WASHINGTON, January 20, 1851.
GENTLEMEN—I thank you most sincerely for your esteemed favor of the 5th ultimo, which I had the pleasure to receive a few days since. Next to the pleasing consciousness of having sought with earnestness and fidelity to discharge a public trust, involving the dearest rights and interests of the country, and of an honored constituency, is the approval of those in whose friendship we confide, and whose opinions we respect.
You are pleased to speak of my public course in terms of gratifying commendation. The period of nearly seven years' service which has been allotted me in the United States Senate, is, in the importance of its events, without its parallel in the history of the government. Questions of the highest magnitude, and such as must affect for good or evil, through future generations, the destiny of our country and the institutions we hope to perpetuate, have pressed upon each other for consideration and action. In all this, I have endeavored to do nothing that should prejudice, disturb or mar our political or social structure, but to contribute, regardless of personal consequences, the best energies of my life, to preserve it erect and entire, in all the beauty of its proportions. Time and truth will show with what fidelity and what success. For the present, I can only say, that a careful review of my own share in the disposition of all the great questions which have engaged the public mind during my senatorial term, approves to my own judgment the conclusions I have adopted and the course I have pursued; and in all such cases, I would not, were the occasion to be repeated, cancel a single act or reverse a single position. But I am proud to declare that I would give to the same policy which has governed my public conduct such additional force as a more enlarged experience and a better acquaintance with public affairs would enable me to command.
I need not bring to your attention by historical detail the incidents and events and the legislation of the period to which I allude. They are familiar to you, and the country cannot be unmindful of them. They embrace, among others, the annexation of Texas, the settlement of the Oregon question, the war with Mexico, the acquisition of vast and valuable territory, and, finally, the great measures of adjustment, which happily, in my judgment, brought a long and angry controversy to a wise and patriotic conclusion, at the last session of Congress. The struggles by which they were decided, and the perseverance with which sectional animosities were fostered, will stand out hereafter upon the history of the country as a most signal proof of the inveteracy of partisan hatred, and the disregard of the welfare of the country, the integrity of the constitution, and the promptings of the democratic faith, with which personal aims or political resentments can be pursued. That the policy and measures so loudly decried have triumphed, and are daily gaining strength and approval in every section of the confederacy, is owing to the inherent patriotism and national attachments of the American people, and to the firmness and devotion of their representatives. If in some of the States such representatives have been visited with obloquy and denunciation by partisan vindictiveness, and been rewarded for their exertions by desertion and sacrifice through malign influences, sinister efforts, and questionable combinations, it should be remembered that it is not the first and probably will not be the last instance where such has been the fortune of those who have labored for the public good; but it should cause no regret to such as are conscious of having discharged with fearless alacrity the responsibilities of their station, for they know that time will rectify the error and impartial history vindicate the truth.
In our own State the progress of events has certainly been marked with features replete with instruction. The results of the late election, which placed the democratic party in the minority, to which you refer, were the legitimate fruits of an effort to harmonize by conventional arrangement hostile and conflicting elements, and should have been unexpected by no one. It is notorious that the arrangement, termed a union, between those who had steadfastly adhered to the principles and candidates, State and national, of the democratic party, and those who for years had separated from and assailed both, was carried out, as I had no doubt it would be, in most of the assembly districts where true democrats, supposed to coincide in my own avowed views upon the leading questions of the day, were in nomination, by deliberately defeating their election by open and declared opposition in some instances, disguised but not less active hostility in others, and by predetermination and concert in all. I regard all this as a flattering compliment to the integrity of my public course, for having early and uniformly advocated principles now admitted to be just by almost common consent and upheld by the patriotic of all parties, and for having resisted at all times and upon all occasions a dangerous element of agitation, with which the harmony and integrity of our country have been so seriously threatened; an agitation which, without having served a single worthy, just, or humane purpose, has prostrated the democratic party in our State and in the nation, has filled our land with contention and bitterness, and shaken the very foundation of the Union itself. The history of the late election furnishes an earnest of what is in reserve and may be expected from this harmonious political element by all who stand by the constitution and the Union, and refuse to subscribe to the modern dogma, and as illustrative of the beauties and benefits of attempting to mingle in harmonious concert the friends of constitutional democracy and the adherents of a spurious abolitionism.
