, that it grew to have an impetus and volume which were important and not easily turned aside from the channel it made for itself. Our people, in being educated to favor it, had become accustomed to count on it, and at last became dependent upon it. I never saw how its acts were capable of readjustment, or how the question now before us would be other than the simple issue between Grant and Greeley. On this I concur with the instinctive sense of our people that a change is necessary in the Federal administration. It is rarely, if ever, possible for a party in office to reform itself by the internal force of its best elements. We must have a better state of things in national, State, and municipal government, and a higher standard in the public mind by which official men will be tried and to which they will refer in their silent meditations and in their actions, if we would preserve anything of value in our political system. But I am getting beyond the limits of my time.
"In haste.
"Truly your friend,
"S. J. Tilden."
A. G. THURMAN TO TILDEN
"Private.
"United States Senate Chamber, Washington, Aug. 20,
1872.
"My dear Tilden,—There is a rumor here that O'Conor is willing to accept the nomination of Blanton Duncan's Louisville convention. If you have any influence with him I pray you to exert it to prevent his doing so. It is as hard for me to support Greeley as it is for any man I know. But, being compelled to choose between him and Grant, I am satisfied that we ought to support him—not for his own sake, but because it is the only mode left to us to break the radical organization. I have a very high opinion of O'Conor, and would be much distressed should he give the use of his great name to the Louisville movement, which is wholly in the interest of Grant.
"Please write to me at Columbus, Ohio, where I will be in a few days.
"Yours truly,
"A. G. Thurman."
HORATIO SEYMOUR TO TILDEN
"Utica, Oct. 3, 1872.