Beschreibung:

BUCHANAN, JAMES, President . Autograph letter signed ("James Buchanan") AS SECRETARY OF STATE, to John Wadman, Washington, D.C., 10 December 1847. 1 page, 4to, integral blank, docketed on verso . "MY WAY TO THE [PRESIDENTIAL] NOMINATION WOULD NOW BE CLEAR, WERE IT NOT FOR THE DIVISIONS AT HOME" Secretary Buchanan writes a family friend, rather casually assessing his chances for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1848: "...I should gladly write you a long letter; but my time, morning noon & night is almost incessantly occupied. Your valued friendship for me is hereditary. With your grandfather I have passed many happy hours & your father & myself were at [Dickinson] College together. My way to the [presidential] nomination would now be clear if it were not for the divisions at home. The friends of other candidates already begin to say that they must look to some other State. My friends, however, assure me that there [ sic ] divisions will not be very serious. If I were to judge alone from the support which I shall receive in other States, the prospect would be very bright..." Buchanan, Lewis Cass and Levi Woodbury were all contenders for the Democratic presidential nomination; Lewis Cass won the nomination on the fourth ballot, only to lose the election to the very popular Whig candidate, Zachary Taylor.