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PIERCE, Franklin. Autograph letter signed ("Franklin Pierce") to George M. Dallas (1792-1864), Minister to Great Britain, Funchal, Madeira, 20 January 1858. 4 pages, 8vo (8 x 5 1/16 in.), show-through from thin paper . A FORMER PRESIDENT WATCHES FROM THE SIDELINES: "THERE IS CERTAINLY AN UNUSUAL STATE OF THINGS AT WASHINGTON" Pierce, a year after leaving the White House, offers his views on the turbulent presidency of his successor, James Buchanan After failing to receive his party's renomination for a second term, Pierce had retired from politics. Asked what a President did after leaving office, he responded "There's nothing left...but to get drunk" (Boller, Presidential Anecdotes , p. 116). Hoping to cure his wife's severe depression after the death of their youngest son, Pierce had arranged an extended period of travel. Writing from Spain to Dallas, former Vice President under Polk, Pierce reports that "Mrs. Pierce's health has improved very decidely since we arrived here..." Then Pierce turns to the ongoing crisis over the potential extension of slavery into territories north of the old Missouri Compromise line, which had become an issue with passage of the Kansas Nebraska Act during Pierce's administration: "The Union, I see, speaks hopefully with regard to Kansas. I should be glad to perceive good grounds for such sanguine expectations, but at this distance, the aspect of things appears to be to promise anything but a speedy pacification." The situation, as Pierce, was aware, had been additionally inflamed by the Dred Scott decision and by Buchanan's support of the proslavery Lecompton Constitution, which would allow slavery in Kansas. Pierce is critical of "the tone which the N.Y. Herald holds toward the present Executive"; the Herald, he charges, has assailed "with vulgar indignity Genl [Jefferson] Davis and the State rights men of the south generally," and "has done the President much damage." He is alarmed at the propect that the inflamed debate will do lasting damage to the Democratic Party: "There is certainly an unusual state of things at Washington. Does it not sound oddly enough to hear Judge [Stephen] Douglas denouncing a servile and corrupt press and discussing the question whether he is indeed in or out of the Democratic party? These early open divisions certainly do not augur well." Closing, Pierce adds "I should look with much interest for the debates upon the questions of the tariff, currency and internal improvements," but "upon this last question, I do not understand the President. The general proposition upon the subject enunciated in his inaugural address I regarded as sound, but his special recommendation seems to me to be in conflict with it." The signs of profound discord which Pierce so clearly perceived--even across the ocean--did not abate, and in the next election, resulted in a fatal split in the Democratic Party. In the 1860 campaign, Douglas was the clear choice of the main wing of the party, but Southern Democrats bolted the party to field their own pro-slavery candidate, John Breckinridge. With the Democratic vote divided, Lincoln would find a clear path to the Presidency.