When the suggestion was made to me, I expressed a
decided objection, and gave reasons of a public and permanent character
against being placed in that position.
Furthermore, I then held the office of United States Senator from
Mississippi--one which I preferred to all others. The kindness of the
people had three times conferred it upon me, and I had no reason to fear
that it would not be given again, as often as desired. So far from
wishing to change this position for any other, I had specially requested
my friends (some of whom had thought of putting me in nomination for the
Presidency of the United States in 1860) not to permit "my name to be
used before the Convention for any nomination whatever."
I had been so near the office for four years, while in the Cabinet of
Mr. Pierce, that I saw it from behind the scenes, and it was to me an
office in no wise desirable. The responsibilities were great; the labor,
the vexations, the disappointments, were greater. Those who have
intimately known the official and personal life of our Presidents can
not fail to remember how few have left the office as happy men as when
they entered it, how darkly the shadows gathered around the setting sun,
and how eagerly the multitude would turn to gaze upon another orb just
rising to take its place in the political firmament.
Worn by incessant fatigue, broken in fortune, debarred by public
opinion, prejudice, or tradition, from future employment, the wisest and
best who have filled that office have retired to private life, to
remember rather the failure of their hopes than the success of their
efforts.
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