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James Buchanan

Currency:USD Category:Collectibles / Autographs Start Price:NA Estimated At:400.00 - 600.00 USD
James Buchanan

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Auction Date:2013 Jun 19 @ 18:00 (UTC-05:00 : EST/CDT)
Location:5 Rt 101A Suite 5, Amherst, New Hampshire, 03031, United States
ALS - Autograph Letter Signed
ANS - Autograph Note Signed
AQS - Autograph Quotation Signed
AMQS - Autograph Musical Quotation Signed
DS - Document Signed
FDC - First Day Cover
Inscribed - “Personalized”
ISP - Inscribed Signed Photograph
LS - Letter Signed
SP - Signed Photograph
TLS - Typed Letter Signed
Significant LS, three pages both sides, 8 x 10, March 12, 1836. Letter to the Democratic Association of the Fourth Ward, Spring Garden. In full: “I have, this moment, received the Resolution, unanimously adopted by your Association, on the 9th Instant, expressing an opinion, that in case the Legislature of Pennsylvania should instruct their Senators to vote against Colonel Benton's expunging Resolution, we ‘should not, under any circumstances, recognise this instruction.

Entertaining, as I do, the highest respect both for your patriotism & your judgment, it is with unaffected regret that I feel myself constrained to dissent from this opinion.

There are some political principles of a character so sacred, that we ought never even to think of sacrificing them at the shrine of expediency. You will agree with me that of these, no one deserves to occupy a higher rank than, that the public will ought to be obeyed by the public servant, or he ought to resign his trust.

This is a principle which I adopted in my early youth. ‘It has grown & strengthened with my Strength.’ All my experience has convinced me, that the safety of the people demands that this rule should be inflexibly obeyed by all their Representatives. The sentiments which I expressed upon this subject, in my letter to the Democratic members of the Legislature, at the time of my election to the Senate, were only the repetition of opinions which I had, a hundred times expressed before.

This principle, of obedience or resignation, is the very key stone of the Arch which indissolubly unites together the Democracy of all the States of this Union. However divided it may sometimes have been on other questions; on this, there has been an entire unanimity of opinion.

Is this then a moment when a Pennsylvania Senator, elected by a Democratic Legislature, should do any act which, in its consequences, might shake this adamantine foundation? We have just witnessed in our State, the effect which has been produced by a disobedience of the public will. A vast monied Institution, which we all believed to be dangerous to the rights & liberties of the People of the whole Union, & which had been condemned by a large majority of the people of Pennsylvania, has just been chartered, for a period of thirty years, by our State Legislature. If the Republican party justly believed that, as a National Institution, it was fraught with dangers to the people of all the States, how much more alarming ought it to be to the people of a single State, within which, all its energies and all its influence are now concentrated? If the power of the General Government, united with the well deserved popularity of General Jackson, could scarcely make head against it, what will be our condition in Pennsylvania with a state administration devoted to its interests? At the present crisis we have nothing to rely upon, but a strict adherence to the principles and usages of the Democratic party. For the sake of any temporary advantage, no public servant would even think of betraying the great cause of liberty into the hands of power. If we all act upon this principle, we have nothing to fear. The free and manly spirit of the people, the deep conviction which is every where felt that the approaching contest will be a struggle for life or for death & that the Democracy must either triumph over the Bank, or the Bank must crush the Democracy, will ensure us a glorious victory.

I believe with you that the present Legislature of Pennsylvania will not speak the voice of the people of the State, should they instruct me to vote against the expunging resolution. You will readily perceive, however, that if the Senator himself is to be made the Judge, if his opinion, as to what may be the people’s will, is to determine his obedience or disobedience to Legislative instructions, the right itself rests upon his own discretion & might as well at once be abandoned. The conduct of the Senators, who have been so loudly condemned by the Democratic party throughout the Union, for acting upon this principle, is at once justified; and we must retract all we have said against the course which they have pursued. We must do more. We must virtually determine that no Senator from Pennsylvania can ever be instructed; because our Territory is so extensive & our population so numerous, that it is almost impossible for a majority of the whole people ever, in this form to communicate their will to their Senators.

