Senator John C. Calhoun to Andrew Pickens Calhoun, December 2, 1849

Washington 2 Dec^r 1849

MY DEAR AND^W, I had a very pleasant and safe journey on. The weather was fine throughout; but is now very bad. It snowed during the night, and is now sleeting, with a North Easter; so that I was lucky in taking time by the forelock. I am now quartered at Hills on Capital Hill for the Session. There is much confusion in the ranks of both parties and it is thought it will be difficult to elect a Speaker.¹ Winthrop and Cobb have been nominated by their respective parties; There is a Scism in the ranks both of the Democrats and the Whigs, as to the Speaker, of which will be difficult to heal. The session will be one of great excitement and confusion.

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¹ See Winthrop's Memoir of Robert C. Winthrop, pp. 96-101. Howell Cobb, of Georgia, was elected.

SOURCE: J. Franklin Jameson, Editor, Annual Report of the American Historical Association for the Year 1899, Volume II, Calhoun’s Correspondence: Fourth Annual Report of the Historical Manuscripts Commission, Correspondence of John C. Calhoun, p. 774-5

Diary of Gideon Welles: December 1, 1865

It is some weeks since I have had time to write a word in this diary. In the mean time many things have happened which I desired to note but none of very great importance. What time I could devote to writing when absent from the Department has been given to the preparation of my Annual Report. That is always irksome and hard labor for me. All of it has been prepared at my house out of the office hours, except three mornings when I have remained past my usual hour of going to the Department.

My reports are perhaps more full and elaborate than I should make them; but if I wish anything done I find I must take the responsibility of presenting it. Members of Congress, though jealous of anything that they consider, or which they fear others will consider, dictation, are nevertheless timid as regards responsibility. When a matter is accomplished they are willing to be thought the father of it, yet some one must take the blows which the measure receives in its progress. I therefore bring forward the principal subjects in my report. If they fail, I have done my duty. If they are carried, I shall contend with no one for the credit of paternity. I read the last proof pages of my report this evening.

Members of Congress are coming in fast, though not early. Speaker Colfax came several days since. His coming was heralded with a flourish. He was serenaded, and delivered a prepared speech, which was telegraphed over the country and published the next morning. It is the offspring of an intrigue, and one that is pretty extensive. The whole proceeding was premeditated.

My friend Preston King committed suicide by drowning himself in the Hudson River. His appointment as Collector was unfortunate. He was a sagacious and honest man, a statesman and legislator of high order and of unquestioned courage in expressing his convictions and resolute firmness in maintaining them. To him, a Democrat and Constitutionalist, more than to any other one man may be ascribed the merit of boldly meeting the arrogant and imperious slaveholding oligarchy and organizing the party which eventually overthrew them. While Wendell Phillips, Sumner, and others were active and fanatical theorists, Preston King was earnest and practical. J. Q. Adams and Giddings displayed sense and courage, but neither of them had the faculty which K. possessed for concentrating, combining, and organizing men in party measures and action. I boarded in the same house with King in 1846 when the Wilmot Proviso was introduced on an appropriation bill. Root and Brinkerhoff of Ohio, Rathbun and Grover and Stetson [sic]¹ of New York, besides Wilmot and some few others whom I do not recall, were in that combination, and each supposed himself the leader. They were indeed all leaders, but King, without making pretensions, was the man, the hand, that bound this sheaf together. From the day when he took his stand King never faltered. There was not a more earnest party man, but he would not permit the discipline and force of party to carry him away from his honest convictions. Others quailed and gave way but he did not. He was not eloquent or much given to speech-making, but could state his case clearly, and his undoubted sincerity made a favorable impression always.

Not ever having held a place where great individual and pecuniary responsibility devolved upon him, the office of Collector embarrassed and finally overwhelmed him.

Some twenty-five years ago he was in the Retreat for the Insane in Hartford, and there I knew him. He became greatly excited during the Canadian rebellion and its disastrous termination and the melancholy end of some of his townsmen had temporarily impaired his reason. But it was brief; he rapidly recovered, and, unlike most persons who have been deranged, it gave him no uneasiness and he spoke of it with as much unconcern as of a fever. The return of the malady led to his committing suicide. Possessed of the tenderest sensibilities and a keen sense of honor, the party exactions of the New York politicians, the distress, often magnified, of those whom he was called upon to displace, the party requirements which Weed, who boarded with him, and others demanded, greatly distressed him, and led to the final catastrophe.

King was a friend and pupil of Silas Wright, with whom he studied his profession; was the successor of that grand statesman in both branches of Congress. Both had felt most deeply the bad faith and intrigue which led to the defeat of Van Buren in 1844, and to the ultimate downfall of the Democratic party, for the election of Polk, Pierce, and Buchanan were but flickering efforts to rekindle the fires of the old organizations. Confidence and united zeal never again prevailed, and parties subsequently took a sectional or personal character.

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¹ There was no Stetson in Congress at the time. Perhaps Wheaton of New York, who was one of the supporters of the Proviso, was the man whom Mr. Welles had in mind.

SOURCE: Gideon Welles, Diary of Gideon Welles, Secretary of the Navy Under Lincoln and Johnson, Vol. 2: April 1, 1864 — December 31, 1866, p. 384-7

Thomas D. Harris* to Howell, Cobb, October 29, 1848

Washington [D. C.], Oct. 29th, 1848.

