De Alexander

Of course I never dreamed that it could be published, or used as it already has been; but no matter--let us have the letter in print, and let the public judge between its writer and his open and covert assailants.

It was not possible that I could in any way be profited by writing that letter; I well understood that it involved an abdication of all hopes of political advancement; yet it seemed due to my own character that the letter should be written.

Meantime, I only say that, when I fully decided that I would no longer be devoted to Governor Seward's personal fortunes, it seemed due to candour and fair dealing that I should privately but in all frankness apprise him of the fact.

Let me have the letter and it shall appear verbatim in every edition of the Tribune.

I, therefore, call on him for the private letter which I did write him in November, 1854, that I may print it verbatim in the Tribune, and let every reader judge how far it sustains the charges which his mouthpiece bases thereon.

It is not true--it is grossly untrue--that at Chicago I commended myself to the confidence of delegates 'by professions of regard and the most zealous friendship for Governor Seward, but presented defeat, even in New York, as the…

No intelligent reader of the Tribune has for months been left in doubt of the fact that I deemed the nomination of Governor Seward for President at this time unwise and unsafe; and none can fail to understand that I did my best at Chicago…

Henceforth you will be held and treated as political outlaws.

You have perpetrated your last cheat--consummated your last fraud upon the Democratic party.

Those who controlled the New York delegation through the fraudulent process of a unit vote--a rule forced upon a large minority to stifle their sentiments--will hereafter be known as political gamblers.

Instead of bringing a candidate to oppose him; instead of creating issues upon which the choice of the nation could be enlightened; instead of principles discussed, what have we seen?

The South is in due time to concentrate on a candidate--probably Horatio Seymour of our own State--and then New York is to desert Douglas for her own favourite son.

God knows I love the star spangled banner of my country, and it is because I love the Union that I am determined that any man who arrays himself in hostility to it shall not, with my consent, take a seat in this convention.

They went out with a protest, not against a candidate, but against the principles of a party, declaring they did not hold and would not support them.

I have not shrunk from any fiery trial prepared for me by the enemies of my cause.

Mason, Gwin, Davis, and most of the Democrats, came to me with frank, open, sympathising words, thus showing that their past prejudices had been buried in the victory they had achieved over me.

The reappearance at Washington in the character of a leader deposed by his own party, in the hour of organisation for decisive battle, thank God is past--and so the last of the humiliations has been endured," he wrote his wife.

It ought to be equally so, if we have been equally thoughtful and zealous for friends, party, and country.

It was not chagrin; it was not the selfish fear that considers the loss of office or spoils; it was not discouragement or despair.

Greeley slaughtered Seward and saved the party," he wrote.

In a few years more we believe it will be ready to elect as its President a man who not only sees but proclaims the whole truth in this respect--in short, such a man as Governor Seward.

We joyfully believe that the country is acquiring a just and adequate conception of the malign influence exerted by the slave power upon its character, its reputation, its treatment of its neighbour, and all its great moral and material…

No one questioned Seward's personal integrity; but the distrust of the political boss existed then as much as now, and his methods were no less objectionable.

I hear of so many fickle and timid friends as almost to make me sorry that I have ever attempted to organise a party to save my country." Letter of W.H.

I would sooner have an honest man on any sort of a rickety platform you could construct than to have a man I did not trust on the best platform which could be made." This stung Douglas.