I received yesterday your very kind and interesting letter of the 6th Inst. The condition of things at Washington certainly bodes no good to the future wellbeing of that great political party to which we have always belonged and upon the ascendancy of which ^while it retain'd its past purity^, I am every day more and more convinced depends the maintenance of the Republican principle in the Country ^America^.

The Whig Saturnalia of 1840 has well nigh disorganized political Society in New York the uStates & will I greatly fear, if repeated in all its deformity, result in the permanent overthrow of the Representative character system, by undermining all just respect on the part of their agents for the will of the people. That our own good party should have been entirely untouched by its blighting influence was, ^hardly^ to be expected. At such a moment it is certainly most fitting that our anxiety should be principally if not exclusively of a public character. But I would not do justice to my own feelings, were I to conceal from you how deeply I have regreted the repeated mortifications to which your Situation must have exposed you. I have myself passed through too many such scenes not to know be sensible of the extent to which the operation of Sinister influencas upon Some & the timidity of others may be made to rack the nerves of the coolest and firmest of men: Your letter by the spirit it breathes has relieved me greatly on this point. The ground taken in my Texan Letter will in the end be amply justified by a vast majority of our Countrymen, and is in my confirmed conviction, ^is^ also the only one by which the country can be carried in Safety through present & future difficulties. Let us therefore my dear Sir, when thother others will bear & forebear or do neither, pursue steadily and undismayed the path of duty. The final judgments of the American people are always based on truth & justice & he who deserves it is sure to receive their approbation in the end. If it has been for a moment supposed in any quarter that I was possessed of that prurient love of office which too often induces its victims to take up & lay down opinions upon public questions as may be most likely to advance their own narrow & selfish views, the occasion on which they are undeceived can ^not^ be of too trying or too solemn a character. Be you then assured, as I am very confident you will be, that I should do my duty to the Democratic Cause & party to the very last; and with the blessing of Providence, ^am^ In no danger of being betrayed into any weakness by which I might be led to compromise those high obligations. We never have desired, and are wholly incapable of desiring in respect to the Presidential Question any other thing than an honest and unbiased expression of the wishes of the Simple hearted Democracy of the Country. To you at last no assurances are necessary to satisfy you that regarded as a mere personal matter, nothing can arise from the present crisis that would occasion me the Slightest inquietude or regret <but> no act by which those wishes are ^to be^ overthrown and defeated can receive either aid or Sanction at my hands.