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“JUDICIOUS FRIENDS . . .ADVISE METO
ACCEPTTHE MISSIONTO ENGLAND”
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●
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]
[700/1,000]
“
. . . [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.
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