I was about as badly scared, and no worse
as I am when I speak in court. I expect to make one within a week or two,
in which I hope to succeed well enough to wish you to see it.
It is very pleasant to learn from you that there are some who desire that
I should be reelected. I most heartily thank them for their kind
partiality; and I can say, as Mr. Clay said of the annexation of Texas,
that "personally I would not object" to a reelection, although I thought
at the time, and still think, it would be quite as well for me to return
to the law at the end of a single term. I made the declaration that I
would not be a candidate again, more from a wish to deal fairly with
others, to keep peace among our friends, and to keep the district from
going to the enemy, than for any cause personal to myself; so that if it
should so happen that nobody else wishes to be elected, I could not
refuse the people the right of sending me again. But to enter myself as a
competitor of others, or to authorize any one so to enter me is what my
word and honor forbid.
I got some letters intimating a probability of so much difficulty amongst
our friends as to lose us the district; but I remember such letters were
written to Baker when my own case was under consideration, and I trust
there is no more ground for such apprehension now than there was then.
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