Nashville daily patriot. [volume] (Nashville, Tenn.) 1855-1857, 1856-08-21
TULIP GROVE, NEAR NASHVILLE,
August 4th; 1856.


TULIP GROVE, NEAR NASHVILLE,
August 4th, 1856.
SIR:-I have had the honor to receive your letter
of the 26th ultimO, inclosing to me one from the
Committee OF a Convention of the several Chapters
of the Order of United Americans of New York.
informing me of my nomination by that body to the
Office of Vice President of the United States.
For this mark OF high confidence and respect
beg you TO accept and to convey to the Convention
this expression Of my sincere thanks
Should the sentiments which have prompted this
action be in accord with those OF the people when
deciding the grave questions involved in the ap
proachiug election, they will place me in position
of great respOnsibty-one that / cannot but con-
template with feelings of difidence and distrust-
arising from a consciousness that my best exertions
NAV fail to meet the ex oectstons Of the country.
In such a crisis the present, however, it would
be want of patriotism to shrink from the position
which has been assigned to me by those who are
CO aborers in the effort to bring back our Govern
ment TO the sphere prescribed for it by its founders
We are in the midst of dangers produced by all
abandonment of the old landmarks set up by the
early Statesmen of the Republic, and we have
hope of escaping from these dangers but in a return
to first misunderstanding all those Influences
which have produced geographical parties and re-
Installing those which teach US that our civil and
religious liberties inseparaby connected with
the preservation of our Constitution and Union
| was brought up, sir, in what has been termed
the Jackson school OF politics; and it was there that
/ learned to look above parties when they ceased
to make the good of their country their paramount
object The leading acts OF Gen. Jackson's life,
those which endeared him much to the public,
we're prescribed by no party tactics or mere party
platforms His defence of New Orleans, his proc
lamation in 1882, and other prominent acts of his
administration, were OF this character. He felt
when adopting those measures that he was consult
ing the good of his country, and he appealed for
support to the calm and sober judgment of the peo-
pie, not as divided by party lines, but as brothers
united by the same common interests and animated
by the same motives to preserve their free insttu
tons from whatever dangers might threaten them
from foreign or domestic causes.
1t is in this sense that understand your patriotic
Convention now comes forward to repTess the spirit
OF secti0nalism and save the country, not purity,
from the dangers which are brought upon it by
departure from the maxims left US by Washington
and his compatriOts.
Whatever may have been your opinions on ques
tons of a minor character in the ordinary admin
istration of the Government you feel that crisis
like that which united Jackson, Clay and Webster
in 1882 exists, and that law abiding and good citi
zens without reference to former party differences
should rally together in defence of their common
country against the utraisms of the day. You feel
that there is nothing in the term, Wing or Demo-
crat, correctly understood, to prevent either from
acting with US as Americans, when there is an un-
disguised effort destroy the bonds of sacred
union, by forming political geographical lines and
by permitting false conception of the real purposes
of party to produce excuses which imparing
the force of the laws, undermining the public vir-
tue, aud weakening those guards against foreign
influence which are essential to our real ndepen
dence as an American people
Entertaining such views, sir, need not assure
you how highly value the honor you have conferr
ed upon me, by associatng my name with the tried
patriot and statesman, Willard Fillmore in an at.
tempt to give them effect in the administration of
the Federal Government.
/ am, very respectfully,
Your obedient servant
A. j. DONELS0N.
SIMON BALDWIN. Esq, Chairman of the Committee
OF the Order of United Americans Of the city Of
New York.