I owe you many thanks for your very kind offer to cause my record to be stereotyped and to superintend the work. Your services would be invaluable, but I do not consider it of sufficient importance for stereotyping. By the bye, a friend the other day sent me a copy of Appleton’s Cyclopædia for 1861, which I find, to my surprise, contains a tolerably fair representation of the last months of my administration, so far as the facts were known to the author. It is, however, greatly deficient in many particulars. Still, there is throughout a spirit of candor manifested, to which I have not been lately accustomed.

I hope your meeting in New York may result in good for the country and the Democratic party. So far as I can learn and observe, there will be very great difficulty in erecting a platform on which the party can unite. It now embraces all shades of opinion, from the prosecution of the war with as much vigor as the Republicans, notwithstanding the violations of the Constitution, down to peace [with the Confederate government], which means neither more nor less than recognition. I say that this means recognition, because I entertain not the least idea that the South would return to the Union, if we were to offer to restore them with all the rights which belonged to them, as expounded by the Supreme Court, at the time of their secession. Besides, I regret to say, many good Democrats in Pennsylvania begin to be inoculated with abolition principles. I could construct a platform which would suit myself; but what is right and what is practicable are two very different things. For the latter we must await the course of events until a short time before the meeting of the convention. I entertain a warm regard both for Mr. Reed and Mr. O’Conor, but I believe both may be called extreme peace men. Have you ever reflected upon what would be the embarrassments of a Democratic administration, should it succeed to power with the war still existing and the finances in their present unhappy condition?

The Democrats of New Hampshire, with General Pierce, have fought a noble battle worthy of a better fate. I was much pleased with the article you were kind enough to send me.

Miss Lane desires to be most kindly remembered to you. Whilst it is highly improbable that we shall drop in upon you at Mount Ida, I hope it is certain you may drop in upon us at Wheatland during the approaching spring or summer. The bluebirds and other songsters are now singing around me, and the buds are ready to burst; but yet we have all kinds of weather in the course of a single day.

From your friend, very respectfully,

James Buchanan.

[MR. BUCHANAN TO MRS. VIELE.]

Wheatland, near Lancaster, May 2, 1864.

My Dear Madam:—

I must crave a thousand pardons for not having complied with your request and sent you my autograph, with a sentiment for your album. I need not assign the reasons for this omission, but if you should think it proceeded from want of respect for yourself, you would be greatly in error. On the contrary, although I have never enjoyed the pleasure of your acquaintance, yet from what I have learned of your character and intellectual accomplishments, I shall be proud to hold a place in your personal esteem.