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James Buchanan ALS on His Pending Presidential Memoirs, Mr. Buchanan's Administration on the Eve of Rebellion
James Buchanan ALS on His Pending Presidential Memoirs, Mr. Buchanan's Administration on the Eve of Rebellion
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Description:

Buchanan James

James Buchanan ALS on his Pending Presidential Memoirs, Mr. Buchanan's Administration on the Eve of Rebellion

 

Bi-fold autographed letter signed. Penned recto and verso of the first page, with the second page blank. 6.25 x 8. Dated "August 18, 1865" and signed by James Buchanan as "James Buchanan." Near fine with expected folds, with an expert reinforcment repair to the separation along the fold.

 

Buchanan pens a fantastic letter to his former secretary, Adam J. Glossbrenner, discussing his upcoming Presidential Memoirs "Mr. Buchanan's Administration on the Eve of Rebellion". Shown in part below:

 

"The delay in answering your favor of the 7th  .. Has been occassioned solely by not knowing what to answer. I need not say there is not gentleman in the country whom I should prefer to W. Reed as a servicer of my little work …  the Appletons have promised to send me five corrected copies as the printing progresses; but this is very slow. I have but 70 or 80 pages as yet of corrected proof & only one copy...James F. Shurek has been over here for two days & has read the manuscript. He is to prepare a review for the New York World. I hope I shall see you are Wheatland ere long ...P.S. I shall write again at the first moment I can send you any corrected proofs."



In very good to fine condition, with splitting along the hinge, and several vertical folds. In 1866, Buchanan published the first-ever presidential memoir through New York's D. Appleton and Company, titled Mr. Buchanan's Administration on the Eve of Rebellion.

 

Buchanan's administration made the fruitless attempt to avoid a Civil War via an premise somewhat similar to turning a blind eye to the slave states. He believed our Union would not endure a Civil War,  and that to touch this question of slavery seriously—let it once be made manifest to the people of the South that they cannot live with us, except in a state of continual apprehension and alarm for their wives and their children, for all that is near and dear to them upon the earth— then from that moment the Union is dissolved …  The slaveholders, thus deprived of their rights, will then begin to threaten secession from the Union. They contended that, the people of the Northern States having violated the Constitution in a fundamental provision necessary to their peace and safety, they of the South, according to the settled rules governing the construction of all contracts, whether between States or individuals, had a right to rescind it altogether.

 

His concern was obviously completely disregarded as irrelevant as the country marched into Civil War. This autobiographical vindication of the policy of the Buchanan administration during the last months of his term still maintains an important source for understanding the political events leading to the secession and the Civil War. Throughout his administration, Buchanan was constantly plagued with the issues of slavery, even though the existence of domestic slavery in the South was recognized and protected by the Constitution of the United States. His book details the rising conflict within the nation as Southern slave holding states argued with Northern abolitionists and Anti-Slavery societies as to whether or not slavery should continue to flourish in the United States.

Feeling the pressures of the unbearable tension between the North and the South, Buchanan tried desperately to compromise, pleading with both sides over this burning issue. He repeatedly warned his countrymen, at every opportunity, of the imminent danger they were putting the nation in and advised them of the means to avoid the certainty of a civil war. Despite these efforts, Congress rejected his recommendations. The result was the escalation of a conflict that led to the secession of the South and one of the bloodiest battles in our nation's history.

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