ALS, one page, 8 x 10, June 11, 1852. Handwritten letter to Isaac G. McKinley, editor of the Harrisburg Democratic Union, commending his editorials and offering some commentary on Franklin Pierce, who had just been nominated for president at the 1852 Democratic National Convention. In part: "The editorials of the last Union are admirable & I could wish them to be in the hands of every Democrat in the Union. You, with Mr. Parke & other friends, can best decide whether in view of the terrible & doubtful conflict before us in Pennsylvania, the circulation of these articles & the capital address in the form you suggest would injure the cause…I served in the Senate with General Pierce all the time he was a member of that Body, though we were never on terms of special intimacy. I recollect him as a radical & inflexible Democrat in all his votes, sometimes going beyond Silas Wright & myself. He was modest, amiable & gentlemanly in his manners. The Whigs can make nothing out of any of his votes, nor of any thing else unless they may possibly endeavor to attack him, though unjustly, about the Cilley duel. General Pierce is a gentleman of fair intellect & excellent education; though he never took a prominent part in the debates or proceedings of the Senate…Judging from Pierce's old associations, I should infer that the Barnburning wing (Van Buren's) of the New York Democracy would have much influence over him." In fine condition. Accompanied by a handsome custom-made finely bound quarter-leather case.
Pierce was a close friend of Jonathan Cilley, whom he had met while studying at Bowdoin College. Elected to the House of Representatives in 1836, Cilley served for nearly a year before being killed in a duel with Representative William J. Graves. Nathaniel Hawthorne, Franklin Pierce, and other prominent Northerners saw dueling as a barbaric Southern institution and expressed their outrage, which Southerners resented. Though Buchanan contended with Pierce for the 1852 nomination, he took his defeat with dignity and supported Pierce's candidacy; he would be rewarded by President Pierce with an appointment as United States Minister to the United Kingdom.
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