This gentleman, an able lawyer of East Tennessee, a member of the Presbyterian Church, and a member of the American party, was nominated an Elector for the State of Tennessee at large, by the American State Convention at Nashville, in February last. Though an ardent American a great friend of Mr. Fillmore and a member of the late Philadelphia Convention, and aided in the nomination of Maj. Donelson, he has been reluctantly compelled to decline the position of Elector. Under date of May 30, 1856, he addressed a letter of nine columns, of great force and ability, to Messrs. A. W. Johnson, Robert C. Foster, 3d., John H. Callender, William N. Bilbo, Sam’l. Pritchett, and E. D. Farnsworth, State Executive Committee of the American Party, Nashville, Tennessee, declining the position. Although we regret his inability to serve, as do the whole party in this State, yet, if his letter could be placed in the hands of every voter in the State, we would be willing to risk the contest without further discussion. Such is our estimate of this document. For the benefit of “Old Line Whigs,” and such Democrats as are disposed to excuse and apologise for Romanism, we give the four concluding columns of this letter. The five preceding columns are mainly occupied with an outline and defence of the action of the Philadelphia Nominating Convention, and a discussion of the slavery question questions we had discussed in this work before this document came to hand. Mr. Nelson concludes thus:

“The Foreigners and Catholics were directly appealed to in the Presidential elections of 1848 and 1852. Who does not remember that, immediately preceding the election in 1844, fraudulent naturalization papers were manufactured in New York? Who has forgotten the Plaquemines fraud in Louisiana? Who has not heard of the abuse of Mr. Frelinghuysen for no other cause than that he was the President of the American Bible Society?

“But, without dwelling upon other illustrations, look to the
Democratic platform of 1852, and read the 8th section of the
third resolution, which is in the following words:

“’That the liberal principles embodied by Jefferson in the Declaration of Independence and sanctioned in the Constitution, which makes ours the land of liberty and the asylum of the oppressed of every nation, have ever been cardinal principles in the Democratic faith, and every attempt to abridge the present privilege of becoming citizens and the owners of soil among us, ought to be resisted with the same spirit which swept the alien and sedition laws from our statute books.’

“During the last election in Tennessee, it was often said by Democrats that they were just as much opposed to the immigration of foreign criminals and paupers as members of the American party, but would not attach themselves to the latter because of their objections to its organization. But the Democratic Platform of 1852 contains no exception against criminals and paupers. The naturalization laws have, in practice, been found inadequate to their exclusion, and the platform, in effect, avows unqualified adherence to them without abridgement or modification.

“These laws are, in substance, declared to have ’ever been cardinal principles in the Democratic faith.’ By its own avowal, the Democratic party is responsible for giving encouragement to the whole policy of foreign immigration. If that policy has flooded the country with criminals and paupers; if it has produced riots and bloodshed in our large cities; if it has endangered the religious as well as the civil liberty of Protestants; if it has swelled the ranks of Abolition and fanned the flame of Agitation the Democratic party, by its own avowal, is amenable at the bar of public opinion for these astounding and deplorable results. Reckless of consequences, it has persevered in a system hazardous to the stability of our institutions, because that system has annually swelled the number of its adherents, and increased the chances of its perpetual ascendency.

“Without adverting to the census tables, or repeating those familiar facts connected with the statistics of immigration which have been so extensively published, it is sufficient to observe that, under this continued patronage of the Democratic party, the immigration of foreigners has increased from a few thousands, twenty years ago, to nearly half a million in 1854.

“But the Democratic party cannot justly claim the exclusive honor of projecting or carrying out the system. More than twenty years ago, the Duke of Richmond declared, in substance, that he had conversed with most of the sovereigns and princes of Europe; that they were jealous of the influence of our republican institutions upon their own Government; that they did not expect to conquer us as a nation, but designed the subversion of our Government by the introduction of the low and surplus population of Europe among us; that ’discord, dissension, anarchy, and civil war would ensue, and some popular individual would assume the government and restore order, and the sovereigns of Europe, the emigrants, and many of the natives, would sustain him.’ He also said, in speaking of the United States, that ’the Church of Rome has a design upon that country, and it will, in time, be the established religion, and will aid in the destruction of that republic.’

“These statements of the Duke of Richmond are abundantly
corroborated by other declarations, as well as the most
undeniable facts which have occurred since their promulgation.

