WASHINGTON, March 16, 1850.
MY DEAR SIR,—I have been very thankful to you for the information you have, from time to time, communicated to me during the session of Congress. While on the other hand you have found me an inattentive correspondent. My apparent neglect proceeded merely from the cause that I had nothing certain or definite to communicate.
The all-engrossing subject of slavery continues to agitate us, and to paralyze almost all legislation. My hopes are strong that the question will ultimately be amicably adjusted, although when or how can not be clearly seen.
My relations to the Executive are civil but cold. We have very little intercourse of any kind. Instead of any disposition to oblige me, I feel that a contrary disposition has been sometimes manifested. In the case of a Marshal for our State, four of the Whig mernbers, of which I was one, united from the first in recommending Mr. Mitchell. Two others of them (making six) informed the Secretary of the Interior that they would be satisfied with Mr. Mitchell; yet Speed was nominated, and his nomination is now before the Senate. It was the act of the President, against the advice of Ewing.
I have never before seen such an Administration. There is very little co-operation or concord between the two ends of the avenue. There is not, I believe, a prominent Whig in either House that has any confidential intercourse with the Executive. Mr. Seward, it is said, had; but his late Abolition speech has, I presume, cut him off from any such intercourse, as it has eradicated the respect of almost all men for him.
I shall continue to act according to my convictions of duty, co-operating where I can with the President, and opposing where I must.
I congratulate you on your appointment as one of the Revisers.
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