POLITICAL. TO ADONIJAH MOODY, ESQ. ALBANY, November 7, 1889. MY DEAR SIR: Your very kind letter inviting me to meet the whigs of this city at your house this evening, has been received. I return you and them, my grateful acknowledgments for the invitation. Since my election to the office I have the honor to hold, I have been invited on several occasions, to meet assemblies of my fellow-citizens, with whose political opinions my own coincided, and on others to accept hospitalities tendered to me by those who were disposed to judge favorably of my public conduct. I have, in all instances, declined such invitations, for reasons which I will state with frankness. I have always believed that, the chief-magistrate of the state ought to exercise his trust for the welfare and happiness of the whole people, and that he could not, without giving to a portion of his constituents cause of just offence, mingle in the partisan controversies of the times. I think those by whose suffrages I occupy that high trust, would not willingly see me depart from the rule I have pursued. Entertaining these opinions, I am obliged to ask the gentlemen who are to assemble at your house, to excuse me from accepting their invitation. I pray you to present to them the assurance of my high respect for them personally, as well as for their patriotic devotion to the true interests of the country. With sincere respect and esteem, I remain your friend and obedient servant. TO H. C. W. ESQ., NEW YORK. ALBANY, March, 25, 1840. DEAR SIR: Your letter of the 19th was duly received, and I return you my grateful acknowledgments for the frankness with which your views are therein expressed. I regret to find a dif ference of opinion among excellent friends, on the subjects discussed in your communication. I can not, however, in justice to myself, suffer any suitable occasion to pass without correcting an error concerning myself, into which many others, as well as yourself, have fallen. You remark that, "even to a partial observer, it can not be disguised, that we, as a party, have been practising efforts to secure the votes of the Irish," and your subsequent explanations show that, I am supposed to be concerned in these "practices." Now, my dear sir, I am not at all sensitive about misconstruction of my principles and conduct when it is made in the press, or even in the conversation of my own friends. To be misrepresented by one's opponents, and to be misunderstood by one's friends, is inevitable by those in public service. But it is quite another affair when one is obliged to answer, or be understood as tacitly admitting the truth of the injurious misconstruction. I "practise" nothing, and furthest from my thoughts or designs is it to "practise" in the matter in question. The sentiments I have expressed in relation to foreigners may be erroneous, they are not insincere. And for proof, you have my assurance that, although I have been for several years in political life, no different sentiments have ever been expressed by me, but, on the contrary, on all occasions, both here and in letters from Ireland, when at least I could have had no ambitious purposes, or political schemes, I published the same and kindred opinions. And you have, for further proof, my assurance, that now, on review of every word I have written or spoken, there is not one, which, under the influence of a sense of official responsibility, I would consent to obliterate. After what I have said, you will naturally expect that I shall differ from you, in regard to the opinions you give concerning this class of adopted citizens. I do not agree, "that the lower order of Irish are incapable of being persuaded by reason." I do not think that "they have been placed by the Divine Omnipotent in the lowest scale of creation." I offer neither that Divine Being the indignity, nor this abused people the injustice of believing that their minds are "less susceptible" than those of other men, or that he "has instilled into them narrow, selfish, besotted feelings of bigotry, which no course of instruction could even sway." I do not think them "ungrateful." I do not think them impatient of moral restraint, immovable by patriotic considerations. I do not think them "deaf to persuasion," and requiring to be "ruled by a rod of iron," nor do I think them "exacting and discontented under kind and gentle treatment." Quite the contrary of all this, I think all men, of all nations, and kindred, alike endowed with reasoning powers, which enable them to defend themselves against danger and injustice, to seek their own happiness, and to improve their condition. I think that the Irish population to whom you allude, are useful, wellmeaning, and as a mass, inoffensive, and religiously-disposed citizens. I think them more generous, liberal, and disinterested, than most other classes of the community, reposing more than others upon the consolation of their religion, and less disposed to force its tenets upon others. I think them eminently and proverbially grateful, confiding, and devoted. I believe the institutions of their adopted country are as dear to them as to us, who are native citizens. I believe all mankind are made by the Creator of men to be restless under oppression, and to submit kindly to necessary government, only when the powers of government are conferred by themselves, and even then, only when those powers are exercised beneficently. I believe the history of the Irish people shows, that their loyalty has continued faithful under greater exaction, oppression, and privation, than would have wrought any other people up to frenzy. I believe them less exacting of this government than any other portion of our popu lation. If this confession of faith seem strange to you, you will permit |