Mar 19, 2015 - Sale 2376

Sale 2376 - Lot 93

Price Realized: $ 4,000
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 1,500 - $ 2,500
"THE EXECUTIVE [PRESIDENT] WILL SHIELD ITSELF FROM RESPONSIBILITY IF IT CAN" JACKSON, ANDREW. Autograph Letter Signed, to Edward G.W. Butler, expressing worry that his friend General Edmund P. Gaines would not be protected by the "Executive" [President John Quincy Adams] from the attacks of Congress and Georgia Governor George M. Troup caused by Gaines's published remarks [on the Indian Springs Treaty], because his own experience shows that the "Executive" avoids responsibility when it can, excusing himself from attending his wedding, inviting the newlyweds to visit, and conveying personal news of friends and relatives. 2 pages, 4to, with integral address leaf; first and terminal pages silked, some separations at folds (with minor loss to text), minor bleed-through overall. Hermitage, 10 November 1825

Additional Details

"I had the pleasure to receive your several letters from Georgia & the Creek Nation . . . . I regret that my friend Genl. Gaines permitted himself to be drawn into a political newspaper controversy with Gov. T[roup]. However justifiable his conduct may be in this affair, still, it will afford Troup's friends in Congress a strong ground to assail the General as a military man--and it is to be tested how far the Executive will sustain him . . . . I still hope that the Executive will act justly by Genl Gaines, but he and myself have had sufficient experience to know, unless shielded by positive instructions, the Executive will shield itself from responsibility if it can, and throw it upon its subordinate . . . ."