$90 for it, and that Radcliff informed him that he received it from Gen. Ward."

In the fall of 1826, and before his term of service in the senate had expired, Mr. Wright was a candidate for congress from the double district composed of the counties of Jefferson, Lewis, Oswego, and St. Lawrence. Mr. Rudolph Bunner, of Oswego, was his associate. Mr. Nicol Fosdick, of Herkimer, and Mr. Elisha Camp, of Jefferson, were their competitors. The election was contested with great zeal, and with strong hopes of success by the Clintonian candidates, but Messrs. Wright and Bunner were elected by more than five hundred majority.

CHAPTER V.

Mr. Clinton re-elected Governor and Gen. Pitcher Lieutenant-governorCauses of this Result-Mr. Wright's Confidential Letter to Mr. Van Buren in 1826-Mr. Wright's Report on the Petition of David E. Evans —Mr. Flagg's Report on the Enlargement of the Erie Canal—Mr. Ruggles' Report on the State Finances, from the Committee of Ways and Means-Mr. Van Buren re-elected to the Senate of the United States -Mr. Wright resigns his Seat in the Senate of New York.

ALTHOUGH the democratic party succeeded in electing a majority of the members of assembly in the fall of 1826, Mr. Clinton was re-elected governor. But his success did not prevent the election of Gen. Pitcher for lieutenantgovernor against Henry Huntington, of Oneida county, the worthy and popular candidate of the Clintonian party. This result was probably produced by the fact. that Mr. Pitcher, as well as Mr. Clinton, was in favor of a plan, some time before recommended by Gov, Clinton, for the construction, by the state, of a road, from some point on the Hudson river, through the western tier of counties, to Lake Erie. The electors therefore in some of those counties, and especially in the county of Steuben, disregarding the nominations of the parties to which they respectively belonged, voted for Mr. Clinton and Gen. Pitcher.

There was another circumstance which favored the re-election of Gov. Clinton, which we have related at large in a former volume, and we mention it now for the sake of stating more particularly the action of Mr. Wright in relation to it.

The question in respect to the selection of a candidate for the next president had already begun to be agitated. Mr. Van Buren and Mr. Wright, and other leading democrats, had openly expressed their disapprobation of the manner in which Mr. Adams had been elected president, and exhibited tokens of dissatisfaction with his administration. If they did not openly oppose it, they were evidently cold towards it; indeed, they already denounced some of the measures sustained by Mr. Adams, and several of his appointments; and efforts were undoubtedly then being made by Mr. Van Buren to prepare the minds of his friends for the support of Gen. Jackson. Still Mr. Van Buren, and those acting with him, were at that time called “noncommittals." So cautious and quiet were Mr. Van Buren's movements on this question, that at the democratic state convention, held at Herkimer, for the nomination of a governor, Judge Rochester, of Monroe county, an open and avowed supporter of the administration of Mr. Adams, and who had been appointed on a foreign mission by him, was, in consequence of a strong western feeling in his favor, nominated as the opposing candidate to Gov. Clinton.

The max

Mr. Clinton, from the year 1824 down to the present time, had been the open and decided advocate of Gen. Jackson. Mr. Wright, who long since had lost all his partiality for Mr. Adams, and entered cordially into Mr. Van Buren's views, was a strict caucus man. im of "every thing for his party-nothing for himself," governed him in this as in all his subsequent political actions; he and his associates supported Mr. Rochester, who was known to be an Adams man, because he was the regular candidate of the democratic party, and op-posed Mr. Clinton, who was equally well known as a

Jackson man. Mr. Wright probably believed that this course was necessary in order to preserve the unity of the democratic party; and that should Mr. Rochester be elected, if a majority of that party should declare itself for Gen. Jackson, he would receive the votes of this state whatever might be the individual views or wishes of the governor. Hence the support of Mr. Rochester became a mere question of expediency. But there were many Bucktail democrats in the state, who were either so much dissatisfied with Mr. Adams, or so partial to Gen. Jackson, that they would not support a candidate for governor known to be the opponent of the latter. The most numerous class of this description of politicians resided in New York, where Major Noah, who had been a warm Crawford man, and was then editor of a popular democratic paper called the National Advocate, came out decidedly for Clinton and Pitcher. The votes given Mr. Clinton in consequence of the state road question, and those given him in New York and elsewhere by the more ardent Bucktail friends of Gen. Jackson, together with his own high personal merit, enabled him to leave in triumph the field of battle, where nearly all his friends had been prostrated.

It may be proper in this connection to notice the celebrated confidential letter written by Mr. Wright, near the close of the session of 1826, to Mr. Van Buren, who was then at Washington, in the senate of the United States. This letter has excited more of the attention of the community, and especially of the political opponents of Mr. Wright, than it merited.

It has just been stated that Mr. Clinton, from the year 1824 to the time of his death, was the open and decided advocate and friend of General Jackson. His friendship

for Jackson was duly appreciated and reciprocated by that distinguished man.* We must also remind the reader that Mr. Van Buren and his confidential friends in New York, soon after the election of Mr. Adams to the presidency in the year 1825, had determined to support Gen. Jackson in opposition to Mr. Adams at the next presidential election, but that a very large majority of the democratic party in 1826 were not then prepared for such a course. Nevertheless, as Mr. Van Buren had determined to support Gen. Jackson, as Mr. Clinton was one of his earliest and firmest friends, and as the general was equally friendly to Mr. Clinton, the participation of Mr. Van Buren in the prosecution of the war against Mr. C. was extremely embarrassing, and might, if such war was not discontinued, disaffect Gen. Jackson with Mr. Van Buren, and those who acted with him. In this state of things some of the most influential friends of the latter gentleman at Albany and elsewhere, among whom we may mention that worthy and excellent man, Benjamin Knower, the late state treasurer, were of the opinion that no opposition ought to be made to the re-election of Mr. Clinton at the next gubernatorial election. But there were then strong and unconquerable prejudices existing against him in the minds of a majority of the democrats, or perhaps we ought to say Bucktails, in the state of New York. This was the state of things when, on the 4th of April, 1826, Mr. Wright wrote the letter in question. In that letter he informs Mr. Van Buren that great "alarm" had been excited among their friends at Albany, because Mr. M. M. Noah, and some other political friends in the city of New York, had declared themselves in favor

* 2 Political History, 256.