(JACKSON ANDREW) GALLATIN ALBERT Autograph Letter Signed to

Sale 2483 - Lot 152

Price Realized: $ 1,500

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Estimate: $ 500 - $ 750

"THE DANGER TO WHICH, NEXT TO A DISSOLUTION OF THE UNION, WE ARE MOST EXPOSED" (JACKSON, ANDREW.) GALLATIN, ALBERT. Autograph Letter Signed, to an unnamed recipient, concerning Jackson's defeat in the 1824 presidential election. 4 pages, 9 1/2x7 3/4 inches, on one folding sheet; short closed separations at folds, lacking half an inch of the bottom corner without loss of text. New Geneva, PA, 18 February 1825

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Albert Gallatin (1761-1849) was a Swiss immigrant who had served the young nation in several roles, most notably in Congress, as Minister to France, and as Jefferson's Secretary of Treasury. Here he expresses deep dismay at Andrew Jackson's nearly successful presidential candidacy, comparing the general to Napoleon as an existential threat to the Republic: "I cannot help being thankful that the choice has not fallen on Gen. Jackson. I think that we have, for this time at least, escaped the danger to which, next to a dissolution of the Union, we are most exposed. Whence, that general, I had almost said, universal tendency of the mass of mankind for monarchy? Is it hatred for all those who have some accidental superiority of talent, wealth or knowledge, and wish to equalize all under the yoke of one? Is it that idolatry for men, above all for heroes, is more natural?. . . We might have flattered ourselves that the natural feeling of envy towards those who are in a better situation than others would be so softened in a country where there is nothing hereditary, where there is a perpetual fluctuation, where the road to wealth & power is opened to all. . . . In this opinion I was encouraged by what I had known and seen at the end of our revolutionary war with respect to Gen. Washington & his fellow soldiers, a time when I thought the people were not sufficiently grateful. But what has passed lately has disappointed and ag[g]rieved me. We, the last hope of liberty & of mankind, we placed under the most favorable circumstances for establishing a permanent republic . . . to act not much better , taking everything into consideration, than the long enslaved Frenchman did, when naturally ignorant of the principles of liberty, they eagerly threw themselves into the iron arms of Bonaparte." Gallatin must have been even more distraught four years later when Jackson actually won.