Worth, Jonathan, 1802-1869, Letter from Jonathan Worth to Calvin H. Wiley, March 8, 1858, in The Correspondence of Jonathan Worth, vol. 1. Hamilton, Joseph Grégorie de Roulhac, ed., Raleigh, NC: Edwards & Broughton, 1909, pp. 656. S1590-D007 [Bibliographic Details] [3-8-1858] WorthJ:L1590-7

Letter from Jonathan Worth to Calvin H. Wiley, March 8, 1858

Asheboro, March 8th, 1858.

I have been grievously oppressed with business for a few weeks past, so that I have not attended to everything in due time. I recd. from you a letter, now mislaid, in which you stated you thought there was error in my account as chairman, or that it was not quite intelligible. My recollection is that you did not specify the difficulty. I think there can be no inaccuracy and suppose the point is this, in this County no schools are taught in the summer, and the principle of division long adopted by us makes the calculation distributing the money among the districts troublesome. The money received in the spring would not be used by the districts, if divided, till the Fall Dividend and the County tax come to hand. Immediately after they come to hand I make up my account, and this is the account sent you in the Fall of the next year and consequently does not embrace the Spring dividend received from the State after the account is made out. All my accounts show that I am charged only with the funds received

-- 56 -- All the intelligent men of our party in both Counties, so far as I can learn, will support me and I can not doubt the result of the election. But as this is the year when free suffrage ¹ takes effect, if he is a candidate he will try to raise some new issue with me, will talk about aristocracy, start innumerable rumors, etc., and the contest will be unpleasant and pernicious to our party whatever may be the issue.
If anybody can influence him to desist and hold off it is yourself. I do not desire you to exercise that influence as a personal favor to me, but to prevent a schism in our party. A personal contest must have this effect. Possibly the question may arise in your mind, why not avoid this by withdrawing yourself? This answer is that the most intelligent and orderly citizens of this county will not support Lane under any circumstances, but if our party will bring forward any good man I will withdraw more than willingly.
[The remainder of the letter is missing.]