The daily morning journal and courier., 1898-02-19

of letter to posterity, with its spiteful assaults on the memory of Hamilton and other eminent men, showed an amazing lack of discernment on Jeffer- sons part, and has called out from all his editors and biographers excuses which accuse.
 Never write letter." said Talley- rand, and never burn one that you re- ceive," If Nicholas Riddle had ob- served the first part of this injunction the fate of the United States Bank over which he presided, would proba- ply have been different, Jackson would not have been able to perform that sec ond labor of Hercules in staying the bank hydra and the politics of the sos would have lost one of its most pie turesque episodes. An interesting and usually level-headed parsonage, Bid dle had what Juvenal called an incur able itch for writing" and this led him and his institution to their doom, de- feated Clay and the national republi- can party in 1882, and, as one of the consequences of the banks overthrow.
 brought on the panic of 1887. The
 "Rhea letter" precipitated the contest
 in 1880 between Jackson and Calhoun,
 which put Calhoun out of the line Of
 succession to Jackson in the presiden-
 cy, made Van Buren Jackson's politi-
 cal heir, dwarfed Calhoun from na-
 tional to local figure, and turned him
 to the partisan metaphysics out Of
 which were evolved nullification and
 that morbid and wire drawn political
 philosophy in defence 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 forty miles to tell a person some thing than to intrust his thoughts to. a letter, met his doom through the medi-
 um of letter. It was letter, howev-
 CT, which he was absolutely forced to write, and it was called out in the spring of 1844 by the necessity of de- claring himself on the burning issue of Texas annexation. The letter, ir which he mildly and tentatively op- posed annexation. defeated him for the
 nomination for the presidency few
 weeks later and gave the candidacy tc lliC udlh HUI SS, Olht ttil outok'ohCli oAi | neXationist. Everybody remembers
 the wreck which letter writing inflict- ed on Blaine's fortunes by defeat in the convention of 1876 and 1880 and at the
 polls in 1884, His fatal readiness witt his pen brought an Iliad of woes te Clay. T am the most unfortunate
 man in American 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 l and in the years when any Whig car win the candidacy goes to somebody else" In the year, however, in whicf l his success seemed certain, 1844 ht was defeated by his campaign letter: | on the Texas question. "We are beat en,'' exclaimed Joshua R. Giddings tt Cassius M. Clay, as somebody put into his hand a paper containing one O. Clays letters, just before both of then
 mounted the stand at Clay mas' meeting at which they were to speak
 He was right The letter, which mad, | a surrender on the slavery question sent enough anti-slavery Wings owe | to Birney, the Liberty party's candi date, in the decisive state of New Yorl l to give that state and the presidenc! | to Polk. "The chief qualification which I shall require of a Whig presi dential candidate hereafter" said Mer l defeat, lis that he shall be able tt neither read nor write."--St. Loui! | Globe-Democrat.