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President James Buchanan Discusses New Almaden Quicksilver Mine Claims
President James Buchanan Discusses New Almaden Quicksilver Mine Claims
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Description:

James Buchanan
Washington, DC, December 10, 1859
President James Buchanan Discusses New Almaden Quicksilver Mine Claims
AL

JAMES BUCHANAN, Autograph Drafts, to [Reverdy Johnson and John A. Rockwell], December 10, 1859, Washington, D.C. 2 drafts: 4 p., 8.375" x 13.5", 3 pp., 6.25" x 8".

In this pair of drafts, President Buchanan crafts his response to attorneys for claimants to the New Almaden Quicksilver (Mercury) Mine in California. The attorneys, a former U.S. Attorney General and U.S. Senator, and a former Congressman, wanted to obtain depositions in Mexico City and documents from the State Department but found officials in the Buchanan administration unhelpful if not hostile to their efforts. Buchanan ultimately refused to interfere.

Complete Transcript
Washington 10 December 1859
Gentlemen/
In compliance with your request, I acknowledge the receipt of your communication of the 29th Ultimo. You complain of certain measures adopted by the Attorney General & the Secretary of State in defending the government against the claim of Castellero & others for the New Almaden Quick Silver mine & appealed to me for a reversal & correction of the errors.

I need not inform you that it has been settled both by judicial decisions & by the practice of the Government, including my own administration, that an appeal cannot be taken from the decisions of the proper Executive Department to the President. If this were not the case, it would be physically impossible for the President, were he even to devote his whole time to the task to the neglect of all his important duties, to undergo the labor which would be imposed upon him by such a jurisdiction. In that event every claimant dissatisfied with decision of any department might appeal to him for redress, & he would be obliged to re-examine the document & papers & re-hear the arguments submitted to it with such others as might be advanced & either affirm, reverse or modify such decision. Besides, there would be no equality between the parties. Where the decision of the Head of the Department is against the Government, it would be final; but if in favor of the Government, an appeal would lie to the President. Nor is any appeal to the President necessary in cases of importance; like that of the Castellero claim because in point of fact, in all such cases he is consulted by the Heads of Departments. What is done & decided by them is in point of law done & decided under his authority: & such an appeal would be from the President to himself. On no other principle could the public business be possibly transacted.

I need scarcely add that the burden cast upon the President would, if possible, be still more intolerable if every party having a lawsuit whose interest was adverse to that of the United States could appeal to him to control the Attorney General in conducting the cause, whenever such party might suppose or believe, as in the present case, that this officers proceedings were contrary to law.

In the end of your letter you say that "in closing this final appeal to the President our duty to our clients requires us to say in order to prevent misconception in future that for the injuries which they have already sustained or may hereafter sustain by the acts & omissions of the officers of the United States they are clearly entitled to such redress as justice & the laws of the land afford to every person." I shall not presume that by this you intend to be a threat to institute suits personally against the officers of the Government to obtain redress for your supposed wrongs; & yet I know not what other construction can be given to your language. If suits can be brought against the President & heads of Departments for an honest discharge of duties in protecting the public interest by interested parties to obtain redress for real or supposed injuries, the condition of those administering the Government must become intolerable & they might at least be deterred from resisting unjust claims by an apprehension that this would be at the expence of their private fortunes.

Historical Background
On November 29, 1859, attorneys Reverdy Johnson and John A. Rockwell wrote to President James Buchanan on behalf of their clients, who claimed to own the New Almaden quicksilver mine in California. They claimed that they sent a notice to the Attorney General that they intended to take depositions from witnesses in Mexico City for two cases pending in U.S. Courts in California. Attorney General Jeremiah S. Black refused to allow any American consular officers to participate in these proceedings and asked Secretary of State Lewis Cass to instruct them accordingly. Johnson and Rockwell cited acts of Congress in 1817, 1854, and 1856 that authorized consular officers to take depositions. They also complained that the Secretary of State Cass had not responded to their request for certified copies of documents on file in the Department of State to be used as evidence. They asked of the President, "as the responsible head of the Executive Branch of the Government, in pursuance of the provisions of the Constitution, which confers on him the power and the duty to ‘take care that the laws be faithfully executed,' to afford to our clients, as far as it can still be done, a remedy for the wrong that has been committed."

The New Almaden mines were discovered by Mexican settlers in the 1820s and are the oldest mines in California. Located in the Almaden Valley near San Jose, California, the mines were sources of cinnabar, a bright red mercury ore, from which quicksilver or mercury could be produced for medicinal purposes and in the refining of silver. In 1846, Andrés Castillero, a captain in the Mexican Army, obtained a grant to the mine but soon sold most of the interest in it to an English textile firm and American investors. In 1856, Castillero's claim was confirmed by the Board of Commissioners that evaluated private land claims. The Quicksilver Mining Company had acquired a competing land claim based on an agricultural claim to the land where the mine was located. In The United States vs. Andres Castillero, the U.S. District Court in 1859 upheld the decision of the commissioners, but both parties cross-appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court. In March 1863, the U.S. Supreme Court issued an opinion of more than 370 printed pages, finding that Castillero's claim was fraudulent and invalid. Based on the Supreme Court's decision, Abraham Lincoln sent federal agents in May 1863 to seize the mine, but they met armed miners. Fearing the loss of California during the Civil War, Lincoln canceled his writ. Ultimately, the New Almaden Company sold the mine to the Quicksilver Mining Company for $1.75 million.