“I have in my possession, among various others, two small books published by ‘the American and Foreign Christian Union,’ 156 Chambers street, New York, the one entitled ’Foreign Conspiracy,’ the other, ‘Startling Facts,’ both of which, as I infer from their contents, were written in the year 1834, long before the American party had an existence. The work entitled ‘Foreign Conspiracy’ is composed of a series of articles originally published, over the signature of Brutus, in the New York Observer. They now appear with the name of the author, SAMUEL F. B. MORSE. His object in writing the work was to arouse public attention to the efforts then being made in Europe to propagate the Catholic religion in the United States, and to show its danger to our republican institutions. He traces the origin of the Leopold Foundation in Austria, under the especial patronage of the Emperor at Vienna on the 12th May, 1829, and shows that one of its leading objects was ’to promote the greater activity of Catholic missions in America.’

“The letter of Prince Metternich to Bishop Fenwich, of Cincinnati, under date, Vienna, April 27, 1830, is set out at length; and, in that letter, the Prince informs the Bishop, among other things, that the Emperor ’allows his people to contribute to the support of the Catholic Church in America.’ Numerous quotations are made from the letters of Foreign Bishops in the United States to their patrons at home, and, among the rest, is the following statement, made by one of them, in regard to the people of the United States: ’We entreat all European Christians to unite in prayer to God for the conversion of these unhappy heathen and obstinate heretics.’ But, forbearing to multiply quotations from this little work, admirable in most of its positions, my main object, in citing it, was to make the following extract, of the preface, taken by the author from the lectures of the celebrated Frederick Schlegel, delivered at Vienna in 1828, where that distinguished foreigner says, ’The true nursery of all these destructive principles, the revolutionary school for France and the rest of Europe, has been North America. Thence the evil has spread over many other lands, either by national contagion or by arbitrary communication;’ and also the following quotation, from Mr. Morse’s book: ’Austria, one of the Holy Alliance of sovereigns, leagued against the liberties of the world, has the superintendence of the operations of Popery in this country.’

“In the tract entitled ’Startling Facts for American Protestants,’ written in the year 1834, by REV. HERMAN NORTON, Corresponding Secretary of the American Protestant Society, an account is given of a London pamphlet entitled ‘New Plan of Emigration,’ the production of a Roman Catholic gentleman, a London Banker; in which a project for occupying the North Western States with the Roman Catholic population of Europe, is unfolded, together with a map of the country, and, among other things, it is said: ’The first settlements should be made in those fertile prairie districts situated on the southern sides of the Canadian lakes, where slavery is unknown. The objects of this society, as set forth in this pamphlet, are stated to be,

“’1. To provide the means for colonizing the surplus Roman
Catholic population of Europe in our Western States.

“’2. To do this in such a way as to create a large demand for
articles of British manufacture.

“’3. To make Romanism the predominant religion of this
country.’

“The census tables will show that, since these plans were set on foot, in England and in Europe, to break down our government, there has been an astonishing increase in the foreign immigration to this country. Great as it was prior to the Revolutions in Europe in 1848, it has been amazingly augmented since that time. Millions of foreign money have been collected in Europe and expended since the organization of the society for the propagation of the faith, at Lyons in France, about the year 1822, in the United States. While an Austrian Emperor has had the charge, in a good degree, of the propagation of the Catholic religion in the United States, the public authorities in various parts of Europe have defrayed the expenses of their criminals and paupers to this country, as was clearly shown by Congressional investigations.

“What do these facts prove? Why, that the declaration of the Duke of Richmond, that the crowned heads of Europe intended to subvert our government, was true. What more do they prove? Why, that the effort to establish the Catholic religion in this country has, for more than twenty years, been conducted with steady perseverance, until the Catholics, who, in 1850, were more numerous, as the census compendium shows, than any one denomination of Methodists, are now no doubt stronger than all the Methodists put together, and stronger than any other denomination of Protestants.

“While these publications have been before the American people for more than twenty years, Democratic leaders have received, with open arms, the swarms of foreigners who have settled upon our shores. What care they for the slavery question, when they have seen this foreign immigration, according to the plan concerted in England, settling in the non-slaveholding States, and every year increasing the Abolition power? What care they for the Protestant religion, if the Catholics can only give them the numerical strength at the ballot-box? What regard have they for the preservation of our liberties, when European despots are seeking to undermine them, if those despots only send such myrmidons as will shout hosannas to Democracy and drive from the polls peaceful American citizens who oppose them? Is the preservation of the Union a matter of any consequence to them? Do they not in vision behold its scattered fragments and contemplate new confederacies, with hosts of new offices and millions of spoil?

