Entries drawn from collection & document descriptions
James Buchanan was a graduate of Dickinson College, Class of 1809, who went on to become the fifteenth president of the United States. The majority of this collection is comprised of correspondence between Buchanan and his business and political associates; over four hundred letters penned by...
Location: MC 1998.10
Subject: Dickinson College Student Life, Economics and Finance, Education, International Affairs, Legal Affairs, Personal and Family Life, Politics and Government
Format: Books and Pamphlets, Engravings and Illustrations, Legal and Government Documents, Letters/Correspondence, Memorabilia and Ephemera, Newspapers and Magazines, Reports, Speeches and Sermons
Time Period: 1800-1819, 1820-1839, 1840-1859, 1860-1879, 1880-1899, 1900-1919, 1920-1939, 1940-1959, 1960-1979, 1980-1999
Collection Inventory: 
mc1998.10.pdf
United States Attorney General Jeremiah Sullivan Black provides legal advice to President James Buchanan on whether the Chief Executive can remit part of the sentence of a convict. "I have examined and found that the universal practice of all your predecessors sanctioned by the courts has been...
Location: MC 1998.10, B1, F2
Subject: Legal Affairs, Politics and Government
Format: Letters/Correspondence
Time Period: 1840-1859
United States Attorney General Jeremiah Sullivan Black writes to Jacob Thompson, Secretary of the Interior, with a legal opinion on the question of whether widows of officers and soldiers could receive a government pension if they remarry. "Upon the whole it is clear," as Black concludes, that...
Location: I-BeachW-1974-1
Subject: Legal Affairs, Military Affairs and Conflict, Politics and Government
Format: Letters/Correspondence
Time Period: 1840-1859
President James Buchanan writes to Secretary of State Lewis Cass, Secretary of War John B. Floyd, and Attorney General Jeremiah S. Black regarding orders that they need to send to federal officials in Utah. "The State of Affairs in Utah renders it necessary that new & harmonious instructions...
Location: MC 1998.10, B4, F2
Subject: Politics and Government
Format: Letters/Correspondence
Time Period: 1840-1859
President James Buchanan writes to William R. Drinkard, Secretary of War John B. Floyd's chief clerk, in an attempt to solve a dispute over paying US Army Captain Montgomery Meigs. Buchanan asks Drinkard to send "the Paper addressed by Capt Meigs in reply to the Attorney Generals [Jeremiah S....
Location: I-Friends-2006-1
Subject: Economics and Finance, Legal Affairs, Politics and Government
Format: Letters/Correspondence
Time Period: 1860-1879
Former Attorney General Edwin McMasters Stanton writes former President James Buchanan to discuss public affairs in Washington and comment on events that occurred during the last few months of Buchanan's administration.
Location: I-SpahrB-1959-9
Subject: Legal Affairs, Military Affairs and Conflict, Politics and Government
Format: Letters/Correspondence
Time Period: 1860-1879
Edwin McMasters Stanton writes to James Buchanan stating that Stanton and their friends were very pleased by Judge Jeremiah Sullivan Black's message that Buchanan was in good health. Stanton also shares his opinion on the Patriot cause, financial troubles for the Union, and General John Adams...
Location: I-SpahrB-1959-9
Subject: Economics and Finance, Health and Medicine, Military Affairs and Conflict, Politics and Government
Format: Letters/Correspondence
Time Period: 1860-1879
Former President James Buchanan writes to Jeremiah Sullivan Black regarding his health and to plan a get together. Buchanan plans "to visit the Bedford Springs the present season." Black served in President Buchanan's administration as the U.S. Attorney General and U.S. Secretary of State.
Location: I-Friends-2004-2
Subject: Health and Medicine, Personal and Family Life, Travel and Tourism
Format: Letters/Correspondence
Time Period: 1860-1879
Augustus Schell writes to former Secretary of State Jeremiah Sullivan Black regarding events leading up to the start of the Civil War, particularly Fort Sumter.
Location: I-SpahrB-1959-9
Subject: Military Affairs and Conflict, Politics and Government
Format: Letters/Correspondence
Time Period: 1860-1879
In a response to Augustus Schell sent to Jeremiah Sullivan Black in July, Black writes to Schell regarding James Buchanan's Cabinet, Fort Sumter, and General John Adams Dix.
Location: I-SpahrB-1959-9
Subject: Military Affairs and Conflict, Politics and Government
Format: Letters/Correspondence
Time Period: 1860-1879
Former President James Buchanan writes Joseph Camp Griffith Kennedy regarding his health and finances. "My own heart is good, except that I am a little crippled in walking by the effects of my late very severe attack of rheumatism," as Buchanan explains. Buchanan also notes that "Judge Black has...
Location: I-Friends-2005-6
Subject: Economics and Finance, Health and Medicine, Politics and Government
Format: Letters/Correspondence
Time Period: 1860-1879
Former President James Buchanan writes to Horace Greeley, editor of the New York Tribune, and declines to send “any explanation, comment or disclaimer' of the acts of my administration during the last six months of its existence." While he has already "compiled a history of it during...
Location: MC 1998.10, B4, F9
Subject: Politics and Government
Format: Letters/Correspondence
Time Period: 1860-1879
Jacob Thompson, Secretary of the Interior in President James Buchanan's administration, writes Jeremiah Sullivan Black and asks for advice on what to do about the slander in John Bonner's Child's History of the United States. Black also served in President Buchanan's administration as...
Location: I-Friends-1991-12
Subject: Legal Affairs, Politics and Government
Format: Letters/Correspondence
Time Period: 1860-1879
Harriet Lane Johnston writes Judge Jeremiah Sullivan Black to defending her uncle's (President James Buchanan) motives for distribution of offices during his administration. "One thing I do know," as Johnston explains, is "that if he had an...
Location: MC 1998.10, B4, F16
Subject: Personal and Family Life, Politics and Government
Format: Letters/Correspondence
Time Period: 1880-1899
Jeremiah Sullivan Black writes Alexander Kelly McClure and criticizes George Ticknor Curtis' 2 volume biography of President James Buchanan, Life of Buchanan (1883). Black, who served as Attorney General and Secretary of State during President James Buchanan's administration, writes...
Location: I-BeachW-2003-1
Subject: Literary Pursuits, Politics and Government
Format: Letters/Correspondence
Time Period: 1880-1899
