Washington, Jan’y 17, 1854.
My Dear Sir: I thank
you for little note and for your kind appreciation of my wishes rather than my
successes in serving you. I am glad you are in Cincinnati, for you are almost
the only man in Ohio to whom I confidently look for a real appreciation and
sympathy with my views and plans for the advancement of our great and noble
cause. The notions of so many are contracted — their aspirations so low — their
sympathies so phlegmatic — and what might else be in them noble and generous so
turned awry, dwarfed and cramped by the incessant claims of mere business, or
the debasing influences of party that I sometimes feel as if I hardly knew
where to look for a genuine, whole man on whom I can confidently lean. May I
not hope to find such a one in you?
And now with this
preface I shall ask you, at once, for a little service. I want you to become
acquainted with the conductors of the Times and the Columbian; ascertain their
tendencies, and see whether they are not willing to render me some justice.
About everything I
have done for Ohio and the West has been positively ignored. I, first,
introduced a successful motion for Custom Houses including apartments for Post
Office, Courts, etc. etc. The precedent which I established in the cases of
Cincinnati & St. Louis has been followed at other points and now the
West begins to receive some share of the Public Expenditures in these respects.
I, first, introduced and carried through the Senate a proposition to cede to
Ohio the Public Lands within her limits. It failed in the House, no Ohio member
taking enough interest in it to secure for it even a fair hearing. Again I
introduced the bill in a modified form last session. But the session being
short and business crowded & the Committee reluctant, I did not get it
through the Senate. I have again introduced the same measure this Session and
shall I think get it through. I have a favorable report made yesterday. It now
includes all the Lands in the Va. Mil. District, which, under an amendment
which I had inserted in a Bill relating to Va. Mil. Scrip, were relieved from
the trust in favor of Virginia. Again I introduced and carried through the
propositions which have initiated the Pacific Railroad. I might go on; but I
won't weary you. Who, in Ohio, knows what I have done? Never, it seems to
me, has a man who was earnestly laboring to accomplish practical good, been
more poorly sustained.
I confess it galls
me to read such a paragraph as the following from the Chillicothe Advertiser of
the 13th inst. [newspaper clipping] “We hope the Legislature of Ohio will elect
a Democrat Senator who will give character and importance to the State in the
United States Senate. It is undoubtedly useless to express such a hope, for we
believe the men of that body to be men who will so act, without reference to
personal feelings or outside appliances, as will, in their judgments, conduce,
in the largest degree, to the honor of the State and the glory of the
Democratic party.”
The implication
that Ohio has not had a Democratic Senator, who gives character to the State,
is in keeping with the course such persons have uniformly pursued towards me.
You know enough of
my course and can inform yourself sufficiently in respect to it by examining
the Columns of the Globe to form a correct opinion of such an estimate. I
desire no comparisons with my predecessors; but I shrink from none.
Now if you can
write a few articles and have place further in the Times and Columbian, they
will be copied into friendly papers, and do something at least towards changing
this current.
If you see Miss
Chalfant, I pray you to assure her of my warm regard and kindest remembrances.
Has her sister, Mrs. Marshall, returned from California? I hear so; but can
hardly believe it.
Yours cordially,
[SALMON P. CHASE.]
SOURCE: Diary
and correspondence of Salmon P. Chase, Annual Report of the
American Historical Association for the Year 1902, Vol. 2, p.
252-4
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