I have never sought, or expected, or desired the support of those whose vocation is sectional agitation, and who live and move and have their being in assailing the rights and interests of any of the sovereign States of this confederacy. I have poured no libations to the Moloch of political abolitionism. I have offered no sacrifices upon its polluted altar. I neither enjoy nor covet the confidence of its votaries, either lineal or collateral, and feel more honored by their denunciations than I should by their encomiums. I have not united with them in planting, and am entitled to no share of their fruits. I am proud to enjoy, with other democrats avowing like opinions with myself, the hostility of all recusants who, finding themselves abandoned in their unprofitable experiment of secession and disunion, were anxious to avail themselves of the forms of union to seat themselves again with the democracy of the State, that they might control results for the benefit of their partisans where they could, and defeat democratic nominees where they could not.
The democratic party is essentially national in its organization, in the State as in the Union. The history of its triumphs bears no record of its treaties with those hostile to its own catholic creed, under any pretence however specious, or under any name however euphonious; nor has it consented to lay aside or conceal its own cherished principles, or adopt shades of such as it was wont to repudiate, that it might swell its train of followers and secure the spoils of office. In all its functions, attributes, and characteristics, it is co-extensive with the Union, and it should not be less in its action and in the views and aims of those who are admitted to its membership. It cannot be otherwise, without derogating from its true attitude, or departing from all the great principles by which, since the organization of the government, it has been guided. If it shall be made by those who temporarily govern its action in the State to minister by any act, or by any prudential omissions to discharge its whole duty to the constitution and to the cause it has upheld for half a century, that it may pander for votes to the morbid spirit of abolitionism and retain those in its organization who are hostile to all it holds most sacred, it will be degraded from its former elevation, and can no more secure the confidence of the honest masses than it will deserve it. For one, I will neither by word nor decd, or even by silence, contribute to any such course. If the democratic party is to be abolitionized in whole or in part, either in its doctrines or its associations; if it is to be so far demoralized that it may not declare its own principles, or must adopt sectional heresies; if acts passed in a benign and patriotic spirit to quiet agitation, the offspring of demagogues and fanatics, and to protect the Union itself from threatened invasion, must be repealed; if a law enacted not only in accordance with the spirit of the constitution, but to carry out one of its plainest provisions, is to be nullified so far as State legislation can nullify it, let who will favor or acquiesce in it, I will not; and it will be regarded by all true democrats as at war with every dictate of good government, the obligations of law, and the supremacy of the constitution.
I am deeply sensible of my obligations to the true democracy of the State. I acknowledge with pride the cordial support which they, companions in many campaigns, have afforded me, and you, my kind friends, in particular. To all such, in the State and beyond it, I tender my warmest thanks, and unite with them in sincere wishes for the welfare of our common Union. A few days will close my public service. Had it been my fortune to leave the Senate before the great questions which have so long and so deeply agitated the country had been fully, and, as I think, rightly passed upon, it would have occasioned me serious regret; but since I was permitted to bear a part in their adjustment, so far as it could be accomplished by legislation, and they now stand for decision before the tribunal of public opinion, I shall return to my private pursuits with far more gratification than I left them. As the Legislature is composed, there is no prospect whatever of the election of myself or any other democrat, and having no desire under such circumstances to be a candidate, I trust my friends will do me the favor not to present my name.
With kind consideration and regard for each of you, I am
To the Hon. Messrs. MICHAEL DOUGHERTY, ALBERT A. THOMPSON, HENRY J. ALLEN, ELI PERRY, JAIRUS FRENCH, CHARLES ROBINSON, EGBERT T. SMITH, JACOB SICKLES, Wм. F. RUSSELL, MILTON BARNES, A. L. LAWYER, HENRY KINSLEY, WILLIAM BOWNE, WORTHINGRON Wright.
SOURCE: John R. Dickinson, Editor, Speeches,
Correspondence, Etc., of the Late Daniel S. Dickinson of New York, Vol. 2,
p. 459-64
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