RICHMOND, [VA.], June 16th, 1856.
MY DEAR HUNTER: On
my way back from Cincinnati I called to see you in Washington. I had much to
say to you not only of the past but the future. I have thought much since we
met last and now that I can look back calmly at all that has occurred I write
the result of my reflections not without the hope that you may be somewhat
influenced by them. You have heard and know how utterly Bright and Douglas
disappointed our expectations and how false and hollow were their professions.
That they were fair as long as it was their interest and false as soon as that
bond was broken. And you must have come to the conclusion that the Presidency
is not to be won simply by combinations and arrangements with men and that
least of all are men seeking high place influenced by gratitude. It is only
necessary to look to Wise to come to that conclusion. Even with the help of
friends, such as few men have had, the battle has been lost. I am now coming to
the object of my letter which is to urge upon you to adopt a
different line of policy altogether from what you have heretofore pursued and
which to some extent I know to be somewhat foreign to your tastes and nature. I
want you my dear friend, to discard altogether, if possible, all thought of the
Presidency from your mind, at all events so far as to be uninfluenced by it in
your future course in the Senate. I want you to put yourself at the head of the
South and where you ought to stand and strike hard and heavy and frequent blows
and that at once.
The South has no
leader and sadly wants one. It is a post that has been waiting your acceptance
since Mr Calhoun's death. It is your duty to fill it and your interest too. Men
say you are too timid, overcautious, that you wish nothing and thus it is that
you have lost friends, power and influence. You must launch out into the sea of
strife, your safety requiring it, your hope of renown depends on it, your own
interest and that of the country demands it, and your 'ability to pay the just
debts that you owe to Messrs. Wise, Bright, and Douglas and Co. is dependent on
it. Leave the dull routine of your former Senatorial life, wean yourself from
your Committee and throw yourself into the patriotick current and be as you
ought to be the champion of the South in the Senate of the U[nited] States and
you will have the power to control and make presidents. You can earn more true
glory in the Senate, you can be more useful to the country, and wield a more
powerful influence over the destinies of your race than in the Presidential
chair. In addition to this I am confident that the course I recommend is the
only one to lead to the Presidency. That must be won by you if at all,
unsought. I have written to you more freely than any one else will, my dear
friend, because perhaps I have been more enlisted in what has concerned
you and your promotion. I know I write however, what all your true friends feel
and while these are my decided convictions and therefore communicated, at the
same time they are the opinions of all your friends with whom I have conversed
and have been for years. Of such men as Seddon and Mr Old, whom you know I
think the wisest, as he is the fairest, man that I have ever known. In order to
take the position you are entitled to and ought to occupy you ought to launch
out and strike so as to make your position, your own peculiar property and give
us a Hunter platform to stand on, in order to keep down the huckstering traders
who have so foully betrayed you at home and abroad. Write to me upon the
receipt of this and let us hereafter keep up a more uninterrupted
correspondence. I will only add that your friends in Cincinnati did all that
could be done and like me look to the Senate for a justification of their
confidence.
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), pp. 199-8
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