that even a complete surrender to them would hardly make them trust and love you. The less outside strength you command, the less will you appear necessary to your party, and the less will be the probability of your renomination. The Democratic politicians who sneer most at the Mugwumps will be the first to throw you overboard as soon as they see that the Mugwumps are no longer in force on your side.
It is scarcely necessary to say that your strength outside of your party depends entirely upon the confidence inspired by the course of your Administration. In this respect it has become a duty of friendship to speak without reserve. Until recently a general trust in the sincerity of your professions sought for what appeared to be your mistakes and inconsistencies the most favorable explanations. The worst things laid to your charge were construed as mere errors of judgment, and perhaps occasionally a certain stubbornness of temper in sticking to an error once committed. But the fact should not be concealed from you, that this confiding belief has been seriously shaken by your action in the Benton-Stone case.[1] This was not a mere mistake as to the character or qualification of a person, or an error owing to misinformation. This was a retreat from a position of principle—a “back-down” apparently for partisan reasons or under partisan dictation. The letters with which that retreat was sought to be covered made the matter appear only worse, and the subsequent revelation of the fact that the Democrat Benton had really attacked your Administration while the Republican Stone had cautiously abstained from doing so, has poured over all professions of principle and
- ↑ Benton was a Democratic and Stone a Republican U. S. district attorney who had respectively made campaign speeches. Both were dismissed for offensive partisanship, but Benton was reinstated. See 43 N. Y. Nation, 430, 450.
