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James Buchanan

Currency:USD Category:Collectibles / Autographs Start Price:NA Estimated At:1,500.00 - 2,500.00 USD
James Buchanan

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Auction Date:2018 Sep 12 @ 18:00 (UTC-5 : EST/CDT)
Location:236 Commercial St., Suite 100, Boston, Massachusetts, 02109, 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
ALS as senator, one page, 8 x 10, January 31, 1835. Letter to Charles B. Penrose, the Pennsylvania Speaker of the House, marked "Strictly Confidential," in part: "If I were disposed to change my opinion about the Vice-Presidency I fear I have thrown so much cold water on it myself that I could not now be nominated. I believe I should be much more acceptable to the South than the gentleman who has been proposed from the West [Richard M. Johnson]. To have my name proposed to the Convention & to be beaten by Dallas—who cannot in any event finally succeed, would be very mortifying. But I did not sit down to write on the subject.

I have been preparing myself to speak on the expunging resolution. The condemnation of the President by the Senate was a high handed act of usurpation. The only question in my mind is whether we have the power to obliterate the Journal of the Senate. A very strong argument can be made against it. If you should pass a resolution on this subject, I would suggest whether it might not be as well to leave it in the alternative & to instruct your Senators to vote for rescinding, repealing & reversing the resolution, or for expunging it from the journals. This course, I think, would relieve the party from all difficulty, in case we should be in any, which is by no means clear. If you intend to pass a resolution, it had better be done soon. We are waiting for Pennsylvania either to act or decline acting before we move in the business." Includes the detached address leaf, filled out in Buchanan's hand and franked in the upper right, "Free, James Buchanan." In very good condition, with old repairs on the reverse to paper loss and separations to the fragile intersecting folds; the detached free-franked address leaf has similar repairs, including a restored large area of paper loss impinging on its franking signature. Accompanied by a handsome custom-made quarter leather presentation folder.

On March 28, 1834, prior to Buchanan's election, the Senate passed a resolution against President Andrew Jackson for removing public deposits from the Bank of the United States. The resolution amounted to a censure of Jackson, asserting that 'the President…in relation to the public revenue, has assumed upon himself authority and power not conferred by the Constitution and the laws, but in derogation of both.' Jackson responded by insisting that the 'President is the direct representative of the American people, responsible to them,' further endearing himself to the populace. On February 18, 1835, Senator Thomas H. Benton of Missouri would introduce a resolution on the Senate floor calling for the censure against President Jackson to be expunged from the Senate Journal. Buchanan, a Jackson ally, took the cause to heart, and here solicits the approval of Pennsylvania's legislature. A desirable letter representing the growth of Buchanan's political influence early in his Senate career.