[MR. PICKENS TO MR. BUCHANAN.]
Edgewood (South Carolina), July 5th, 1846.
My Dear Sir:—
I owe you a letter; but, as in your last, you said you were so much overwhelmed in business, I thought it would be wrong to inflict a letter upon you until you might have more leisure. And as I see you have disposed of the Oregon question and its difficulties, I suppose now you must be resting upon your triumphs and honors, and have some time to read a humdrum letter from a quondam friend, who assures you in advance that he is not going to beg you for any office whatever.
You wrote me you were about to give a letter of introduction to me for an English lady who was to travel South, etc. I looked a long time for this distinguished visitor, and had my household put in order to receive her, particularly as I heard she was about to write a “book,” and I desired to figure largely in English history.
By the by, I see it stated by “letter-writers,” who now constitute a distinguished fraternity illustrious for the intimate knowledge they possess of everything, that you are going to England yourself, and I see it also stated in the same quarter that you will take with you a very brilliant cousin of mine. Now, I will not tell you how I think you will represent us at the court of St. James, but I have no hesitation in saying that she will do us honor in any court in Europe. Is this all true? Where is King? Is he going to quit Paris? I hope if he comes home he will bring a French lady—it would suit him well. He was a little French before he went, and he must be very much so now. Tell him if he does intend to bring out a lady, for God’s sake, let it be no French or Italian countess. They say you were not satisfied with the settlement of the Oregon question, but that you wanted more rocks, and ice, and muskrats. I think it all turned out right, and would have been settled much earlier if the “notice” had passed at the first of the session. I know you are satisfied. I suppose it is about like what they used to say of you in relation to the tariff, that you wanted thirty-six dollars a ton on iron and prohibition on coal, etc., and yet I always knew you did not care a fig for the tariff, except some of your people were rising about it. I think I can tell what you do desire now above all things, and that is the luxurious feeling of honest independence enjoyed in the retirement of your beautiful homestead at Lancaster. If there is one feeling sweeter to man than any other, it is, after leaving cabinets, and courts, and politicians to breathe once more the pure air of one’s native hills and valleys.
What are you going to do with the Mexican war? I hope there will be no treaty without the acquisition of California. The loss of California to Mexico will be nothing, as it will aid in consolidating her government, and finally strengthen it, while its acquisition will be immense to us. In fact we have already conquered it, as there is no force between us and the North provinces to keep us out of it.
If we had California with its vast harbors, in the next fifty years we could control the commerce of the Pacific, and the wealth of China and India, and the future destiny of our glorious Republic would be to accumulate as vast wealth and power on the Pacific as we have on the Atlantic. Some people seem to have very tender consciences of late as to conquests, etc. I should like to know if half the earth is not now owned by the rights of conquests.
Some time since, when the Mexican war broke out, I wrote the President cordially approving of what had been done, etc.; but I have never heard a word. I hope he has no one to select letters for his eye, and to keep others from him, as used to be done by others who preceded him. This remark is suggested by the fact that I see lately some of his important appointments in this quarter have been made from his bitterest and most malignant opponents. I say this to you in confidence.
If you have time I should be glad to hear from you; and tell me who is to be the next President; and who I must pull off my cap to shout for, etc.