GREELEY HORACE Autograph Letter Signed to HS Randol

Sale 2428 - Lot 83

Price Realized: $ 1,062

?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price

Estimate: $ 800 - $ 1,200

"I CAN BE JUST TO JEFFERSON WITHOUT BEING UNJUST TO HAMILTON" GREELEY, HORACE. Autograph Letter Signed, to H.S. Randol, declining to participate in a debate concerning some of the principles of Thomas Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton except on his own peculiar terms. 2 pages, small 4to, with integral blank; short separation at horizontal fold. New York, 23 March 1858

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". . . I don't feel sure that I shall care to enter upon the contest . . . because I grow old and weary of contention, and I feel that to enter upon the controversy you provoke would place me in the category where I regret to find you--this is, of a decrier of one half our Revolutionary patriots for the aggrandizement of the other half. Now I feel that I can be just to Jefferson without being unjust to Hamilton. But, if I dispute with you (since it will never do to make a dozen different points of controversy), I shall take my stand in Hamilton's views of Finance, and especially his Funding System, whereby he was first brought in direct collision with Jefferson. To vindicate him in this point, I must assail Jefferson, and that is just what I would avoid, for, though I hold J[efferson] wrong there, I regard him as right in so much that I do not wish to place myself in a false position by seeming to be his adversary. . . . If . . . I attack Jefferson or you in defense of Hamilton, it will be understood by you as an invitation to you to reply through The Tribune. I believe neither Jefferson nor you can complain if I choose that point of attack or defense."