My arm is not yet so far restored as to be of any use. I trust, however, that the weakness is only of a temporary nature. My health, in other respects, is good.
I am your grateful brother,
Geo. W. Buchanan.
Mr. Buchanan returned to Lancaster after this meeting had been held. His nomination to the Vice-Presidency continued to be agitated in other parts of Pennsylvania, and in June a great meeting of the supporters of General Jackson was held at Williamsport, of which George Buchanan gives the following account:
[GEORGE W. BUCHANAN TO JAMES BUCHANAN.]
Pittsburgh, June 15, 1831.
Dear Brother:—
I arrived here on Thursday. The heat was so oppressive on horseback that I sold my horse at Bellefonte, and returned in the stage. The journey has, in a very great degree, restored my health.
The Jackson meeting at Williamsport was an exceedingly respectable one. Fifteen counties were represented. There can be no doubt that you were the Pennsylvanian to whom the resolution respecting the Vice-Presidency was intended to point. I have every reason to believe that your name would have been inserted by an almost unanimous vote, if Mr. Potter, from Centier, had not been detained at home by the illness of his wife. He would have offered a resolution nominating you; and I can say, from information of the most undoubted credit, that at least two-thirds of all the jurors would have warmly sustained it. Mr. Ward, editor of the Susquehanna Register, and Mr. Youngman, editor of the Union Times, with both of whom I became intimately acquainted, are decidedly favorable to your nomination. They are intelligent young men, and have, in a warm and flattering manner, solicited my correspondence.
In the Western country, I find that the Ingham faction is extremely weak. Out of Bradford County, and apart from their family connections, they appear to have no friends in the West. The people in our district speak very favorably of Mr. Muhlenburg as the next Governor, and, I assure you, I did nothing to discountenance that feeling. The popularity of the present Governor has been injured by the appointment of General McKean, the proposition to tax coal, and the character of certain county appointments. The resolution adopted at our meeting, and opposing General Jackson’s course in the Cabinet affair, was intended as a direct censure upon Messrs. Ingham, &c. Owing to the relation I bore to you and to General Jackson, I determined to take no active part in the meeting.