NEW YORK, December 5, 1850.
HON. D. S. DICKINSON—
Dear Sir—Although the results of the recent election in this State may seem to be such as to withhold from you the support of a majority in the next legislature, we, representatives elect from the city of New York, Long Island, and the valley of the Hudson, beg to assure you that in our judgment no such circumstances can deprive you of the devoted attachment and cordial support, not only of your immediate personal and political friends, but of the great body of the Democracy of the State. They feel that other causes than those affecting an estimate of your great services and able and intrepid course have produced this result, and they only await an opportunity, whenever your name shall again come before them in connection with the high station, the duties of which you have filled with equal firmness, ability, and patriotism, to testify by their acts their sense of your character and career as a statesman, and your virtues as a citizen.
At the close of the present Congress, you will have served seven years in the Senate of the United States. During that period, questions of the first magnitude, affecting the rights and honor of the country, and the lasting well-being of the people, have been passed upon. In all of them you have borne a conspicuous part. In all of them you have identified yourself with the cause of the nation, and have adhered, with inflexible fidelity, to the requirements of the Constitution. No consequences personal to yourself, nor any considerations beyond your duty to your country, have for a moment swerved you from the path of rectitude. Unawed by threats, regardless of the assaults of faction, uninfluenced by any selfish tear or any desire of favor from those who pursue their ends through denunciation or agitation, your course has been such as honor dictated, and as a disinterested love of country will applaud.
During the last session of the present Congress especially, through a long period of agitation which, extending from the halls of legislation to all quarters of the Republic, disturbed the public tranquillity and threatened the very foundations of government, your labors were most arduous and responsible. You were found, during all that period, in the faithful discharge of your public obligations, true to the Union and the Constitution, and foremost among the noble-minded statesmen of both parties, who, laying aside all partyism, and every personal consideration, gave to the country their best energies, and brought to happy consummation the great measures of pacification, upon the maintenance of which, in the noble spirit which animated their framers, rests the continuance of our glorious Union.
Whatever may be the effect of events in our own State, we feel assured that signal and triumphant approval and renewed elevation await you in the future. The American people, true to the impulses of justice and patriotism, will not fail to bestow upon an approved and faithful public servant renewed expressions of their confidence and favor.
With sincere wishes for your prosperity and happiness, we remain, with the highest esteem,
SOURCE: John R. Dickinson, Editor, Speeches,
Correspondence, Etc., of the Late Daniel S. Dickinson of New York, Vol. 2,
p. 457-9
No comments:
Post a Comment