The following brief letter from Mr. Clay, at a later date, in allusion to the same period, is similar in sentiment. It was written while the great orator and statesman was suffering under his last illness, and but about three months before his death.

"My Dear Sir:

"WASHINGTON, March 3, 1852.

"I duly received your acceptable letter, expressing the sympathy of yourself and family on account of my present illness. Although perhaps a little improved in my health, there is no such radical change as to assure me with confidence of my final recovery. I hope your lady and daughter were benefited by their journey to the South last winter, and that they are in the enjoyment of good health.

"With many recollections of our friendly intercourse and of our mutual coöperations on a great occasion in the councils of our country, and with ardent hopes that your able, patriotic, and disinterested services may be remembered and rewarded by the country, I am faithfully your friend and obedient servant, "H. CLAY.

"To the HON. DANIEL S. DICKINSON."

In 1852 Mr. Dickinson was again a member of the Democratic National Convention which met at Baltimore. The first four days of the sitting, the convention failed to make a nomination. On assembling and resuming balloting the fifth day, the Virginia delegation brought forward his name and gave him the vote of that State for the presidency; but having accepted a scat in the convention as the friend and supporter of General Cass, whose name then stood at a hundred or upward in the balloting, he judged that he could not in honor even silently acquiesce in being himself made a candidate. He accordingly immediately rose in the convention, and amid a scene of great enthusiasm declined the proffered honor; though many of his friends and of the sound Democracy of the country regretted his decision, and have regretted it more and more as events in the history of the party and the country progressed. On the next ballot, Virginia, whose voice was then potential, brought forward in the same manner the name of General Pierce, and he was nominated and elected. From this occurrence it has been often said, and probably truly, that

Mr. Dickinson is the only man, hitherto, who has had the presidency within his reach, and declined it.

In 1853 he was appointed to the valuable and important office of Collector of the port of New York, but declined the appointment. From the expiration of his senatorial term, up to the breaking out of the Rebellion in the spring of 1861, he was devoted mainly to his professional business and home pursuits, and mingled less in political affairs; though in the presidential campaigns of 1852 and 1856 he supported the Democratic nominees upon the stump, in his own and n some of the other States.

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Preceding the campaign of 1860, his name became prominently connected with the presidency for the next term. He was probably more generally and favorably spoken of, through the press and other organs of public and individual expression, in all sections of the Union, as the Democratic candidate, than any other person. The division and breaking up of the Democratic National Convention at Charleston, its adjournment to Baltimore, and final failure to make a united nomination, are facts well known; but the real history of that convention has not yet appeared, though it has been written of its aspects, that of ultimate results, in the best blood of the country and in widows' and orphans' tears. In the canvass Mr. Dickinson supported Mr. Breckinridge, who was then (though afterwards falling under the cloud and taint of rebellion and treason) unimpeached in his character as a friend of the country and the Union; but upon the failure of the Democratic National Convention to agree upon a candidate, he considered the field as virtually surrendered to the Republicans; and he did not favor the plan adopted in New York of making a combination electoral ticket, to be supported by the friends of all the anti-Republican candidates, however much they might differ upon matters of principle and policy; as he believed it unworthy of success, and equally unworthy

of men entertaining either political principles or personal pref erences. After the election of Mr. Lincoln, and as the national political affairs began to assume a serious and threatening aspect, he exerted himself earnestly to avert the impending catastrophe. His letter to Messrs. Mason and Hunter of Virginia, in January, 1861,-really designed for the government and people of Virginia,—to awaken in them impulses corresponding with his own, and to lead to explanations and adjustments between sections, as well as leading individuals, was one of these efforts. But most unfortunately, his and all other endeavors in that direction failed of success, and the country was given over to be rent and scourged by the demon of civil war.

