ANOTHER PROPERTY
BUCHANAN, James (1791-1868), President. Autograph letter signed ("James Buchanan"), as President, to H. B. Swarr, Washington, 13 April 1860. 1 page, 4to, slight age-toning, matted and framed with engraving of Buchanan.
Details
BUCHANAN, James (1791-1868), President. Autograph letter signed ("James Buchanan"), as President, to H. B. Swarr, Washington, 13 April 1860. 1 page, 4to, slight age-toning, matted and framed with engraving of Buchanan.
"IN NO CONTINGENCY CAN I EVER CONSENT TO BECOME A CANDIDATE FOR RE-ELECTION"
An important Buchanan letter, written to his lawyer on the eve of the Democratic Party's ill-fated 1860 convention: "...I shall place in the hands of my old & valued friend Arnold Plumer a letter requesting him as an act of duty & friendship to myself, in case any member of the Charleston Convention should propose my name, to inform that Body that in no contingency can I ever consent to become a candidate for re-election..." Ten days later the Charleston convention opened, and after 57 ballots and the walk-out of many Southern delegates, they adjourned without selecting a candidate (Buchanan's name was never offered).
Buchanan is infamously remembered as the President who sat passively while the Union disintegrated in the winter of 1860-61. But with this Charleston debacle he confronted the fracturing of his own Democratic Party. And in this case he was no mere impotent bystander, but the prime mover. Against the express wishes of both Kansas political officials and the leading Senate Democrat, Stephen A. Douglas, Buchanan in 1857 hastily approved the Lecompton constitution drafted by a pro-slavery minority in the territory. Douglas--after an angry break with Buchanan--worked to help get the Lecompton charter rejected by the Congress, and Southerners never forgave him for it. When Douglas was nominated by a reconvened convention in Baltimore in June, the disgruntled Southerners and Buchananites rejected the choice and held a rump convention that nominated John C. Breckenridge. With the break up of the Democratic Party in 1860, the last national institution holding North and South together crumbled. Civil War was now inevitable.
"IN NO CONTINGENCY CAN I EVER CONSENT TO BECOME A CANDIDATE FOR RE-ELECTION"
An important Buchanan letter, written to his lawyer on the eve of the Democratic Party's ill-fated 1860 convention: "...I shall place in the hands of my old & valued friend Arnold Plumer a letter requesting him as an act of duty & friendship to myself, in case any member of the Charleston Convention should propose my name, to inform that Body that in no contingency can I ever consent to become a candidate for re-election..." Ten days later the Charleston convention opened, and after 57 ballots and the walk-out of many Southern delegates, they adjourned without selecting a candidate (Buchanan's name was never offered).
Buchanan is infamously remembered as the President who sat passively while the Union disintegrated in the winter of 1860-61. But with this Charleston debacle he confronted the fracturing of his own Democratic Party. And in this case he was no mere impotent bystander, but the prime mover. Against the express wishes of both Kansas political officials and the leading Senate Democrat, Stephen A. Douglas, Buchanan in 1857 hastily approved the Lecompton constitution drafted by a pro-slavery minority in the territory. Douglas--after an angry break with Buchanan--worked to help get the Lecompton charter rejected by the Congress, and Southerners never forgave him for it. When Douglas was nominated by a reconvened convention in Baltimore in June, the disgruntled Southerners and Buchananites rejected the choice and held a rump convention that nominated John C. Breckenridge. With the break up of the Democratic Party in 1860, the last national institution holding North and South together crumbled. Civil War was now inevitable.