Since the receipt of your favor of the 17th ultimo, I have had another attack of my old enemy, the gout, in a severe form, from which I am just now recovering. This is the only reason why I have not sooner answered your letter and thanked you for your delicious pears. I shall use them as time mellows them. Please to present my grateful acknowledgments to Mrs. Raney for her contribution to the delicious fruit which has afforded so much pleasure to her father’s old friend.
I hear perhaps once a week from Mr. and Mrs. Johnston. Both, as well as the little baby, are well.
I reciprocate your congratulations on the result of the late elections, and I do not doubt that New York, New Jersey and Connecticut will do their duty to the country. Still, it may be too late to restore material prosperity to the Southern States. The establishment of negro suffrage throughout their limits, as well as negro government, will nearly destroy the production of the articles which rendered both them and New England so prosperous. I have always been very much of an optimist, but I confess I have now greater fears for the future than I had during the war. Should New England teaching in the South produce a war of races, commenced by the negroes for rights in the soil of their masters, which they claim under the teachings of Sumner, Stevens, and other self-styled philanthropists, the result would be too horrible for contemplation. But enough.
Your friend, very respectfully,
James Buchanan.
[MR. BUCHANAN TO MR. CAPEN.]
Wheatland, October 19, 1867.
My Dear Sir:—
I have received your congratulations on the result of the late elections with heartfelt pleasure. For this we are mainly indebted to the attempts on the part of Congress to grant suffrage to the negroes, although there are many other good causes for the reaction in the popular mind. Negro emancipation is a fixed fact, and so let it remain forever; but the high privilege of voting can only be constitutionally granted by the Legislatures of the respective States.
I am happy to inform you that, under the blessing of Providence, my health has been restored to its former condition. Indeed, I believe I am better than I was before my attack.