I understand my personal friend and fellow Illinoisan, ^A. F^ S. G. Patrick, has been removed from a clerkship in your Department, on some charge implicating his capacity or business habits as a clerk– In such an implication I suspect injustice has been done him, not by you, but by those on whose information you acted– If this be so, you can ascertain it; and I shall be much obliged if you will wipe the injurious stigma from him– This is one thing; another is that if not inconsistent, I much wish he could have some temporary employment till about the meeting of Congress–2 When I say "if not inconsistent" I mean that I wish you to be consistent in all things; and that if obliging M^r Patrick, democrat as he is, in the matter of temporary employment, would at all interfere with your consistency, I wish you not to do it–3