Washington sentinel. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1853-1855, 1853-10-29
! Reply of collector Rropson.

Judge Bronson, collector of New York has
published a reply to Secretary Guthrie's note
OF admonition. 1t is calm and digni6ed, but
spirited.
The Judge talks somewhat in the style of
man who feels that he is writing his own death
warrant; and from all indications, we fear it is
even so. 1t is perhaps too much to expect that
the administration should retreat at this stage
OF his case. And yet we wish sincerely it were
otherwise. Nobody doubts that Bronson is an
honest and sound democrat and faithful Off
Ger; that if let alone he will remain true to his
faith and party fealty; and that to eject him
from Office will be nearly equivalent to forcing
him into the ranks of the opposition.
1t will be poor consolation that we secure
John Van Buren, by his ostracism. We would
not give three such men as Dickinson, Bronson.
and O'Conor, for oil the freesoilers that ever
first swore and then forswore treason to the
Constitution.
Mr.. O'Conor is also the author Of a letter.
less measured than that of his colleague
Winchester Virgiaian.
The Courier and Enquirer exercises itself
in a second review of Secretary Guthrie. It is
rather pungent:
Mr.. Guthrie is an unskilful headsman his
awkard, brutal hacking disgusts everybody. To
arraign and condemn Collector Bronson for the
causes stated in his first dispatch violated all
idea Of right; to put him out of official exist
ence in the style just exhibited offends every
sense of decency. The Secretary apparently
knows Us little of official dignity as he does Of
official duty. He seems bent upon producing
a new epoch in public life by substituting the
most sordid motives for honorable principles of
action, and angry and coarse language for the
calm, guarded, and strictly courteous phrase
ology which has heretofore marked our official
intercourse, He is endeavoring to put his sub
ordinates upon the footing Of Swiss hirelings,
and adapts his style of speech accordingly. He
does not present an argument, or show fact
to justify his course; he does not make even
the show of an attempt to reply to the defence
of the collector, but drags him mp to the block
at once for "a manifest spirit Of iasaso,dina-
h0n.'n
DEJ The Milwaukee Ne,cs, q national dem
ocratic Journal expresses itself in the following
manly terms with reference to the quarrel be-
tween the Washington Union and Mr.. Dick.
inson:
!" However far the Union may go in order to
misrepresent the position of the true democracy
VI NcW loih, ~ goeo eoo iar when III permits
the anonymous libeller to attempt to strike
down SO true democratic statesman as Daniel
8. Dickinson. That journal commits a fatal
mistake when it assaults democrat whose
national reputation is so well earned as his. If
we believed it truly represented southern SEN
timents in its treatment of the statesman
whose senatorial career affords the most memo
rable instance of selfsacrifce on the altar of
the constitutional rights of the south, we would
be forced to abandon the idea that there could
be such thing as common gratitude, to say
nothing of the vaunted chivalry of the south.
But the Union misrepresented the south. The
Richmond Enquirer, the ablest administration
paper in Virginia, comes handsomely to the
defence Of one who did not shrink from the de-
fence of the south when it was assailed by
traitorous hands,"