John Harrison Wilson, The life of Charles Henry Dana

Your unexpected favor of the 14th instant was duly received. It would have been more speedily answered but for the personal request with which it closes. In these days of corruption in high places as well as low places, no upright citizen ought hastily to refuse such a request; but, after due consideration, I find myself constrained to decline this mark of esteem and confidence. I beg you, however, to believe that this is not done from either of the reasons you suggest. Having been educated to commercial pursuits, the office is not repugnant to my tastes; and as for serving the government at some sacrifice of my own interests and convenience, I trust that during the past few years I have sufficiently proved my readiness to do it. But I already hold an office of responsibility as the conductor of an independent newspaper, and I am persuaded that to abandon it or neglect it for the functions you offer me would be to leave a superior duty for one of much less importance. Nor is it certain that I cannot do more to help you in the pure and efficient administration of the Treasury Department by remaining here and denouncing and exposing political immorality than I could as appraiser by the most zealous effort to insure the faithful and honest collection of the customs.

This incident was much commented upon by the Sun's contemporaries, one of which charged that Dana had turned on Grant and his administration for the reason that he had not been appointed collector. So far as I know, he was never an applicant for that or any other office. The action which I had taken with General Rawlins in his behalf was entirely on my own responsibility, in the interest of General Grant and his administration, and in the conviction that the appointment was one in every way fit to be made. I felt that Dana was entitled to it, by both his military and his political services, and that