“Can any one doubt that the Democratic party is in league with all the dangerous elements that have disturbed and are continuing to disturb our once peaceful and happy country, and that they stickle at nothing when votes are at stake?

“Look to their conduct in running Mr. Polk as a tariff man in the North, and an anti-tariff man in the South! Look to the two lives of Cass. Look to their equivocal position as to slavery and the Union. Look to their appeals to foreigners and Catholics by name in the elections of 1844 and 1852, and probably in 1848. Look to their alliance with Free Germans and Fourierites, Free Soilers and Secessionists. And, above all, look to the miserable cant with which they raise the hue and cry of persecution in favor of the Catholics, and, indirectly, deny to Protestant ministers the right to make war upon a huge corporation, calling itself a church, dealing in human souls, reeking with the blood of martyrs, and begrimed with more than ten centuries of oppression.

“No wonder that they have vilified and denounced the American party with every term of opprobrium that our vocabulary can furnish. No wonder they talk of dark lanterns and secret oaths and midnight assemblies. No wonder that they strive to frighten their followers with the notion that the American party is a raw-head and bloody bones, which should be shunned and avoided. For, if honest men of that party will only take the trouble to shake off the control of their leaders: to think, examine, to read, reflect, and act for themselves, there are thousands of Democrats in the South who would scorn, like the American party, an alliance with Abolitionists, and there are tens of thousands of Protestant Union-loving Democrats everywhere, who have only confided in, to be deceived and betrayed by, their leaders, and, if they discover, as it is hoped they will, that they have brought them to the crumbling verge of an awful precipice, they have patriotism enough and Protestantism enough to break away from them rather than make the awful plunge.

“I regret that I am admonished by the length to which I have extended this communication, that I cannot now discuss the Catholic question, as I had hoped to do at the outset, and I shall present only a few disjointed remarks in connection with it.

“The American party does not seek to impose any religious test such as prevailed in the reign of Charles II., when two thousand Non-conformist ministers were driven from their pulpits, or such, as in the same reign, was imposed upon Roman Catholics and continued from 1673 to 1828. The American party does not propose that any religious test, of any kind, shall be imposed by law, upon any person whatever, but it does seek to organize a public sentiment on the Catholic question, just in the same mode that, in times past, parties have sought to organize public sentiment upon the tariff question the bank question the internal improvement question the temperance question, and every other question which has been the subject of difference. If it is lawful to say, I will not vote for you because you are a Whig, it is equally lawful to say I will not vote for you because you are a foreigner. If it is lawful to say, I will not vote for you because you are a Democrat, it is equally lawful to say, I will not vote for you because you are a Catholic.

