May 05, 2016 - Sale 2413

Sale 2413 - Lot 164

Price Realized: $ 3,250
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 3,500 - $ 5,000
DEMONSTRATING THAT HIS GRANDFATHER WAS NO TORY IN THE REVOLUTION POLK, JAMES K. Autograph Letter Signed, to Editor of the Nashville Union Samuel H. Laughlin, sending papers [demonstrating the falsity of Whig claims about Polk's grandfather; not present], requesting that he forward the testimony of two men in Warren [County, TN?] to Dr. [J.G.M.] Ramsey for publication, and noting that he has sent to [Robert] Armstrong a list of invitees for the [Democratic Party] mass meeting in Nashville on August 15. 1 page, 4to, with integral address leaf; address leaf inlaid, folds. (TFC) Columbia, TN, 8 July 1844
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"I enclose these papers, being part of the evidence in my possession. I send them not for publication, but as a guide to you in taking the testimony of the two old men in Warren, of which you speak in your letter arrived on Saturday. Dr. Ramsey is preparing a full vindication [which] will appear in N. Carolina soon. He will forward his paper when prepared to Gen'l Saunders & Mr Senator Haywood. I wish nothing therefore to be published on the subject until Ramsey's vindication appears. My object in writing to you a week ago was to have you forward the statements of the two old men in Warren to Ramsey with as little delay as possible. Ramsey will know what use to make of them when he receives them. Can you procure and forward them soon?
"I sen[t] Armstrong to day a list of persons who ought to be invited to the mass meetings at Nashville on the 15th August. Will you attend to it, and add any others you may think of?"
After receiving the presidential nomination from the Democratic Party in May, Polk was active in countering Whig efforts to discredit him, including the charge that his grandfather, Ezekiel Polk, had been a Tory during the Revolution. "Vindication" articles were published in several newspapers during 1844, including one by NC Senator William H. Haywood, Jr. in the Washington Globe on September 2, and an editorial in the Nashville Union on September 11.