"DEAR SIR,--Respectfully reiterating everything I wrote yesterday, I write again to-day to deprecate, if possible, still more emphatically, but with all courtesy, any purpose on your part to decline a renomination. "I am aware that the question of acceptance has a personal, as well as a political, aspect. I have given consideration to both, though it may be not without prepossession. The wish is often father to the thought. The grave matter of health has already received my attention. Life, even comfort, may well challenge our solicitude and care; still, I am of opinion that both may be dutifully staked upon a transcendent issue involving the welfare of a people. _Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori._ "What is the situation? The ruling party has overridden the voice of the people, usurped their sovereignty, oppressed the laboring classes by discriminating and unjust taxation, and that as a means of perpetuating its domination and enriching political adventurers. It would be worth the life of the greatest and best man in the land to expel it from its ill-gotten and abused places of power. "In saying this, I am not unmindful of the memories of the past: of the shameful persecution which the same party wreaked on you, and of its unhesitating readiness to return to its habitual vomit; nor of the ungrateful return formerly made by recusant Democrats to your steadfastness and devotion, but such has not unfrequently been the lot of other public men of positive and decided qualities. Jefferson and Jackson, your illustrious predecessors, did not escape it; yet it is known and admitted that it detracted nothing from their energy, usefulness, or merited renown. Persecution and ingratitude are often the price paid for envied eminence and superiority. But may I not say that the march of events and opinion has raised you above the reach of harmful malice: that it has reformed the sin of recusancy? "I am persuaded that the rank and file of the Democracy are with you, and are eager and resolute, under your leadership, to vindicate their violated electoral rights and the sanction of the ballot-box. "Lately I was in Missouri, Arkansas, and Texas, where I sought and conferred with a number of leading men, who assured me on my representation that the Northwest was almost, if not quite, unitedly in favor [of] your nomination; they would heartily co-operate to effect it, and, indeed, while I was in Texas, several districts passed instructions in favor of it.