“Neither does the American party propose, in the slightest degree, to interfere with any of the rights secured to Roman Catholics, in common with others, by the Constitution. If they choose to worship a great DOLL as the Virgin Mary to burn tall wax-candles in daylight to pray to God in an unknown tongue to believe that a simple wafer is the actual body, and common wine the very blood of our Saviour to enforce the celibacy of the clergy to worship the host to believe that old toe-nails and pieces of wood are precious relics to prevent their people from reading the Bible to refuse to send their children to Protestant schools to retain the confessional and the nunnery to pin their faith to unauthenticated traditions to assert that theirs is the only true Church, and to perpetrate a thousand ridiculous mummeries the members of the American party with one accord will say, molest them not, disturb them not, trouble them not; the religious privileges of this country are as free to them as they are to us, and we will not, by law or by violence, interrupt or interfere with them in the slightest degree. But knowing that the Catholic Church was for a thousand years allied to the State; that it claimed dominion, in temporal as well as spiritual affairs, over the kings of the earth; that it regards the Pope as the Vicegerent of the Almighty; that he wears the tiara as the symbol of his power in heaven, earth, and hell; that Romanists treat all other professions as heretics; that its Archbishops, Bishops and Priests are sworn to persecute all who differ with them; that the persecuting spirit of that Church has been displayed, for centuries, in the most odious acts of cruelty as well as the most despotic tyranny that ever cursed the earth; that fire and faggot, confiscation and torture have been its favorite weapons; that no age, or sex or condition has been exempt from its inhuman butcheries and demoniac lusts; that it exterminated the Albigenses and Waldenses; that it caused the gutters of Paris to run with human blood on St. Bartholomew’s day; that it lighted the fires of Smithfield; that through the instrumentality of Tyrconnel and Catholic and Irish Rappadees, it perpetrated the inhuman atrocities of the Irish Massacres; that, it drove the Huguenots from France, and the Puritans from England; that it has delighted in the chains and dungeons of the Inquisition, and shouted, with fiendish exultation, at the cries and groans of the victims in the auto da fe; that no republican government has ever flourished under its sway; that it regards ignorance as the mother of devotion, and denies the obligation of an oath; that it gave rise to the Order of Jesuits, the most detestable sect that the earth has ever seen; that, in the midst of the blaze of the nineteenth century, it has burned the Bible in America and imprisoned men and women in Europe for no other offence than that of reading it; that, abusing the freedom of the press and speech secured in the United States, it unblushingly avows that all Protestantism is heresy that it is a crime and punished in Christian countries like Spain and Italy as a crime; that it has banished the Bible from Protestant schools, when under its control; that it has intermeddled in political elections, and is struggling for political power; that it wears a mask and claims to be harmless in this country for present effect, although it has never renounced one of its dogmas in any authoritative mode; that it is typified, in the Bible, as the Man of Sin and the Great Whore of Babylon; that it comes to us as an angel of light, but is allied with the Prince of Darkness: knowing all these things, and believing that the Roman Catholic Church, now that it is covered with the broad wings of Modern Democracy, partakes of its meat and is pampered by its patronage, is, infinitely, the most dangerous political power with which the people of the United States have ever been compelled to grapple, the American party invites all who love national liberty more than Democracy; who prefer civil and religious freedom to the spoils of office; who revere the memory of Tyndale, Luther, and Calvin; of Cranmer, Latimer, and Ridley; of the seven Bishops; of Fox; of the Puritan fathers; of Wesley and Hall; of the Reformers and Protestants of every name, and, more than all, of our revolutionary ancestors, to burst the fetters of party and come to the rescue of their bleeding country, bleeding at every pore from wounds inflicted by Democratic hands, amidst the jeers of European despots, the shouts of foreigners in our midst, and the taunts and sneers of Catholics and Jesuits all around us!

“Let not Protestant ministers be intimidated by the impudent assaults of a venal press, or the fierce denunciations of infuriated politicians, from doing their whole duty in the pulpit and at the polls. No Presbyterian has ever denied to a Methodist the right to question his religious faith, and no Methodist will dispute the right of other denominations to impugn his creed. Methodists have assailed the Presbyterian doctrine of election. Presbyterians, in turn, have assailed their ideas of perfection and falling from grace. Both have controverted the Baptists’ views of immersion, and all have denied the Episcopalians’ doctrine of apostolic succession. These and many other points of difference have, from the foundation of our government, often been the subjects of earnest, protracted, and excited discussion; but when did any American Protestant ever deny to another American Protestant the constitutional right to differ with him in opinion, and to express that difference through the press, in the pulpit, or any other constitutional mode? Yet, it has been reserved for Democratic presses to attempt, for electioneering purposes, to curb the free spirit of Protestant ministers: to denounce them as “REVEREND HYPOCRITES;” and, when beholding at home and abroad, on the land and on the sea, among Christians and Pagans, in the halls of legislation, in churches and schools, in free speech, and in a free press, and in ten thousand other forms, the magnificent and glorious results of the Reformation, to ask, with impudent assurance, ’WHAT HAS PROTESTANTISM DONE FOR THE WORLD?’ Not satisfied with the storm of execration which such an infamous interrogatory produced, the Nashville Union and American, the leading Democratic paper in Tennessee, in a very abusive article entitled ’What has it accomplished?’ under date of April 26, 1856, thus speaks, among other things, of what he styles ’the Know Nothing Organization:’

“’It has done more than this: it has gone into the Church and CONVERTED THE PULPIT INTO A POLITICAL ROSTRUM it has turned the attention of the ministry from THE PEACEFUL PATHS OF CHRISTIANITY TO THE ARENA OF POLITICAL TURMOIL it has pulled down the banner of the Cross, and placed in its stead THE RED FLAG OF INTOLERANCE AND PROSCRIPTION.’

