"My dear Sir,—Your letter inviting me to act as a vice-president of a meeting to be held at the Cooper Inst. was recd. yesterday, but I was so busy in a trial that I had no chance to answer it earlier.
"Having elected a delegation in which we have confidence, it is contrary to my personal disposition towards them, as well as to my notions of what is most conducive to their power and usefulness in their conference with the other representatives of the Democracy of the Union, to interfere by any public meeting before they shall have completed their trust. Without questioning the judgment of those who think differently, I must decline your invitation.
"Very respectfully,
"Your friend,
S. J. Tilden."
"Hon. John Clancy.
S. J. TILDEN TO THE EDITORS OF THE "EVENING POST"
"2 Union Place. Tuesday Eveng.
"Oct. 9th, 1860.
"To the Editors of the 'Evening Post':
"Gentlemen,—You politely offer to publish in your columns a speech of mine which you seem to think was not adequately developed at the Cooper Institute last evening, and you add that my friends among your readers 'would be glad to know how' I 'have reasoned' myself into the associations in which I stand on the Presidential question.
"If I had a speech already written I would at once avail myself of the opportunity of submitting my views on public affairs to a mass of readers, among which are many cultivated intellects and some friends of my earlier years who, I respectfully say I think, are widely and dangerously wrong in their present political action. I have but the intervals of exhausting daily engagements in which to prepare a speech; but if after this explanation your offer shall continue open, I will endeavor within the next few days to write out in a condensed form what I think ought to be said, not to my friends only, but to all our citizens touching the present state of the country. If, indeed, it can be justly said that I have helped to lead the Evening Post into any 'heresies,' I acknowledge the sacred duty of showing it a 'decent way out' of them.
"With much consideration, I remain,
"S. J. Tilden."
"Though we invited Mr. Tilden to give us the speech which he proposed to address to his spectators—they would not permit him to call them his audience—at the Cooper Institute, we are quite willing to extend the courtesy to anything he may choose to offer us in which he thinks the public has an interest. The readers of the Evening Post know much better than the crowd he tried to address at the Cooper Institute that Mr. Tilden never writes or speaks without having something to say worth hearing, though they have not lately been unfortunate enough to agree with him on Federal politics."