Details
BUCHANAN, James. Autograph letter signed ("James Buchanan"), AS PRESIDENT ELECT, to J. H. Dillon, Wheatland, Pa., 8 December 1856. 4 pages, 4to, slight toning at creases, otherwise very good.
"I OWE BOTH MY NOMINATION & ELECTION TO THE PEOPLE OF THE COUNTRY. GOD BLESS THEM! NOT THE POLITICIANS"
An angry riposte to a parting shot from The Times of London, which accused him of failing to resolve outstanding diplomatic disputes between the two countries for the sake of making demagogic anti-British attacks in his Presidential campaign. "The exaggerations of the London Times," Buchanan tells a British friend, "would be ridiculous, were they not calculated...to foster hostile feeling between the two countries." Swipes from The Times and "other English Journals were kept at the mast heads of many Democratic papers throughout this country & I have no doubt did the cause service....I did not desire to be a candidate for the Presidency. In all my correspondence from London with friends on this side of the Atlantic I refused positively to become a candidate for the nomination; & I never raised a finger or stirred a step in that direction. Nothing but a groundswell among the people forced me into this position." He declares he is "wholly uncommitted to any person in the world, either directly or indirectly, for my appointment. I owe both my nomination & election to the people of the Country, God bless them! not to the politicians." He thanks Dillon for defending him in a letter to The Times, but Buchanan is sure "they will not publish it. Perhaps it is better they should proceed to blacken my character, for which I care not a straw. The English public may then be agreeably disappointed." He explains his own failure to resolve certain issues as a generous unwillingness to press the British for concessions when they were embroiled in their war with Russia in the Crimea.
"I OWE BOTH MY NOMINATION & ELECTION TO THE PEOPLE OF THE COUNTRY. GOD BLESS THEM! NOT THE POLITICIANS"
An angry riposte to a parting shot from The Times of London, which accused him of failing to resolve outstanding diplomatic disputes between the two countries for the sake of making demagogic anti-British attacks in his Presidential campaign. "The exaggerations of the London Times," Buchanan tells a British friend, "would be ridiculous, were they not calculated...to foster hostile feeling between the two countries." Swipes from The Times and "other English Journals were kept at the mast heads of many Democratic papers throughout this country & I have no doubt did the cause service....I did not desire to be a candidate for the Presidency. In all my correspondence from London with friends on this side of the Atlantic I refused positively to become a candidate for the nomination; & I never raised a finger or stirred a step in that direction. Nothing but a groundswell among the people forced me into this position." He declares he is "wholly uncommitted to any person in the world, either directly or indirectly, for my appointment. I owe both my nomination & election to the people of the Country, God bless them! not to the politicians." He thanks Dillon for defending him in a letter to The Times, but Buchanan is sure "they will not publish it. Perhaps it is better they should proceed to blacken my character, for which I care not a straw. The English public may then be agreeably disappointed." He explains his own failure to resolve certain issues as a generous unwillingness to press the British for concessions when they were embroiled in their war with Russia in the Crimea.