“While Protestant ministers, in the enjoyment of the rights secured to them by the Constitution, have, as before stated, often engaged in controversies with each other as to their differences in matters of Church government and speculative faith, they have, with one accord, from the foundation of the government, preached and published their views against the Roman Catholic Church which arrogates a superiority over them all, and stigmatizes them as sects long before the American party ever had an existence. But because, in the course of events, it has become necessary for politicians to inquire what effect an acknowledgment of the temporal supremacy of the Pope may have upon our free institutions, the Democratic party if it is to be judged of by its organ would gag the Protestant clergy, deny to them a right which they have always exercised, and, if they dare to oppose the colossal strides of Rome, denounce them as having converted the pulpit into a political rostrum,’ and as having raised ’the red flag of Intolerance and Proscription.’

“It is not for me to prescribe, nor do I desire to dictate the duty of Protestant ministers; but if, in the combined efforts which the Catholics have been making under the patronage of European despots and noblemen, and the encouragement of Democratic demagogues in our own country, they see that this tremendous corporation has planted its footsteps in all our large cities is possessing itself of the North-West and the Mississippi valley and is encircling them, as it were, with a wall of fire: if they see that the newspapers and periodicals of that corporation have published doctrines in this free country which they would scarcely avow in the Roman Catholic countries of Europe: if, in one word, they believe that they are to be persecuted and exterminated by Catholics, or take care of themselves before it is too late then Protestant ministers, agreeing as they do in all great doctrines, and differing only as to those which are not absolutely essential, will cease to disagree among themselves, at least until after they avert a common danger, and will rally as a band of brethren to resist, in such mode as they may deem proper, the encroachments and the insults of Rome, and all her satellites and allies.

“If I do not greatly err in the estimate which I place upon the Protestant clergymen of America, the Democratic party and the Catholics will discover, sooner or later, that the same spirit which caused the Protestant fathers to brave the perils of the BOOT and the STAKE: to stand, without flinching, before such miscreant judges as Jeffreys and Scroggs: to yield two thousand pulpits and look beggary and starvation in the face, rather than compromise with conscience; and, above all, to risk the untried dangers of the ocean and settle among savages will nobly animate their descendants, and they will act in a manner worthy of themselves and of the great cause which is intrusted to their keeping.

“Never was a more unfounded charge made against any party than that of proscription against the American party. It is only the political feature the allegiance to the Pope of Rome which we have felt called upon especially to oppose: leaving it to Protestant ministers to expose, if they choose, the absurdity of Catholic theological tenets.

“It is a historical fact that the Romish clergy of France in 1682, under the lead of Louis XIV., made a declaration that ’Kings and sovereigns are not subject to any ecclesiastical power by the order of God in temporal things, and their subjects cannot be released from the obedience which they owe them, nor absolved from their oath of allegiance.’ The doctrine of this declaration is called indifferently ’the Gallican, or the French, or the Cis-Alpine doctrine. That of the Court of Rome is called the Italian, or trans-Alpine doctrine.”

“Under the solemn assurance of the Louisiana delegation that the native Catholics of Louisiana do not acknowledge the temporal supremacy of the Pope, they were admitted to representation in the American Council and Convention, and this fact abundantly proves that there is no desire to persecute Catholics for their religion, but only a determination to resist their political doctrine, which, although denied by Mr. Chandler in Congress, has been incontrovertibly established by the history of that Church for ages, the avowals of Mr. Brownson, the rebuke of Mr. Chandler by the Dublin Tablet, and other overwhelming proofs.

“In concluding this letter, it would, perhaps, be proper to dwell upon the claims of Messrs. Fillmore and Donelson to the support of the American people of all parties; but their characters are so well known, and I have already so extended my remarks, that I deem it unnecessary to observe any thing more than that Mr. Fillmore, by the faithful discharge of his duty, won the most cordial approbation of his political enemies as well as political friends, and had the confidence of the whole country when he retired from office, and has done nothing since to destroy it; while Maj. Donelson, as our Minister to Texas, to Prussia, and to Denmark, sustained the dignity of our country and acquitted himself with honor denounced the unhallowed proceedings of the Southern Convention struggled manfully, as the Democratic editor of the Washington Union, in behalf of the Compromise, and never withdrew from it until May, 1852, when, so far as I understand his course from his public acts, being unwilling to ‘blow hot and cold’ on the slavery question, and to aid the Democratic party in wearing a Northern and a Southern face, he indignantly retired from it, and subsequently attached himself to the American party in the hope that it could carry on his most cherished object the preservation of the Union.

“The object of selecting an old-line Whig and an old-line Democrat, was to nail to the counter the charge that the American party is the Whig party in disguise, and to induce, if possible, conservative men of both the old parties to unite and rescue the country from Democratic misrule.

