The Xenia Sentinel

Sharp Letter from Dan'l S. Dickinson.

Daniel S Dickinson sent the following letter to a Union meeting at Erie, Pennsylvania, on the 13th inst.

BINGHAMPTON, N. Y., Sept. 13.

"My Dear Sir: Your very kind invitation to attend and address the Union meeting in your city on the 16th, would induce me to accept, were it possibly consistent, but previous engagements will not permit. The Union forces seem to be quietly massing for the contest, and just now I am more amused over the exhibitions of our opponents than I am concerned for Union success. They held a peace convention for the peaceful, and signalled it by a pitched battle on the floor, for the gratification of the war element; they made a platform for the pacific, and placed upon it plumes, and pistols, and swords, and spears and epaulets and emblems of bloodshed for the belligerents, and yet the cause of peace, like that of its twin sister true-love, 'does not run smooth.' The platform does not fit the candidate, and he cannot wear it without alterations—the alterations do not suit the party and cannot be adopted, and just now, the party, the platform, the candidate, are somewhat like the hatchet, the staff and the kid in the nursery rhyme, and the disappointed followers are crying, 'pray, hatchet, hack staff—staff won't beat kid—kid won't go.' There seems to be but one remedy. The peace convention, by self-creation, is, like original sin, perpetual. Let it speedily reassemble its party of peacemakers and select something suitable to its cold.

Sincerely yours,

"D. S. DICKINSON"