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Sale 27
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Lot 4210
Buchanan, James (1791-1868) 15th President of the United States, 1857-1861. Autograph Letter Signed, Wheatland, near Lancaster (Pa.), Feb. 23, 1852, 4 pp, quarto. To Henry A. Wise, future governor of Virginia and Confederate general, discussing potential candidates for the upcoming presidential election, including Buchanan. Superb content.
In part: "…There was & probably still is a leaning on the part of some of the Virginia Delegation & people towards Douglass; & this too among the advocates of state rights, strict construction & economical expenditures of the public money! The Southern press is said to be in his favor. It rarely omits an opportunity to give me a 'dig.' The last was an assertion that I had been induced to withold a letter which I had written in favor of the Missouri Compromise by Senator Foote!!…It was not published on the advice of Jefferson Davis….I think…that Douglass stock is rapidly declining….Some of the friends of Cass who had been seduced from him by the attraction of 'the little giant of the West' were returning to their first love….The fears of those who regard the division in Penna. as formidable obstacles in my way are altogether groundless. Should I be nominated I firmly believe I shall carry the State by an old fashioned Jackson majority. Our State pride has for the first time been thoroughly aroused & the honest masses think that after the lapse of sixty years they are entitled to the candidate… I found the symptoms at Washington to be quite as favorable as I had anticipated & I firmly believe that with the support of Virginia I shall stand a better chance for the nomination than any of the prominent candidates. You can do me more service in Virginia than any other man….General Scott will…be the Whig candidate; he will be far stronger in Pennsylvania than any other man of his party. General Cass will be weaker before the people in this State than any of his Democratic competitors….Our Democracy look with confidence to Virginia; & sad will be their disappointment if the Old Dominion whose candidates they have always sustained, should now prefer the Illinois or Michigan candidate…."
Buchanan could not foresee that he and Lewis Cass would fight each other to a standstill, neither one being able to muster a two-thirds majority. Franklin Pierce's name was entered on the thirty-fifth ballot and, on the forty-ninth ballot, Pierce became the Democratic presidential nominee. Buchanan would have to wait four more years.
Estimated Value $4,000 - 6,000.
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