PETERSBURG, [Va.],
November 23rd, 1855.
MY DEAR SIR: For the
past ten days, I have been in Richmond and while there have had frequent
conversations with influential democrats from all Quarters of the State. It
affords me pleasure to communicate the agreeable fact that Mason's re-election
is already un fait accompli. There will be no opposition. The
movement against him has signally failed and about the first business of the
session will be his triumphant re-election. This you may confidently rely on. The
attempt of which we spoke at Richmond on the part of certain gentlemen to head
a feud between your friends and Wise's will also fail. Many ardent admirers and
advocates of Wise have assured me that you were their second choice and that
none would be more ready than themselves to frown down and discountenance any
efforts at fomenting rivalry and dissatisfaction. Some of them express a
determination early in the session of the democratic State Convention to
introduce a resolution to the effect that the Virginia democracy have no choice
between their two Prominent chiefs who have been named for the succession but
will support either with cheerfulness and alacrity, leaving the fortunate one
of them to be selected by the National democracy of the Union. This argues a
better feeling on the part of Wise's friends than we had good reason to expect,
and it is in fact all that we could ask of them.
I shall see you in
Washington next week and should like to have a full and free conference with
you on the future. We can then better understand the current and its course.
Douglas' Position cannot be known too soon.
* Blog Editor’s
Note: Publisher of the Daily Democrat,
Petersburg, Virginia.
SOURCE: Charles
Henry Ambler, Editor, Annual Report of the American Historical
Association for the Year 1916, in Two Volumes, Vol. II, Correspondence of
Robert M. T. Hunter (1826-1876), p. 171-2
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