"_Secondly_, assuming--as we may, with confidence--that we shall so act at the convention as to start our canvass with the favorable opinion of the public and of the bar of the State, still in a special election held at an unusual time, and in so short a canvass, prompt and efficient measures should be taken in each county to organize a movement to bring out our vote and elect our ticket. "I ask your co-operation for these objects. "Very truly yours, "S. J. TILDEN." TILDEN TO HON. S. E. CHURCH "_Confidential._ "NEW YORK, _April 20, '70_. "MY DEAR SIR,--My letter, which passed yours in the mails, if I recollect its contents aright, is, or implies a practical answer to your last, so far as we can see until we meet in Rochester. I have trusted to it for a day or two, while I am engrossed with measures not capable of being deferred, and which seem essential to the convention and election. "As to candidates, I have carefully kept myself free; saying uniformly--in quite a number of cases where communications have been made to me personally or by letter--that I intended to be perfectly and absolutely open when opportunity should be had, at the convention and just before, for consultation with our friends to do what might seem best. I am not committed to Comstock, unless it be implied that I would not decide against him until that time, from such expressions made to him and to others. "He, undoubtedly, has counted on the nomination as chief judge; has believed that Allen was for him, and only aimed to be associated with him. "While I have kept more cautiously free than Kernan and others, I wish to treat Comstock with delicacy and kindness. Indeed, as I look upon my own future, totally void of any conscious desire for the most honorable of official labors, it seems to me I feel more difficulty in wounding--any more than I at last must--those who are capable of fixing strong affections on objects of an elevated ambition. "I need not say how strong--and stronger than in other cases--is the personal interest I feel in promoting what shall be finally agreed to be best in respect to your future career, or how disposed I should be to give the prevailing weight to your own ideas on that subject. "While it is not safe to assume the action of a convention, I should think that besides those who will go for you on public grounds and from personal regard, there will be an element which would like to remove you from the field of active politics. I thought, from December to very recently, this was visible in respect to me, and perhaps there may be even greater motive in respect to you in that you were more likely to become a rival to some existing powers. "Before I had quite finished my note, which lay over from last evening, yours of yesterday came.