Details
BUCHANAN, JAMES, President. Autograph letter signed to the Honorable James W[alter] Wall, Wheatland, 26 December 1866, two pages, small 4to, clean tears along two folds.
Buchanan had as president considered slavery to be the constitutional right of the Southern states, but had put above all else the preservation of the Union, a fence-straddling position that earned him unpopularity in both the North and the South. After the war his southern sympathies returned to the fore, and from his retirement at Wheatley he supported President Johnson's resistance to the aggressive and at times punitive policies of the Radical Republicans in Congress, who were determined to prevent a resurgence of Democratic power in the South. In April 1866 the Republicans had succeeded in overriding President Johnson's veto of the Civil Rights Act, incorporated into the Constitution through the Fourteenth Amendment in June; of 29 related bills vetoed by the president that year, 15 were passed.
While deploring the Republicans' excesses, Buchanan, a Democrat, disagrees with his correspondent's grim analysis of the situation: "I do not believe that 'our system of Government is gone never to be restored'. On the contrary I think that the extreme violence and the arbitrary & unconstitutional measures past & proposed of the present Congress will eventually destroy the Republican party. Our people are not prepared for a despotism." The former President urges Wall to hasten the Republicans' demise by taking over the leadership of the Democratic Party in the latter's home state of New Jersey:
"You now occupy a position in which your acknowledged abilities may be exerted with powerful effect... Your name & your character point you out as the man in New Jersey who can do very much for your Country at the present crisis. I pray you to go to work and by adopting all honorable means, place yourself at the head of the Democratic party in your state. I know you can do it if you wish. The Democrats have a great work before them and ought not impair their present influence by mutual recrimination in regard to the past. Providence seems to have opened the way for you, & all you have to do is to walk therein. I wish you God speed! How much delighted I should be to receive a letter from you stating your determination to pursue this course! You will have some obstacles to encounter in the beginning but these you can easily overcome by patience and perseverance.The party in New Jersey are as much in need of you as you are of them & this they will discover. When you read this you may say what right has Buchanan to obtrude his advice upon me? I answer the right of your father's friend & your own friend, as well as the privilege of old age. I am now in my 76th year; but thank God! still in tolerably good health...."
Buchanan had as president considered slavery to be the constitutional right of the Southern states, but had put above all else the preservation of the Union, a fence-straddling position that earned him unpopularity in both the North and the South. After the war his southern sympathies returned to the fore, and from his retirement at Wheatley he supported President Johnson's resistance to the aggressive and at times punitive policies of the Radical Republicans in Congress, who were determined to prevent a resurgence of Democratic power in the South. In April 1866 the Republicans had succeeded in overriding President Johnson's veto of the Civil Rights Act, incorporated into the Constitution through the Fourteenth Amendment in June; of 29 related bills vetoed by the president that year, 15 were passed.
While deploring the Republicans' excesses, Buchanan, a Democrat, disagrees with his correspondent's grim analysis of the situation: "I do not believe that 'our system of Government is gone never to be restored'. On the contrary I think that the extreme violence and the arbitrary & unconstitutional measures past & proposed of the present Congress will eventually destroy the Republican party. Our people are not prepared for a despotism." The former President urges Wall to hasten the Republicans' demise by taking over the leadership of the Democratic Party in the latter's home state of New Jersey:
"You now occupy a position in which your acknowledged abilities may be exerted with powerful effect... Your name & your character point you out as the man in New Jersey who can do very much for your Country at the present crisis. I pray you to go to work and by adopting all honorable means, place yourself at the head of the Democratic party in your state. I know you can do it if you wish. The Democrats have a great work before them and ought not impair their present influence by mutual recrimination in regard to the past. Providence seems to have opened the way for you, & all you have to do is to walk therein. I wish you God speed! How much delighted I should be to receive a letter from you stating your determination to pursue this course! You will have some obstacles to encounter in the beginning but these you can easily overcome by patience and perseverance.The party in New Jersey are as much in need of you as you are of them & this they will discover. When you read this you may say what right has Buchanan to obtrude his advice upon me? I answer the right of your father's friend & your own friend, as well as the privilege of old age. I am now in my 76th year; but thank God! still in tolerably good health...."