There may possibly be extreme cases, as I have intimated in my letter to the Democratic members of the Legislature, in which the Senator, in order to avert a great public evil, might be justified in deciding, that the Legislature had violated the will of the people in voting him instructions. I do not now say that such cases might or might not exist; but certainly the present is not one of them. My vote can neither pass nor defeat the expunging resolution at the present Session. Besides, the voice of the American people has doomed that the Resolution of the Senate, condemning President Jackson, shall be expunged; and whether the actual process shall be Performed, during the present or the next year, is not a matter of any great importance.

Again, I am proud to say, that I have acquired some little Character, with the Democracy of the other twenty three states of this Union. However small this may be, yet it is still dear to me; & I wish to preserve it. They are not familiarly acquainted, as we are, with the local politics of Pennsylvania. They have already seen that our House of Representatives have passed the Instructions by a vote of 64 to 25; and they will probably pass the Senate by a large majority. If I shall neither yield obedience to these instructions, nor resign, I will be placed upon the same list, in their estimation, with those Senators who have felt it to be their duty to disregard instructions altogether. It will be said of me, that I have professed the duty of obedience or resignation when it affected political opponents, but have shrunk from its application to myself.

I shall never consent to consider the present as a question of mere expediencey; but if I were, I should unhesitatingly declare it to be my conviction, that the party to which I am proud to belong, would lose more–much more–by my abandonment of one of its essential principles, than they would gain by my vote in favor of the expunging resolutions, or by all the votes I should be able to give, during the residue of my term in the Senate.

Every friend with whom I have conversed upon the subject, in this City, and these include many of the most distinguished Republicans throughout the Union, are all clearly & decidedly of opinion that I ought either to obey or to resign. Either alternative will bring the question distinctly before the people of the State, at their next General Election, whether, what I believe to be, the unconstitutional & unjust resolution of condemnation, against the President, for one of the most meritorious acts of his long & useful life, shall or shall not be expunged from the Journals of the Senate.

To obey or resign is, then, my fixed determination. Should I adopt the former course, I shall declare at the time I give my vote, that I do it merely as an agent in obedience to Legislative instructions, and against my own opinion.

If I consult my own feelings, I shall resign. A public man, in his public conduct, ought not only to be chaste but unsuspected.

I should be sorry to have it even suspected by any citizen of my native state, that I was capable of clinging to an office, however high and honorable, for a moment longer than I could retain it, without the sacrifice of any principle. Which of the two alternatives I shall finally adopt, I have not yet fully determined. When the proper time arrives, I shall be prepared to act promptly and decidedly.

I herewith transmit to you an extract from my letter to the Democratic members of our Legislature, dated on the 22 day of December, 1834, containing that part of it which relates to the subject of Instructions.”

The extract mentioned by Buchanan is included, two pages, both sides, written in an unknown hand, and headed at the top, “Extract of a letter addressed by Mr. Buchanan to Jacob Kerr Esquire & others, Democratic members of the Legislature of Pennsylvania on the 22 December 1834.” Letter is housed in a custom-made hardcover case. In fine condition, with intersecting folds, one through a single letter of signature, a few scattered ink brushes and spots of soiling, and two paperclip marks to first page.

Ever torn between following his own beliefs or those of his constituents, Pennsylvania Senator James Buchanan again found himself trapped on the issue of expunging Jackson’s censure from the Senate Journal. After withdrawing federal deposits from the Bank of the United States at the start of his second term, President Jackson was officially censured by the Senate for assuming power not conferred by the Constitution—the only time in American history that this formal reprimand has been placed upon a president. For the next three years, Missouri Democrat Thomas Hart Benton campaigned to have it expunged, bringing the resolution to back the Senate in 1836 (now with a Democratic majority), where we find Buchanan at the time of this letter. If instructed by the State Legislature, expressing the will of the people, to vote against the resolution, Buchanan would find two of his strongest beliefs in opposition: one, that his role was to obey the people he represented, and two, that the censure should absolutely be expunged. Agonizing over how to reconcile the two, he declares, “To obey or resign is, then, my fixed determination. Should I adopt the former course, I shall declare at the time I give my vote, that I do it merely as an agent in obedience to Legislative instructions, and against my own opinion.” During the last session of Congress under Jackson, the vote was taken after thirteen hours of debate; with a five-vote majority, the resolution passed and the censure was expunged from the record of the aging president, just weeks from retirement. A remarkable letter giving voice to the constant inner turmoil that Buchanan carried all the way to the White House twenty years later, helping lead the country towards Civil War.