Buchanan, James:

$2,500 · Offered by William Reese Company

[AUTOGRAPH LETTER, SIGNED, FROM JAMES BUCHANAN TO JAMES A. CALDWELL]. An excellent letter from future President James Buchanan to James A. Caldwell, regarding national finance and the diffusion of the "Aroostook War" at the end of the decades-long Maine boundary conflict with Great Britain. Caldwell, a Democratic state senator of Pennsylvania, was a close personal friend and frequent correspondent of Buchanan in the 1830s and 40s. This letter from then-senator Buchanan reads in part:"In regard to Mr. Tyler's measures of nomination; I feel every disposition to support both when I can do so without a violation of principle; but I cannot approve his Exchequer project. Indeed it has but few, - very few friends in either party. As it was originally presented by the Secretary of the Treasury [Walter Forward], I considered it more dangerous if possible than a National Bank....Nothing has yet authentically transpired of the character of Lord Ashburton's negotiations. He is very pacific in his conversation; I have no doubt he sincerely desires to preserve the peace between the two countries, but we cannot yet form any decided opinion at what may be the results....One of the greatest evils under our system is the unreasonable length of the sessions of Congress. We have now been in session nearly six months and the House have not yet begun to consider the tariff question...."Tyler's Exchequer Project was a plan presented to Congress in December 1841, which envisioned a public banking in

Found via Rare Books Intel, a search across rare-book dealers, auction houses and marketplaces worldwide.