of the state of feeling on which my letter might fall, and however guarded my language might be, I should unwittingly do harm, which, however frankly I may write to you, I shall avoid, even if I fail to do good. "With the best wishes for the success of this object and your welfare, Truly y'rs, "S. J. TILDEN." The Albany _Argus_, since the election of President Polk, had become the organ and an extreme partisan of the so-called Hunker party and champion of the policy of the Slavery Extensionists. One of the consequences was the establishment of the _Atlas_ at Albany by the friends of Van Buren and Wright. The _Argus_ was conducted by Edwin Croswell, a then veteran journalist, and the _Atlas_ by a Mr. Van Dyke, assisted by a very clever young man of Irish extraction named Cassidy. These two prints registered the stages of the ineffectual struggle of the Van Buren and Wright party with the administration at Washington, a specimen of which is disclosed in the following correspondence between Mr. Croswell, Mr. Tilden, and John Van Buren, a gifted son of the ex-President Van Buren, and then rapidly becoming a conspicuous figure in national politics. E. CROSWELL TO TILDEN "ALBANY, _January 26, 1846_. "DEAR SIR,--I am informed by a member of the Legislature, whose veracity I cannot question, that you stated to him that I had made a proposition in relation to a compromise of the questions of difference between the _Argus_ and _Atlas_, which had been accepted by you or your friends, but which I had flown from or violated under the pretence of consulting my friends. "Allow me to ask whether I am to understand you as having made such a declaration. "Very respectfully, "Yr. obt. servt., "E. CROSWELL." TILDEN TO E. CROSWELL "ALBANY, _January 27, 1846_. "MY DEAR SIR,--The inquiry which your favor of yesterday contains is so made up of statements and inferences--so very general in some respects, and so imperfect in others--that an answer to it which expresses neither more nor less than the truth must be more specific than you seem to ask. "I understood from gentlemen whose veracity I could not question that on the Wednesday before the recent caucus you made to them a communication to this effect: "You said that it would not do for you to make any further proposition relative to the union of the _Argus_ and _Atlas_, but you invited a proposition to be made to you, the terms of which you specified as follows: That the _Argus_ and _Atlas_ should be united, at an appraised valuation; that the joint establishment should be owned by Messrs. French, Cassidy, and Sherman Croswell in three equal parts; that you should withdraw from the concern; that Messrs. Cassidy and Sherman Croswell should be candidates for State printers; and that the emoluments of that office, if it were conferred upon them, should belong to the joint establishment.