The times., 1898-02-27
LETTERS THAT HAVE KILLED.
Notable Instances In Political His
tory


(From the St Louis Globe -Democrat.)
KILLED by a Letter" is the significant
heading of a Havana newspaper over>ar
article telling of ex-Minister De Lone
fall. This legend would be an appropri-
ate epitaph over the political graves oi
many public men. The rivalry between
Hamilton, the leader de facto of the Fed
| eralist party and Adams the leader dc
| iure. melted Hamilton's letter during
the campaign of 1900, arraigning Adams
which was one of the causes of the rup-
ture and overthrow of that party, and
the triumph of Jefferson and the De-
mocracy. Hamilton's letters attacking
Burr were the cause of the duel in which
Hamilton lost his life. Jeffersons letter
to his old neighbor, MaZzei, in 1896, in
which, by pretty plain implication. he
traduced Washington and other men
whom the American people honored,
kept Jefferson denying and explaining
for many years, his historic letter to Van
Buren, on this subject having been writ
ten shortly before his death and twenty
eight years after the MazZei epistle was
penned. The preservation and publca-
ton of Jefferson's ''AnaS," or diary.
which is really sort of letter TO poster
ity. with its spiteful assaults on the
memory of Hamilton and the other en-
inent men, showed an amazing lack OF
discernment on Jefferson's part. and has
called OUT from his editors and biograph-
ers excuses which accuse.
Never write a letter. said Talleyrand.
land never burn one that you receive"
If Nicholas Biddle had observed the first
part of this injunction the fate of the
United States bank, over which he pre-
sided, would probably have been different
jackson would not have had to perform
that second labor of Hercules in Staying
the bank hydra and the politics of the
30s would have lost one of its most pic
turesque episodes. An interesting and
usually leYel-headed parsonage Biddlc
had what JuveDal called an 'incurable
itch for writing" and this led him and
his institution to their doom, defeated
Clay and the National Republican party
in 1872. and. as one of the consequences
of the banks overthrow. brought on the
panic OF 1881 The "Rhea letter precipi-
tated the contest I'm 1880 between Jack
son and Calhoun. which put Calhoun out
of the line of succession to jackson in
the Presidency. made Van Buren Jack
sons political heir. dwarfed Calhoun
from a national TO a local figure, and
turned him TO the partisan metaphysics
out of which were evolved nuIlification
and that morbid and wire-drawn politi-
cal philosophy an defense of slavery that
brought on the war which destroyed
slavery
There is fine touch OF poetic irony in
the circumstance that Van Buren. the
man who said he would rather walk 90
miles TO tell a person something than TO
intrust his thoughts to a letter. met his
doom through the medium Of letter. II
was n letter, however, which he was alb
solutely forced to write, and IL was called
out in the spring of 1874 by the neces-
sity of declaring himself on the burning
issue of Texas annexation. The letter
in which he mildly and tentatively op-
posed annexation. defeated him for the
nomination for the Presidency few
weeks later, and gave the candidacy to
the lark horse. Polk. an outspoken an
nexationist. Everybody remembers the
wreck which letter writing inflicted on
Blaine's fortunes by defeat in the con-
ventions of 1876 and 1880 and at, the polls
in 1884 His fatal readiness with his pen
brought an Had of woes to Clay. Il
am the most unfortunate man in Ameri-
can history" exclaimed Clay, after one
of his reverses. to Henry A. Wise. II
get the nomination in the years when no
Whig can be elected. and in the years
when any Wing can win. the candidacy
goes TO somebody else" In the year,
however. in which his success seemed
certain. 1874. he was defeated by his cam
paign letters on the Texas question
Giddings to Cassius NJ. Clay, as some
body put into his hand a paper contain
ing one of Clay's letters. just before
both of them ounted the stand at a Clay
mass meeting at which they Were to
speak. He was right. The letter, which
made a surrender the slavery ques-
ton, sent enough anti-savery Wings
over to Birney. the Liberty party's can
didate, in the decisive State of New York
to give that State and the Presidency to
Polk. The chief qualification which /
shall require of a Whig Presidential can
didate hereafter, said Meredith p. Cen
try a few days after Clay's defeat, ''is
that he shall be able to neither read nor