Richmond [va.] — Monday evening — [May 6, 1844].
My Dear Sir: I
am deeply sensible of the kindness you have shown me and the confidence you
have reposed in me by your candid and manly letter. It is worthy of the
character which I have heard ascribed to you by those who personally know you.
For 40 years (on Thursday next) have I been the Editor of a
paper — and never have I seen the Republican party in so much danger. We are
breaking up into factions. The great Dictator marching on to power with a
strong and invincible party at his heels whilst we are divided by miserable
contests and contemptible jealousies.
You ask me to interpose my good offices between the
contending presses at Washington. I might as well attempt to stop the Ocean
with a bullrush. The Globe now will hearken to no good counsels. An
arrogant spirit presides over it at the very moment that it should most
conciliate and bind us together. And again my able and noble friend, Dromgoole,1
whose only fault in the world is on some occasions a dogged tenax propositi,
is rushing before the public, instead of treating me like his real friend,
and I trust in God, if not as able at least as pure and disinterested a
politician as himself, by remonstrating with me privately, if he thought I had
done wrong, and seeking by arguments to which I am never deaf, to bring me
right. But, sir, Dromgoole is groping in the dark. He does not know the
sentiment of Virginia. She will demand the annexation of Texas if it can be
obtained. But he does not know the condition of things in relation to the
presidential slate. Dromgoole and a hundred Globes cannot stop the current of
public sentiment in the South. I send you confidentially a letter I received
to-day from a Republican.
He is a lawyer in Petersburg. Don't show it but return it to
me. I recd. 5 others of a similar character yesterday from different parts of
the State.
I have this moment received the proceedings of the Democrats
of this county (Henrico) assembled today at their Court House. The oldest,
staunchest Republicans unanimously voted for relieving W. H. Roane and his
colleagues of the Baltimore convention, from their instructions to vote for V. B.2
and leaving them to their sound discretion. You know the character of W.
H. Roane (former U. S. Senator and the devoted friend of Mr. V. B.). It was he
not I, who passed the last
Resolution which the Globe and Dromgoole attack. The meeting of Henrico to-day
was about at one time, I understand, to instruct the Baltimore delegates to
vote for no man who was not for Texas. As it was, they expressed their earnest
desire for their Baltimore delegates to procure the nomination of a Democrat
friendly to the immediate annexation of Texas.
I spoke very freely to Mr. Stiles, about what I thought was
the duty of our friends in Congress, for no member, unless he be a delegate to
the B. convention, to have anything to say to the presidential election and for
them only to collect information about the candidates and await the public
sentiment.
Do write me now and then. Inform me what is going forward.
[P. S.] Do cultivate the acquaintance of my friend, Gen.
Bayley, the new member.
________________
1
George C. Dromgoole, congressman from Virginia, 1835-1837, 1845-1847.
2 Van Buren.
SOURCE: Ulrich Bonnell Phillips, Editor, The Annual
Report of the American Historical Association for the Year 1911, Volume 2: The
Correspondence of Robert Toombs, Alexander H. Stephens, and Howell Cobb, p.
56-7
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