[WHEELING, VA.?], May 24th, 1856.
DEAR SIR: I have had a somewhat desultory correspondence
with my old friend Linn Boyd.1 He thinks it likely, he will be put
in nomination for the Presidency by Kentucky. I do not think he has much hope
beyond this. You are his first choice when his claims are disposed of. I wrote
him last week a letter intended to satisfy him, that the danger was in the
nomination of Douglass whom he very cordially dislikes for various reasons, and
that his true policy was to get the nomination from K[entuck]y and to hold on
to it until Buchanan and Pierce were out of the way, which I think will soon be
the case and then to give the fruits of the game to you. He has no respect for
Mr. Buchanan and a decided hostility to Pierce and Douglass. His choice after
you would be Rusk.2 But I hope he can control the Kentucky
delegation and if he can I think it most likely that at an early stage of the
game he will go for you. I deem this important as our own state from the
division which exists will be measurably impotent in the Convention and as
their is a growing jealously of our influence in the nominating Convention by
Ohio and other states. I cannot but think that most of the south must take you
in preference. The state-rights party all over the south must prefer you, if there
is any reason in mens preferences, before any other man named either north or
south and I have been inclined to think that the Pierce movement was for your
benefit only. But I intended only in this note to write you in relation to Boyd
and to suggest a cautious movement on the part of your confidential friends
towards Boyd's K[entuck]y friends in Con[gres]s. The manner of this approach I
cannot suggest for I cannot anticipate the actual condition of things which may
make it proper or improper. If I hear that Boyd himself is at Cincinnatti I
will go down myself if it is possible for me to leave. Russell is for Buchanan
first from choice. He is for you on the second. Neeson I understand personally
prefers Pierce, but must go for "Buck," but
"Buck" and Pierce being pitted and killed by the same operation he
will then I think go for you. But we will soon know the result.
_______________
* A Democratic Representative in Congress from Virginia, 1851-1852.
1 A Representative in Congress from Kentucky, 1835-1837 and 1839-1855; twice elected Speaker of the House, 1851-1855.
2Thomas Jefferson Rusk, a Senator in Congress from Texas, 1845-1857.
SOURCE: Charles Henry Ambler, Editor, Annual Report of the American Historical Association for the Year 1916, in Two Volumes, Vol. II, Correspondence of Robert M. T. Hunter (1826-1876), p. 195
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