“Hundreds, thousands of Democrats in Tennessee, acting upon their own impulses and without concert with their leaders, attached themselves to the American party, but under the abuse of the leaders withdrew from it. Although, personally, I have no claims upon the Democracy, and have been always opposed to that party, yet I would respectfully observe that first impressions are often the best, and if such Democrats will take the trouble faithfully and honestly to examine the questions of the day for themselves, uninfluenced by the dictation of party leaders on either side, they will, doubtless, find many and cogent reasons to return to their first love.

“But to such of the old-line Whigs as have not already gone over to the Democratic party, I do feel that I have the right through this or any other medium to address a few words. It is well known that I have been a Whig from my boyhood, and until I attached myself to the American party about twelve months ago; and that, in some form or other, I have labored in behalf of the Whig cause from my youth up in good report and evil report, in prosperity and in adversity, and without fee or reward. And, with great deference to the opinions of others, I would inquire what has any old-line Whig to gain, either for his country or himself, by listening to the seductive flatteries of Democracy, as he looks upon the dismembered fragments of the Whig party, or sits, like Marius, amid the ruins of Carthage? What party is it that has brought about the desolation you behold? To whose strategy was it owing that the once impregnable city was betrayed and surrounded, and its lofty battlements levelled with the dust? What foul coalition circumvented you, and whose pestilential breath is now whispering in your ear? Has that party against which you have fought for twenty years which you have regarded as essentially corrupt and dangerous to the Union all at once, and by some magical and unknown process, been cleansed of its impurities, and does it stand before you clothed in a white and spotless robe? What are some of the reasons why you opposed it?

“It denounced proscription for opinion’s sake before it came into power, but kept the guillotine in continual motion afterwards. It rebuked any interference with the freedom of elections, and then denied its doctrine, and sought in countless ways to control them. It charged the administration of John Quincy Adams with reckless extravagance, and has expended as much, or nearly as much, of the public treasure in one year as he did in the course of his administration. It was favorable to a bank, a judicious tariff, and internal improvements by the general government, but has crushed beneath its iron heel the whole American system. It promised a gold and silver currency, and told the farmers that they and their wives should have ’long silken purses, through the interstices of which the yellow gold would shine and glitter,’ but has given us instead more than thirteen hundred State bonds, with a capital of more than three hundred millions. It has united the purse and the sword by means of its odious Sub-Treasury. It trampled beneath its feet the broad seal of the State of New Jersey, and encouraged Dorr’s rebellion.

“It annexed Texas and California, and has strengthened the Abolition power. It sustains the frequent use of the veto, and under the name of Democracy delights in the exercise of monarchical prerogative. It proclaimed in 1844 and 1845, that not a thimblefull of blood would be shed by any war growing out of the annexation of Texas, when that war sacrificed thousands of lives, and has cost us millions in money and land. It boasted, in regard to the Oregon question, that we must have ‘54 deg. 40’ or fight,’ but swallowed its own words, and in later times has attempted to retrieve its courage by the sublime and magnificent bombardment of Greytown! It ordered General Taylor into the heart of the Mexican country with a feeble force, and when his victories had won the grateful plaudits of his countrymen, it had the unparalleled meanness, while he was still fighting our battles, to censure the capitulation of Monterey. It had the baseness to call General Scott from the head of a victorious army, and to attempt to disgrace him in the eyes of his own country and the world. It denounced Judge White as a renegade, General Harrison as a coward, Mr. Clay as a blackguard, and General Scott as a fool. And, without repeating what has been already urged in regard to its attitude upon the slavery question and the other topics that have been discussed, I submit to the old-line Whigs that there is no principle which the Democratic party sincerely holds in common with them, and that they should unite with us in the effort to man the ship of State with officers and men devoted to the Constitution and true to the Union, in the hope that it may be rescued from the whirlpools and breakers among which it has been so recklessly conducted.

“Having expressed myself with the independence which should characterize a freeman, I cannot expect that a party which has dealt in the most unmitigated denunciation of wiser and better men than myself, will permit my observations to pass with impunity, but I shall be amply compensated for their abuse if abler tongues and pens will improve upon these hurried remarks, and teach our Democratic traducers that they cannot continue, without just retaliation, their unjustifiable assaults upon the American party.

“Yours respectfully,

“THOS. A. R. NELSON.”