John Davis to Senator Daniel S. Dickinson, July 25, 1850

NORWICH, July 25, 1850.

MY DEAR SIR—I have just risen from the perusal of the pamphlet you sent me, giving me an account of the public dinner at Old Tammany; and you may be assured I have had a feast. "I breathe deeper and freer." That occasion opens up the dawn of better days, and in a great measure removes the forebodings of our national dissolution. I rose from the perusal with the exclamation, "The confederacy is safe." When the Empire City speaks in such tones and with such unanimity, she will be heard and her influence will be felt. And in relation to yourself, you will allow me to say, the compliment was as well deserved as it was splendid, and I cannot let the opportunity pass without congratulating you upon the occasion. In particular, sir, I wish to manifest my hearty assent to the sentiments of your speech on that occasion as to the only true ground upon which our national identity can be maintained. I have ever been anxious that our Southern brethren should be made sensible of their error at the last election, but think the reproof already administered is abundantly sufficient, and am as ready to shoulder the musket for the rights of the South as for the rights of the North; or, in other words, to maintain the constitution. Your compliment to Mr. Clay was just.

What will be the policy of the new Executive? And how can the Whig party avoid the fruits of their doings? It seems to me the question of boundary between Texas and New Mexico may be more quietly settled by commissioners than by any acts of Congress.

With sentiments of high regard, believe me

Yours truly,

JOHN DAVIS.

Hon. D. S. DICKINSON.

SOURCE: John R. Dickinson, Editor, Speeches, Correspondence, Etc., of the Late Daniel S. Dickinson of New York, Vol. 2, p. 446

James Buchanan to Charles O'Conor, J. Addison Thomas, Robert J. Dillon, Esqs., and others,

WHEATLAND, near Lancaster, 14th June, 1850.

GENTLEMEN—I have been honored by the receipt of your invitation to the public dinner to be given to the Hon. Mr. Dickinson, of the United States Senate, at Tammany Hall, on Monday next, and regret to say that it will not be in my power to be with you on that interesting occasion.

Will you be kind enough to present for me to the assembled company the following sentiment:

"Hon. Daniel S. Dickinson—The prompt and powerful defender of the Union and the Constitution against the assaults of the abolitionists and free soilers. Well may the Empire State point to him as one of her brightest jewels."

Yours, very respectfully,

JAMES BUCHANAN.

CHARLES O'CONOR, J. ADDISON THOMAS, ROBERT J. DILLON, Esqs., and others, Committee, &c., &c.

SOURCE: John R. Dickinson, Editor, Speeches, Correspondence, Etc., of the Late Daniel S. Dickinson of New York, Vol. 2, p. 437

Senator Henry S. Foote to Messrs. Geo. Douglas, Schuyler Livingston, and others, constituting a Committee of Gentlemen, June 15, 1850

SENATE CHAMBER, June 15, 1850.

GENTLEMEN—Gladly would I have joined you on next Monday, at the social board, and united most cordially in doing special honor to that able, accomplished, incorruptible, and Roman-like statesman to whom you have tendered a public dinner at Tammany Hall, in recognition of his eminent public services and his extraordinary personal merits. But I find it impossible to be with you on that occasion, urgent official duties detaining me here.

I have known the worthy gentleman to whom you are about to do special honor most intimately for more than three years past. I have seen him tried as I have never seen any other public man tried. I have beheld him amid scenes well calculated to test his moral courage, his disinterestedness, his regard for principle, and his love of country. And never have I seen him so demean himself as not to command the respect of his adversaries, and to endear himself still more strongly to his friends and admirers. Honest, truthful, firm, sagacious, watchful, accomplished, courteous, magnanimous, he is such a man as would have adorned the pages of history in any age or country. Well does he deserve all the honors which he has earned, and all that a grateful country may hereafter bestow. His faithful and unyielding devotion to sound constitutional principles throughout the present anti-slavery agitation have commended him "to the permanent gratitude and respect of the nation," and I agree with you most heartily, that "at this time, when the efforts of every patriot are concentrated to the peaceable adjustment of all sectional controversies, we should not be unmindful of the solicitude which public men must feel for such evidences of popular approval as will tend to sustain them in their struggles against fanatical and factious agitators."

Permit me, if you please, to offer you the following sentiment:

"The union of all good men, of all parties, and of all sections, against faction and factionists."

I have the honor to be, &c., &c.,

H. S. FOOTE.

Messrs. GEO. DOUGLAS, SCHUYLER LIVINGSTON, and others, constituting a Committee of Gentlemen.

SOURCE: John R. Dickinson, Editor, Speeches, Correspondence, Etc., of the Late Daniel S. Dickinson of New York, Vol. 2, p. 439-40