The first rebel gun fired at Sumter aroused anew all his love for the Union and awakened all his energy to meet the crisis. He was among the earliest of those who comprehended the situation and came to the support of the government, though the Administration was not of his party nor of his choice. He advocated from the first the most ample preparations and the thorough employment of the material strength of the nation, to combat by every means, and to put down at any cost, the head and front of armed treason;-avowing his determination to sink party preferences and every other consideration in those of saving the Union, maintaining the government and vindicating the national flag and the integrity of the national territory. He made the opening speech from the principal stand in front of the Washington Monument in Union Square, at the great Mass Meeting in New York, April 20, 1861, which pioneered the uprising of the North; and from that time onward, through the whole of the efforts for raising volunteers and means for the defence and support of the government, devoted himself unsparingly to the work; speaking day after day, frequently twice on the same day, with great popular effect, to large assemblies of the people in many of the counties of southern,

central and western New York; in New England, New Jer sey, Pennsylvania and several of the Western States, and through the press to the people of the whole Union. Some of the best efforts of his life were produced in this patriotic work. His speeches, though so numerous, and following each other in such quick succession, were characterized by wonderful variety; each possessing in a large degree the freshness, originality and force of a new production. While rallying his fellow citizens, of all classes, to the support of the government, he took decided ground against keeping up party divisions; exhorting all loyal men, of whatever party, and especially all true Democrats, to come to the aid of the Administration, as the only agency available for national action in such a crisis, waiving all political distinctions and differences until the vastly paramount question of saving the country could be determined. The earnestness and force of his appeals, and his conspicuous example, were prominent among the causes which produced the wonderful unanimity at the North through the first year of the rebellion. Millions blessed his efforts. Loyalty and patriotic endeavor were strengthened and encouraged; faction and party spirit, abashed, retired from the scene, to crawl from their hiding places at a later day, when the delays, disappointments, mistakes and burdens of the war should render the cause of the Country more exposed to their insidious and baleful influences.

Among the many and varied commendations of his course at this time, the following, from the Rev. Dr. Sprague, of Albany, is especially worthy of record here, as a beautiful tribute to his unselfish devotion to the cause of the country, from a Source entirely removed from the influence of partisan politics; and as being in. itself an expression of exalted patriotism, worthy alike of the eminent writer and of the recipient :ALBANY, 6 Sept., 1861.

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"My Dear Sir: "I have been wishing for some time to write and thank you for the noble efforts which you have been putting forth in behalf of our distracted, riven, but

still glorious country. I am myself no politician, having never cast a political vote in my life; but my whole soul is in the present conflict, and I have ne language to express my views and feelings so well as that which is supplied by your recent speeches. That you, who have been a politician all your life, should now so entirely merge the partisan in the patriot, and should forget all mincr considerations in a heroic devotion to our great national interests (pardon me for saying it), will not only secure you the gratitude and reverence of all your loyal contemporaries, but will cause your name to be embalmed in the nation's inmost heart. I thank God for having raised you up to do this great work; and I thank you that you are doing it so heartily, honorably, and effectively. I am quite aware that I have no right to occupy you even for a moment, especially, as I am not sure that you will remember even to have ever seen me; but I could not help obeying the impulse to write what I have done, not doubting that you will excuse me on the ground that,

"I am yours with great regard,

and in the fellowship of a glowing patriotism

"HON. D. S. DICKINSON."

"W. B. SPRAGUE.

He also participated actively in raising troops for the war, in his vicinity, from which its full proportion was despatched. One Regiment, the 89th N. Y. Volunteers, raised under authority granted to him from the War Department, was named in his honor, "The Dickinson Guard," to which he presented a stand of colors. A battery raised at Binghamton and vicinity, under command of Capt. Lock, also bore his name, given in compliment to his services in the cause of the country.

The political campaign of 1861 in New York, took shape in the formation of a Union party, upon the sole issue of the support of the government in carrying on the war for maintaining the Union and putting down the Rebellion, in which the great majority of all parties joined. For once country overcame party. A fraction of the Democratic party, however, or rather the old clique of party leaders who controlled and in good part constituted the State Committee, refused to accede to the Union movement, and took measures to place a party nomination in the field. Only State officers, not including Governor and Lieutenant Governor, were to be chosen. The Union State Convention, one of the largest, most respectable and patriotic