May 05, 2016 - Sale 2413

Sale 2413 - Lot 98

Price Realized: $ 488
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 700 - $ 1,000
"JUDICIOUS FRIENDS . . . ADVISE ME TO ACCEPT THE MISSION TO ENGLAND" BUCHANAN, JAMES. Autograph Letter Signed, to an unnamed recipient ("My dear Sir"), sending a letter and requesting that its contents be conveyed to friends but not published [not present], expressing surprise at having been urged by PA friends to accept the appointment of U.S. Minister to the UK. 1/2 page, 4to, folds, docketed on verso. (TFC) Wheatland, 7 April 1853 [from docketing]
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". . . [T]he publication of the annexed letter might appear to be presumptuous on my part. I . . . beg you to state its contents to discreet friends & urge them . . . to make my reasons as acceptable as possible . . . .
"I hope you are wrong in your conjectures about [James C.?] Van Dyke. Somewhat to my surprise, I find that judicious friends in the interior of the State strongly advise me to accept the mission to England on the score of expediency. . . ."
In 1853, Buchanan accepted President Franklin Pierce's appointment to U.S. Minister of the UK; being stationed in Britain, his absence during the tumult surrounding the Kansas-Nebraska Act made him the least-tainted nominee for the Democratic candidate for president in the 1856 election.