, August 23, 1848.

_My Dear Sir:_

I am greatly obliged to you, for your kind and friendly letter.
You overrate, I am sure, the value of my speech, it was quite
unpremeditated and its merit, if any, consists I presume in
its directness and brevity. It mortified me to see that some
of the newspaper writers speak of it as the "taking of a position";
as if it contained something new for me to say. You are not
one of them, my dear sir, but there are those who will not
believe that I am an anti-slavery man unless I repeat the
declaration once a week. I expect they will soon require
a periodical affidavit. You know, that as early as 1830 in
my speech on Foote's resolution, I drew upon me the anger
of enemies, and a regret of friends by what I said against
slavery, and I hope that from that day to this my conduct
has been consistent. But nobody seems to be esteemed to be
worthy of confidence who is not a new convert. And if the
new convert be as yet but half converted, so much the better.
This I confess a little tries one's patience. But I can assure
you in my own case, it will not either change my principles
or my conduct.

It is utterly impossible for me to support the Buffalo nomination.
I have no confidence in Mr. Van Buren, not the slightest.
I would much rather trust General Taylor than Mr. Van Buren
even on this very question of slavery, for I believe that
General Taylor is an honest man and I am sure he is not so
much committed on the wrong side, as I know Mr. Van Buren
to have been for fifteen years. I cannot concur even with
my best friends in giving the lead in a great question to
a notorious opponent to the cause. Besides; there are other
great interests of the country in which you and I hold Mr.
Van Buren to be essentially wrong, and it seems to me that
in consenting to form a party under him Whigs must consent
to bottom their party on one idea only, and also to adopt
as the representative of that idea a head chosen on a strange
emergency from among its steadiest opposers. It gives me
pain to differ from Whig friends whom I know to be as much
attached to universal liberty as I am, and they cannot be
more so. I am grieved particularly to be obliged to differ
in anything from yourself and your excellent father, for both
of whom I have cherished such long and affectionate regards.
But I cannot see it to be my duty to join in a secession from
the Whig Party for the purpose of putting Mr. Van Buren