DEAR SIR: Feeling
anxious that Virginia should be properly represented in Mr. Buchanan's Cabinet
and believing that her interests and those of the South would be guarded with
filial affection by you, it would afford me great pleasure to see you in a
position where your advice would command the attention and respect to which it
would be entitled and your talents be appropriated usefully to the Country. I
know they are so already, but of course I mean in a different position
from the one you now occupy. I think I am in a situation from which I may be of
service to you and therefore do not hesitate to ask you in confidence and to be
used in the same way, whether you would accept a seat in the Cabinet and would
be satisfied with the post of Secretary of the Treasury.
Amid the general
rejoicing for the great Victory achieved by the Democratic party and which we
had hoped would have given us repose for at least four years longer, I cannot
but regret that Mr. Buchanan should have done any thing to render less buoyant
the feelings of his true friends. His letter on the Pacific Railroad in my
opinion runs counter to all the cherished opinions and principles of Virginia on
internal improvements and opens a wide door to a system of wild expenditure and
extravagance that knows no bounds. Please let me hear from you as speedily as
convenient.
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), pp. 201-2
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