Although these drafts make it clear that Buchanan began a response as early as December 10, he did not respond until Johnson and Rockwell sent another letter on December 15, 1859, forwarding correspondence with Secretary of State Cass regarding copies of letters on file in his department. Perhaps spurred by this second letter, Buchanan responded on December 17 with a briefer version of the position he expressed in these drafts: "I regret that there should have been any apparent want of courtesy towards gentlemen whom I so highly esteem, in not answering your letters; but having determined from the beginning not to interfere with the Attorney General in the performance of his professional duties, either in the New Almaden or any other case, I deemed it proper to send your communications to his office for his consideration. If in the novel and unfounded claim of converting the President into an appellate jurisdiction, from the decisions of the heads of departments in all cases where interested parties consider themselves aggrieved, I should undertake to direct the Attorney General in what manner he shall conduct suits in which the interests of the United States are involved, I should have no time left to devote to the important business of my office."

On December 23, Johnson and Rockwell responded to the President, "As, however, we are now informed by the President, for the first time, that we are in error in these views, and that he regards our appeal to him as irregular, we shall of course yield to his opinion on this point, and no further trouble him by communications in behalf of our clients. We only regret that we should not have been informed of these views of the President when we forwarded to him our first letter of the 15th January, 1859, as it would have saved the President from the annoyance of our subsequent letters, ourselves from the trouble of writing them, and our clients from the serious pecuniary damage arising from delay."


James Buchanan (1791-1868) was born in Pennsylvania and graduated from Dickinson College in 1809. He served in the Pennsylvania House of Representatives as a Federalist from 1814-1816. With the collapse of the Federalist Party, Buchanan became a Republican-Federalist and served in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1821 to 1831, where he largely supported Andrew Jackson. He served as ambassador to Russia for eighteen months in 1832 and 1833, then as U.S. Senator from Pennsylvania from 1834 to 1845. President James K. Polk appointed him as Secretary of State, a position he held from 1845 to 1849. President Franklin Pierce sent Buchanan as the U.S. ambassador to the United Kingdom, a position he held from 1853 to 1856. Being out of the country in the increasing sectional tensions caused by the Kansas-Nebraska Act and other controversies aided Buchanan's political fortunes in 1856, when he won the Democratic nomination on the 17th ballot over incumbent Pierce and Stephen Douglas of Illinois. Buchanan supported Douglas's doctrine of popular sovereignty, hoping to keep the divisive issue of slavery out of Congress and national debate. Two days after his inauguration, the Supreme Court issued its Dred Scott decision, declaring that Congress could not outlaw slavery in the territories. Far from settling the issue, the Court's decision fueled more sectional outrage. He took little direct action in response to the Panic of 1857, which hit northern cities and states hardest. Buchanan's poor handling of the Utah War and Bleeding Kansas also contributed to his poor reputation as president. As he left office, he famously declared that the southern states had no right to secede and that the federal government had no right to prevent them. He spent the Civil War weakly supporting the Union war effort and writing a memoir in defense of his presidency, published in 1866. Buchanan never married, the only president to remain a bachelor.

Reverdy Johnson (1796-1876) was born in Maryland, and his father served as the Attorney General of Maryland from 1806 to 1811. He graduated from St. John's College in 1812 and then studied law. He served as a private in the War of 1812 and participated in the Battle of Bladensburg. In 1817, he moved to Baltimore, where he established a law practice. He served in the Maryland State Senate (1821-1825) and represented Maryland in the U.S. Senate (1845-1849). From March 1849 to July 1850, he served as U.S. Attorney General under Presidents Zachary Taylor and Millard Fillmore. In 1857, he represented the slave-owning defendant in Dred Scott v. Sanford, though he was personally opposed to slavery. In 1865, he unsuccessfully defended Mary Surratt in her trial as a Lincoln assassination conspirator. He again represented Maryland in the U.S. Senate (1863-1868) and served briefly as the U.S. Minister to the United Kingdom (1868-1869).

John A. Rockwell (1803-1861) was born in Connecticut and graduated from Yale College in 1822. He studied law, gained admission to the bar, and practiced in Norwich, Connecticut. He served in the Connecticut Senate (1839) and represented Connecticut as a Whig in the U.S. House of Representatives (1845-1849). After serving in Congress, he practiced law in Washington, D.C. He supported the formation of the Constitutional Union Party in 1860.

This item comes with a Certificate from John Reznikoff, a premier authenticator for both major 3rd party authentication services, PSA and JSA (James Spence Authentications), as well as numerous auction houses.

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  • Dimensions: 8.375" x 13.5"; 6.25" x 8"
  • Artist Name: James Buchanan
  • Medium: AL

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