Dear Col., I thank you for the several letters which you have been kind enough to write me in reference to the prospect in Georgia. I hope the 7th of November may find her on the side of democracy and the country. I should have no doubt of it were it not for the military glory of old Taylor which I somewhat fear may dazzle a sufficient number of soft customers to carry the day.

If we are to lose the State of Pennsylvania it will simply be because we have not democrats enough in the State to prevent it. I think I may safely say that I now know our friends are at work in good earnest in the good old commonwealth. The defaulting Democrats at the last election, with all others who are lukewarm, are being visited by Committees appointed for that purpose to the end that all may be brought to the polls. The idea is an admirable one and if properly executed must tell powerfully in our favor.

In reference to Wilmot's dist. and other infected portions of the state, I had hoped to be specially advised before this time. Perhaps I may receive a letter tomorrow or next day. If so I will send it to you. In the meantime you would doubtless like to have such information as we have from that dist. Birdsall and Dickinson are both at this time in that part of the state, the first of whom as I understand has written to Washington that Wilmot makes no active opposition to Cass, and that if he does anything against him it is done very quietly. He thinks he will permit his people to vote as they please, and expresses the opinion that the dist. will give an increased majority in November on Longstreth. I do not know Mr. B., but learn that he is quite a politician and a shrewd calculator.

It is said moreover that Judge Thompson writes from the Erie district that Cass will carry the State by 10,000. Job Mann writes that we shall carry the state if we are active, and adds that we are active.

In short, sir, every democrat hereabouts feels and believes that the State will be ours as sure as the 7th of November rolls around and if it goes against us all be wretchedly disappointed a second time.

I wrote to Holden the other day, of N. C. Standard, to know the prospects in the old North State, and reed. in reply a most unexpectedly encouraging letter. He says the free-soil movement there will greatly distract the Whig party, which taken in connexion with the great activity of the democratic party affords a well grounded hope for carrying the State for Cass and Butler.

In reference to Ohio, it is generally conceded that Cass must carry it against any and all combinations.

N. Jersey we hope and believe will go with us. At all events the Whigs there are dreadfully scared and the democrats are in fine spirits.

Tennessee it is said is sure for Cass and Butler. I know this is the opinion of old Cave Johnson and I hear also that the President thinks with him.

Louisiana, — La Sere writes Wm. I. Brown very recently that Cass and Butler will carry that state without any sort of difficulty. He speaks of it as not at all doubtful. So you see we hear comfortable news on all sides. I pray the result may not show that our friends were to sanguine. In reference to myself, I think I should be entirely confident if I could be quite sure the people wouldn't turn fools on account of old Leatherhead's military fame.

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* A member of the clerical staff of the United States House of Representatives, a devoted friend of Howell Cobb.

SOURCE: Ulrich Bonnell Phillips, Editor, The Annual Report of the American Historical Association for the Year 1911, Volume 2: The Correspondence of Robert Toombs, Alexander H. Stephens, and Howell Cobb, p. 132-3

David Wilmot to Abraham Lincoln, July 11, 1860

Towanda July 11th. 1860.

Hon. A. Lincoln.

Dear Sir:

Your note of the 4th inst reached me on the 9th.

I wrote you from Chicago, saying I should return home by way of Phila., and that if I observed or heard anything worthy of note, I would write you from that City. My stay in Phila. was more brief than I anticipated – one day only and as I learned nothing of interest, I did not write you.

Your note of the 22d of May was directed to me at Phila. and did not come to hand untill a few days since. I was thinking of writing you when I recd. your last favor.

I see nothing discouraging in the condition of affairs in this State: indeed to me everything looks hopeful and promising. From the day of your nomination, I have had but little doubt of our success in this State. Since the clear development of Mr Buchanan's policy, there has been an overwhelming majority of our people opposed to his Administration. I believed they would generally write in support of any of the prominent candidates before our Convention, except Govs. Seward & Chase. These gentlemen had occupied positions of such mark in the conflicts of the past ten years, that the Conservative & American elements in this State were irrevocably committed against them; but would support other men of equally advanced republican positions, but who had not been held up before them for years, in so unfavorable a light

The division of the democracy of this State is formidable, and I believe irreconcilable. Forney can be of much greater service in moving against a Coalition or Union, than he could possibly be in supporting our ticket. He stands now a recognized & influential leader of the Douglass forces; in the other contingency, he would have been denounced as a traitor, and his influence greatly weakened. At this time Douglass is in the ascendent in this State over Breckenridge, but the latter will gain from this time to the Election. There is no starch in the Northern democracy, and unless the weakened democrats of the North, & especially of Penna, the most servile of the race, shall see, as they will, that Breckenridge is to losing the South, they will flock by the thousands to his standard. They dare not seperate themselves from the South. They understand the danger of such a position, and that away from the South, there is no democratic party.

I cannot feel a doubt of the result. The confusion of Bable has fallen upon the counsels of the Enemies of Freedom. They are doomed through their great iniquities, and by the inexorable moral law of Heaven, to defeat, shame & humiliation. The moral and political power of the party of Slavery is broken, and no patched up arrangements of its leaders, were such a thing possible, can save it from its just doom. The Democracy must turn from its errors, and receive its virtue and strength at the formation of its principles, before it can have the power to retain another political victory. In truth all that remains of democracy in this country, is embodied in the Republican party

I have written you a long and I fear tedious letter

I hope to see you in the fall

very respectfully yours

D. Wilmot

SOURCE: Abraham Lincoln Papers at the Library of Congress, Washington, D. C.