60. LETTER LX.
PRIVATE LETTER TO MAJOR JACK DOWNING.
Post-Office, Downingville, }
State of Maine, June 30, 1848.
Dear Nephew:—Bein' our army is about breakin' up in Mexico
and coming home, I thought the best chance to get a letto
you would be to get your old friends, Mr. Gales and Seaton,
to send it on that way, and maybe it might come across you
somewhere on the road, if you are still in the land of the
living. Your Aunt Keziah is in a great worriment about
you, and is very much frightened for fear somethin' has happened,
because we haven't heard nothin' from you since your
last letter. I try to pacify her, and tell her the fighting was
all over, and nothin' to do but to finish up the court-martial
the last time you writ, and that there isn't agoing to be no
more annexin' till Mr. Cass comes in President, and you'll soon
be along. But all won't pacify her; she's as uneasy as a fish
out of water, and says she lays awake half the night thinking
of them garillas, for fear they've got hold of you. So I hope
you'll write home as soon as possible, and let us know whether
you are dead or alive, and set your Aunt Keziah's heart to rest.
For my part, I hope you will hurry along back as fast as
you can. Our politics is very much mixed up and in a bad
way about the Presidency. It would puzzle a Philadelphy
lawyer to tell how it's comin' out. It was a very unlucky hit
when President Polk sent Old Zack Taylor down to Mexico.
He wasn't the right man. But, then, I s'pose Mr. Polk had no
idea of what sort of a chap he had got hold of. It can't be
helped now, but it's like to be the ruin of our party. The
Democratic party haint seen a well day since Taylor first begun
his Pally Alto battles; and now we are all shiverin' as
bad as if we had the fever and agay. I don't know, after all,
but this annexin' Mexico will turn out to be an unlucky blow
to the party; for what will it profit the Democratic party if
they gain the whole world and lose the Presidency? Ye see,
the Whigs have put up Taylor for President; and it has completely
knocked us all into a cocked hat. There isn't one-half
of us that knows where we stan' or which way we are
goin'; and there isn't a party fence in the country that is high
enough to keep our folks from jumping over. They are getting
kind of crazy, and seem to feel as if Old Hickory had got back
again, and they was all running to vote for him. The Whigs
laugh and poke fun at us, and say they have got as good a
right to have a Hickory as we Democrats have. We put up
Gineral Cass first, and thought we should carry it all hollow;
for he's a strong man, and took a good deal of pains to make
the party like him all over the country. And if the Whigs
had done as they ought to, and put up Clay, or any one they
had a right to put up, we should a carried the day without
any trouble. But the conduct of the Whigs has been shameful
in this business. Instead of taking a man that fairly belonged
to 'em, they have grabbed hold of a man that got all
his popularity out of our war, and was under the pay of our
Administration, and has been made and built up by our party,
and the Whigs had no more business with him than they had
with the man in the moon. But, for all that, the Whigs had
the impudence to nominate him. Well, that riled our water
all up, so we couldn't see bottom nowhere. But we soon found
there was a shiftin' and whirlin' of currents, and the wind and
the tide was settin' us on to the rocks in spite of us. We soon
see that old Rough and Ready, as they call him, was going to
be too much for Cass. But, as we was all making up our
[ILLUSTRATION]RACE FOR THE PRESIDENCY -- OLD ZACK AHEAD.
[Description: 688EAF. Page 307. In-line image. A political cartoon about the presidential race. The presidential hopefuls are portrayed as being horses that are being driven in a race against one another. One jockey holds a banner that says "Dry up" while another flys a banner which says "Hurra for Taylor."]
mind that it was gone goose with us, Mr. John Van Buren, of
York State—he's a smart feller, a son of President Van Buren,
and a chip of the old block—he sings out: “Don't give up
the ship yet; if one hoss an't enough to draw the load, hitch
on another. There's father, he'll draw like a two-year-old.”
Well, the idea seemed to take; and they stirred round and
got up another Convention at Utica, in York State, to see who
they should put up, and they all pitched upon President Van
Buren. Mr. Van Buren patted them on the shoulder, and told
'em to have good courage and go ahead, for they was on the
right track, but they must hitch on somebody else besides
him, for he had made up his mind four years ago not to take
hold again. But they stuck to him with tears in their eyes,
and told him there wasn't another man in the country that
could draw like him alongside of Cass, and if he still had any
patriotism for the party left he musn't say no. And they
worked upon his feelin's so much that at last he didn't say no.
So now we've got two candidates, Cass and Van Buren, and
good strong ones, too, both of 'em; and if we can't whip Taylor,
I think it's a pity. I know as well as I want to know
that we shall give him a pesky hard tug. Some are afraid we
an't hardly strong enough yet, and they've called another convention,
to meet in Buffalo the 9th of August, to put up
another candidate. But others are faint-hearted about it, and
say it's all no kind of use; we may put up twenty candidates,
and Taylor will whip the whole lot; it's a way he has;
he always did just so in Mexico. If they brought twenty to
one agin' him, it made no odds; he whipt the whole ring,
from Pally Alto to Bona Vista.
So you see what sort of a pickle we're in, and how much
we need your help jest now. But there's one thing on my
mind pretty strong: You know this appointment in the Downingville
Post-Office, that you got Gineral Jackson to give me,
has always been a great comfort to me, and it would be a sad
blow to me to lose it now in my old age. I wish you would
make it in your way to call and see Gineral Taylor as you
come along home, and try to find out how he feels toward me;
because, if he is to be elected anyhow, I can't see any use
there would be in my biting my own nose off for the sake of
opposing his election. And I don't think that patriotism to
the party requires it; and I'm sure prudence don't.
When you get to Washington, call and see Mr. Ritchie, and
try to comfort him; I'm told the dear old gentleman is workin'
too hard for his strength—out a nights in the rain, with a
lantern in his hand, heading the campaign. Try to persuade
him to be calm and take good care of himself. And be sure
and ask him how the Federals are goin' this election, for we
can't find out anything about it down here. I used to know
how to keep the run of the Federals, but now there is so many
parties—the Democrats, and the Whigs, and Hunkers, and
Barnburners, and Abolition folks, and Proviso folks—all criss-crossin'
one another, that I have my match to keep the run of
'em. But your Aunt Keziah says the clock has struck, and
I must close the mail. So I remain your loving uncle,
