BINGHAMTON, December 25, 1856.
MY DEAR ROGERS—Myself
and family send to you and to Mrs. Rogers the kindly salutations and wishes of
the season, under a deep sense of friendly obligations: and we all join the
little boys in transmitting their joyous acknowledgments for your kind
remembrance and substantial present. Please drop a line, as early as convenient
to you, when you will return, so that I may arrange to be at home.
I am glad you are
going to Wheatland, for it is as well due to our friends and to our
organization as to Mr. Buchanan himself, that he should be fully, frankly, and
temperately posted in our affairs. So far as I have a right to be heard in the
premises, it is my desire that the explanation be of a general character, and
placed entirely on public grounds. I would under no circumstances have my name
pressed upon Mr. Buchanan as one of his cabinet advisers. Nor would I consent
to sit as one, unless it was given under circumstances where I was sought,
rather than seeking the place, and where the public desired my services. For
your own private information, I will assure you that I have no expectation of a
cabinet appointment. I have no knowledge nor information on the subject, but
intuition teaches me, as I wrote you some time since, and the views then
expressed have received confirmation by subsequent reflection. I am by no means
sure that it will not be better for those of our friends who desire places, if
Mr. Buchanan should pass by the State rather than that he should give me a
cabinet appointment. In case of my appointment, if he should deny any further
appointment to our wing, it would leave me in an awkward and unpleasant
position. But if I am not appointed, he may feel an inclination to look more
carefully after my friends. I am proud to note, however, that so far as I have
been mentioned, it has generally been for Secretary of State, and no one has
placed me below Treasury. The leading papers in Maine, Iowa, &c., &c.,
have been out pretty strong, but there is much intrigue going on by the jobbers
for the places, with a view to the Treasury spoils, and also to 1860.
I do not intend to
be pharisaical in profession, but I am, as years increase, more anxious to
fill my present sphere of usefulness than to enlarge it:—to execute the mission
before me, and train up the little boys that Providence has left to look to me
for protection, and to cherish and console, so far as domestic care and quiet
can accomplish it, one who is dearer to me still, and bound by more tender
ties, and is yet as dependent upon me as a child. These, with others, are
individual reasons why change is not desirable except for strong inducements.
SOURCE: John R.
Dickinson, Editor, Speeches, Correspondence, Etc., of the Late Daniel
S. Dickinson of New York, Vol. 2, pp. 499-500
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