"DEAR SIR,--May I venture, with great respect, to offer a suggestion which, in this extraordinary crisis, might, it seems to me, if you approve, have a good effect with the other side. "Would not a public expression of your well-considered views _now_, in the present state of things, tend to exercise a good influence? Your friends all remember how much good was done, on a different occasion, by that admirable letter to Mr. Hewitt, shortly before the election, about rebel claims, etc. "Might not the calm, patriotic, and therefore assuaging utterances of your pen _now_ tend to an early settlement upon the basis of right and justice by bringing to bear, with accumulated force, upon the bad men so conspicuous in the disputed States, the just indignation and censure of honest and influential men of their own party, who could not fail to be influenced by such an expression from you, causing those men, at least, to _pause_ in their mad career? "Might it not, at least, have the effect of _gaining time_, and smoothing the way for the dispassionate and final and possibly controlling judgment of the better elements of the Republican party? "Pray pardon the freedom of the suggestion. It is doubtless not new to you or the friends about you, but this may at least serve to show how the suggestion strikes another mind at a distance. "Suffer me to avail myself of the occasion to congratulate the American people and yourself upon the unmistakable majority of the Electoral College and immense popular majority in your favor. "I have the honor to be, with the highest respect. "Your friend & obt. serv't, "BENJAMIN RUSH." GID. J. PILLOW TO TILDEN "_Confidential._ "MEMPHIS, TENN., _Nov. 18th, 1876_. "His Excellency SAMUEL J. TILDEN, etc. "Enough has developed itself since my former letter to confirm the correctness of the views there expressed. I see indications of a weakness in the _backbone_ of the Republican leaders, and if they stood without a controlling power over them they would yield. But the President has his _own purposes to accomplish_, and he will not let them yield. "On and after the 5th of March next, if there be no President or Vice-President elected and inaugurated, there is no provision _in the Constitution_ for the _further existence_ of any _government_. The Constitution, which is the chart of the government, will have _expired_, leaving nothing but the _physical skeleton_ of the constitutional government. Grant knows this and sees it, and will shape _everything_ to _bring about that end_. He will, by his measures, _defeat you and Hayes_ both by shaping the means to the end.