(PRESIDENTS 1805) Tracy Uriah A hostile eyewitness account

Sale 2486 - Lot 357

Price Realized: $ 1,500

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Estimate: $ 800 - $ 1,200

MOCKS "EVERY YELLOW HAIR ON HIS MISCREANT HEAD" (PRESIDENTS--1805.) Tracy, Uriah. A hostile eyewitness account of Jefferson's second inauguration. Autograph Letter Signed as a United States Senator representing Connecticut to fellow Congressman Samuel Thatcher in Warren, ME. 3 pages, 9 3/4 x 8 inches, plus address panel bearing inked "Wash'n City" postmark, on two detached leaves; moderate wear with several tape repairs, uneven toning, and slight loss of text. With full typed transcript. Washington, 19 March 1805

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Tracy was an ardent Federalist senator, and his account of Jefferson's second-term inauguration drips with sarcasm: "I am still in this pleasant wilderness, misnomered a city. . . . You have seen the inaugural speech, & had you been here, you could only have seen it delivered, as I really believe no person heard a single sentence distinctly. It was high life in pantomime below stairs. . . . The Democrats allowed that there was a little defect in the delivery, unless it was done so softly, [as] some of them suggested, out of modesty, & if so that was prodigious fine."
Tracy also discusses Jefferson's response to the drama brewing in the new Louisiana Territory: "Col. Burr left us this morning for New Orleans. What he will do there, is a mere matter of conjecture. . . . Gen'l Wilkinson is appointed Gov'r of Louisiana. . . . The President was informed before he left that the Spaniards had occupied a military post not [far] from Natchitoches, far within the limits, as he supposes, of Louisiana. This made him perspire at every pore, and almost at the end of every yellow hair on his miscreant head." Provenance: Sotheby's London sale to benefit the Manuscript Society, 27 May 1986, lot 431, to the consignor.