May 05, 2016 - Sale 2413

Sale 2413 - Lot 96

Price Realized: $ 1,125
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 1,000 - $ 1,500
ENVISIONING HIS CABINET BEFORE LOSING PRESIDENTIAL NOMINATION TO PIERCE BUCHANAN, JAMES. Autograph Letter Signed, to editor of the Harrisburg Democratic Union, Isaac G. McKinley, describing his preferences for possible presidential cabinet and other appointments. 2 pages, 4to, with integral blank, written on recto and verso of first conjugate leaf; folds. (TFC) Wheatland, 17 November 1851
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"I am not sufficiently well acquainted with Mr. Wallace to say whether he would be the proper person to succeed John P. Anderson. Certain it is that if he has ever been an active friend of mine, I do not know it. A new appointment, I presume, will not be made until January, although Anderson ought to be removed immediately; & in the mean time, our friends can consider of the matter.
"I should be entirely content with any of the persons whom you have named as Secretary of State, & I would add to the list William Hopkins of Washington [John] Cessna & Mathis[?]. I fear the appointment of Judge [George W.] Woodward. This would be to give the administration an anti-Buchanan tendency at the commencement & would so be heralded throughout the Country. I have never known a man of his talents & acquirements so deficient in political judgment. Whenever an alternative has been presented to him he has always chosen the wrong course. He proclaimed himself a [Lewis] Cass man just about the time every sagacious man in the Country knew that Cass was out of the question. When he left my house after the Senatorial election I believed him to be my friend. He well knows that I did not oppose his confirmation in the Senate. Neither did I oppose Horn nor Beaumont. For the latter I excused myself on the President's request, & he would have been confirmed but for his own violence & folly. It would have been a violation both of propriety & official duty for me as Secretary of State to have opposed any nomination of the President in the Senate.
"[James H.] Campbell has rare merits as a man & a politician. Should [Gov. William] Bigler not provide for him, we shall perhaps be beaten at the October election. He would be satisfied with the appointment of Attorney General & for this appointment I have recommended him strongly. Frank Hughes is out for this office. Two of his friends have written to me & I have replied that if I had a brother who was a competitor for it against Campbell, under existing circumstances I should go for [James H.] Campbell.
"Campbell would make an excellent Secretary of State; & if I know the man, he would be the most influential & popular Secretary before the end of the Session we have had in Pennsylvania for many years.
". . . I had a highly satisfactory letter from Governor [Isaac] Toucey yesterday as to Connecticut & the Eastern States. Indeed every appearance is now favorable [for nomination at the National Democratic Convention]. . . ."