"I deeply regret we are not to have our mountain excursion together, and especially grieved that the disappointment should be on account of Mrs. Pierce's ill health. As the greater part of my pleasure would have been your companionship I question whether I shall press the matter any farther, although I do not as yet decidedly give up the idea. "Some spiteful abolitionist took trouble to send to me a compendium of abusive paragraphs from the newspapers in reference to you, and it seems to me that the best way of disappointing his malice was to lay them aside without reading one of them, which I accordingly did. "With best regard to Mrs. Pierce and most earnest wishes for a speedy recovery, "Faithfully yours, "HATH." In addition to the Hawthorne letters are some written by Jefferson Davis, who was a close friend of President Pierce, and who was appointed by the latter Secretary of War during his administration. The friendship between Jefferson Davis and President Pierce commenced during the time when Pierce was a member of the Senate. Mr. Davis thus writes concerning him to one of his personal friends. "Mr. Pierce, then a member of the Senate, sustained every cardinal principle asserted by Mr. Calhoun, and there was not a member of the Senate who more uniformly voted to sustain them. As an auditor I heard the debate, watched the votes, and then commenced the affectionate esteem and high appreciation of Mr. Pierce which grew and strengthened with every succeeding year of his life. The position he then assumed clearly indicated the views subsequently expressed in the extract you have incorporated in your article. "Like many other practical statesmen, he was not disposed to disturb the 'Missouri Compromise,' but I have little doubt that at any period of his political career he would have said that it should have never been adopted. When he saw by the legislation of 1850, with which he was no more connected than that of 1820, the manifestation of a purpose to assert sound political principles and follow more closely the Constitution as it was written, he could but rejoice in this triumph of the creed he had so bravely defended in 1837-8. "The situation made by you from his message of Dec. 1885, and especially the closing words of the extract, 'Existing or Incipient States,' proved undoubtedly that his understanding was that institutions were to be ordained and established not by the first adventurers into a wilderness, but by organized, self-governing communities, such as the people of States, either of the Union or about to enter it. "I send back one of the two copies received of the Granite Monthly and on the magazine you will find pencil marks opposite the passages on which I have ventured freely to comment.