Nov 17, 2016 - Sale 2432

Sale 2432 - Lot 269

Price Realized: $ 1,000
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 500 - $ 750
(PRESIDENTS--1800 CAMPAIGN.) Nicholas, John. Letter dismissing Thomas Jefferson's political future. Autograph Letter Signed as United States Representative to Secretary of War James McHenry. 2 pages, 9 1/4 x 7 1/2 inches; lacking address leaf; mount remnant along right edge of second page. (MRS) Charlottesville, VA, 3 May 1799

Additional Details

A Virginia Federalist hopes for revenge against Thomas Jefferson: "I have lost my own election by a very great majority, owing to the powerful influence, the well-known opinions, and great exertions of my good friends & much admired patriotic countrymen T Jefferson & James Monroe; but if I mistake not, the first of those gentlemen will feel the influence of a majority of the citizens of his own state against him at the next election for a vice president. I flatter myself the northern states will join us in the election of Marshall or Pinckney to that office; & in case of our present good old president's declining (which God forbid) either those two, or Hamilton & one of them, to the two offices." Nicholas was technically right on only one point, as Jefferson was not re-elected as vice president. He beat out John Adams for the presidential vote. Provenance: heirs of James McHenry; Parke-Bernet's McHenry sale, 3 May 1944, lot 144; Parke-Bernet sale, 22 March 1966, lot 85, to the consignor.