In those days a Presidential election was largely influenced by the way Pennsylvania went, so that it had grown into a political maxim, “As goes the Keystone State so goes the Union.” In the Spring of 1872, the year in which General Grant was the Republican candidate for the second term, when it was decided that Horace Greeley should be the Democratic candidate, great efforts were made to produce a panic in Wall Street. It was arranged by the Tweed party that the panic should take place simultaneously with the State election in Pennsylvania, so as to illustrate the evil results of Republican rule, and turn the influence in favor of Mr. Greeley’s election. I received intimation of this politico-speculative conspiracy, and communicated my information to Senator Conkling, who was stopping at the Fifth Avenue Hotel at the time. I told him that the Democrats were working up a panic to help to defeat General Grant. He said it was the first he had heard of it, but it was so like a move that Tweed and his party would make, that he felt there was just cause for alarm about it, and he requested me to go and see Governor Morgan, and also George Opdyke, on the subject. I found that the Governor was at a church meeting, and I left my card telling him to call upon me at the rooms of the Republican National Committee, as I wanted to see him upon important business. I left word for Mr. Opdyke to call also. The Governor soon presented himself at the Committee rooms, and I divulged to him my information and suspicions. He did not exhibit so much interest as I imagined the importance of the case demanded, and he appeared to doubt the correctness of the report of the political intentions of the Tweed Ring, or rather he seemed to imagine that the Ring was hardly capable of a move that involved such subtlety and depth of design. Therein he greatly underestimated the power, resources and statecraft of Peter “Brains” Sweeney. The Governor was of a phlegmatic temperament, and it was difficult to convince him of anything that was not very clearly demonstrable. I told him that my information was of such a positive and reliable nature that I knew I was right, and that if there should be a panic in Wall Street I had serious apprehensions that it would prove disastrous to the Republicans in the national campaign. Governor Morgan appointed a meeting for the next day to discuss the matter more fully and obtain further light upon the subject. I took with me to see the Governor, whom I had now convinced of the reality of the political plot, Mr. George Opdyke and Mr. H. B. Claflin.