“Your kind letter of the 20th inst. has caused me painful emotions. I now wish to say, once for all, that under no conceivable circumstances will I permit a dollar of mine to be used to purchase a vote or to induce a voter to act contrary to his honest convictions. “The idea that the intelligent reading men of New England can be bought like sheep in the shambles, and that the sacred principles which have so far guided them in the terrible struggle between liberty and slavery can now, in this eventful hour of national existence, be set up at auction and knocked down to the highest bidder, seems to me as preposterous as it is shameful and humiliating. But if it is possible that occasionally a degraded voter can thus be induced to ‘sell his birthright for a mess of pottage,’ God grant that I may be a thousand times defeated sooner than permit one grain of gold to be accursed by using it so basely! “I will not believe that American citizens can lend themselves to the contemptible meanness of sapping the very life-blood of our noble institutions by encouraging a fatal precedent, which ignores all principle and would soon prevent any honest man, however distinguished for his intelligence and loyalty, from representing his district in our national councils. None could then succeed except unprincipled vagabonds, who, by the lavish expenditure of money, would debauch and degrade the freemen whose votes they coveted. “No, sir! Grateful as I am for the distinguished honor of receiving a unanimous nomination for Congress from the loyal Union party in my district, I have no aspiration for that high position if it is only to be attained by bringing into disgrace the noble privilege of the _free elective franchise_. Think for a moment what a deadly weapon is being placed in the hands of tyrants throughout the civilized world, with which to destroy such apostles of liberty as John Bright and Garibaldi, if it can be said with truth that American citizens have become so corrupt and degraded, so lost to a just estimate of the value and true nobility of the ballot, that it is bought and sold for money. “My dear sir, any party that can gain a temporary ascendancy by such atrocious means, not only poisons the body politic of a free and impartial government, but is also sure to bring swift destruction upon itself. And so it should be.