On the subject of foreign immigration he was most outspoken, and replying to an enquiry of one of his political friends concerning his attitude towards the so-called “Know Nothings,” he says:—­

“So far as I can gather from the public papers, the object of this society would seem to be to resist the aggression of foreign influence and its insidious and dangerous assaults upon all that Americans hold dear, politically and religiously.  It appears to be to prevent injury to the Republic from the ill-timed and, I may say, unbecoming tamperings with the laws, and habits, and deeply sacred sentiments of Americans by those whose position, alike dictated by modesty and safety, to them as well as to us, is that of minors in training for American, not European, liberty.

“I have not, at this late day, to make up an opinion on this subject.  My sentiments ’On the dangers to the free institutions of the United States from foreign immigration’ are the same now that I have ever entertained, and these same have been promulgated from Maine to Louisiana for more than twenty years.

“This subject involves questions which, in my estimation, make all others insignificant in the comparison, for they affect all others.  To the disturbing influence of foreign action in our midst upon the political and religious questions of the day may be attributed in a great degree the present disorganization in all parts of the land.

“So far as the Society you speak of is acting against this great evil it, of course, meets with my hearty concurrence.  I am content to stand on the platform, in this regard, occupied by Washington in his warnings against foreign influence, by Lafayette, in his personal conversation and instructions to me, and by Jefferson in his condemnation of the encouragement given, even in his day, to foreign immigration.  If this Society has ulterior objects of which I know nothing, of these I can be expected to speak only when I know something.”

As his opinions on important matters, political and religious, appear in the course of his correspondence, I shall make note of them.  It is more than probable that, as he differed radically from his father and the other Federalists on the question of men and measures during the War of 1812, so I should have taken other ground than his had I been born and old enough to have opinions in the stirring ante-bellum days of the fifties.  And yet, as hindsight makes our vision clearer than foresight, it is impossible to say definitely what our opinions would have been under other conditions, and there can, at any rate, be no question of the absolute sincerity of the man who, from his youth up, had placed the welfare of his beloved country above every other consideration except his duty to his God.

It would take a keen student of the political history of this country to determine how far the opinions and activities of those who were in opposition on questions of such prime importance as slavery, secession, and unrestricted immigration, served as a wholesome check on the radical views of those who finally gained the ascendancy.  The aftermath of two of these questions is still with us, for the negro question is by no means a problem solved, and the subject of proper restrictions on foreign immigration is just now occupying the attention of our Solons.