"_1868._ "MY DEAR MR. TILDEN,--Unless Indiana breaks from Pendleton, as I told you last evg., he will have all the Southern votes, including Tennessee, this morning, and then Indiana cannot leave him, and he will be nominated. "I hear that in no case will more than half of the Indiana vote be given for Hendricks. If this is so, it seems to me that a better selection can be made. It is awkward to put a candidate in nomination who gets no vote out of his own State, and in leaving him to go for one who has but half his own State. But you know better about the facts than I, and I may be misinformed as to Indiana's probable course. "But in no case is it probable that Hendricks can be nominated, and for success he should not be. "S. L. M. BARLOW. "_Wednesday._" CLARKSON N. POTTER TO S. J. TILDEN "_Thursday,_ 10 A. M. [_1868._] "MY DEAR SIR,--At this juncture is it not wise for the N. Y. delegation to ask the Pendleton men whom they will support? If they answer Seymour, he _must not_ decline. But I am confident it won't do to take up Gov. Chase until the Pendleton men have been consulted. "Faithfully yours, "CLARKSON N. POTTER." GOVERNOR WM. BIGLER, OF PENNSYLVANIA, TO TILDEN "CLEARFIELD, PA., _Feb. 3d, 1868_. "MY DEAR SIR,--The time is rapidly approaching when we must select a candidate for the Presidency, and so far as the State is concerned we are all at sea. The judgment of our political friends seems to be in favor of the nomination of Gov. H. Seymour, and unless some objection be presented to him of which we have not heretofore heard I think our State will declare for him on the 20th proximo. We regard his declination as simply a manifestation of his personal desires on the subject, and not as denying his name and services to the country; at all events, we deny his right to control his friends to that extent, and unless his home friends deem it inexpedient we shall urge his nomination. "I do not regard his chances of success as in the least impaired by what has occurred in the West. Mr. Pendleton is a good man, of high attainments, but I fear he has started an issue on which we cannot unite; at all events, it cannot be made the leading issue. The restoration of the ten absent States to the Union, with the rights and privileges of the other States, and with their local governments in the hands of their white population, must be the absorbing question. All else must be subordinate and secondary. The Democratic party will protect the good faith and honor of the nation as well in reference to the public debt as in reference to all other questions. "What is the prevailing sentiment in your State? Is it in favor of Gov. Seymour; if not, to whom does it tend? Gen. Hancock would do right well for the second place, but I do not think our people are inclined to go for him for the first.