Whether, and if any, to what extent, the free State and the slave State partisans in New York, on whose political course the next Presidential election was largely dependent, would be able to act together at the ensuing Presidential election, had become an absorbing question throughout the nation in 1851. Gideon Welles had for many years been prominent among political journalists as editor of the _Hartford Times_. He had also been a devoted champion of the principles and policies of Presidents Jackson and Van Buren, and was at this time a warm partisan of the Free-soil wing of the Democratic party. He later had the honor to be selected by President Lincoln in 1861 for his Secretary of the Navy, the department of the military service which during the Civil War of 1861-5 proved most uniformly victorious and efficient. GIDEON WELLES TO TILDEN "HARTFORD, _24th Sept., 1851_. "_Confidential._ "DEAR SIR,--I am wanting light on matters political, and write you for guidance and information. It was my expectation to have gone to New York about this time, but as I cannot, excuse my writing. My general views and my peculiar position (peculiar for me) I very frankly gave you, and also the attitude of things here when I saw you in June. "Your convention is to me somewhat of a mystery, for I have seen no one from your State to enlighten me, and there is no one in the region hereabout better informed than myself. Things have not taken, in all respects, the course I could have wished and, indeed, expected, but it is not uncommon that we are controlled by circumstances rather than circumstances by us. "My object is to learn from you the course that the Democrats of your State will be likely to take in regard to the Presidential election. I need not say to you that whatever you may communicate shall be in strictest confidence, and shall be submitted to no other eye or ear than mine; but it may be of material benefit for you and for us in Connecticut if I can have some indication of the course which our friends in New York intend to pursue. "As I remarked to you when I last saw you, I found things in our State in a very unfortunate condition when I returned from Washington, and while I would not commit myself to the schemes on foot, I at the same time did not think it expedient or useful to place myself in exactly an antagonal position to old associates and friends. I have therefore stood somewhat aloof--commenting on and criticising measures and men, to the great annoyance and disappointment of some, who thought it in their power to compel me to take a position as they had done by Niles.