Lot 818
"Let Principle Be Your Guide, the Public Good Your End, and Trust the Rest To God and His Country." (1795-1849) 11th President of the United States, 1845-1849.
Autograph Letter Signed as Governor of Tennessee. Two pages, recto/verso, Quarto, Columbia, Tennessee, August 26, 1839. To Colonel Samuel Loughlin of Tennessee. In this eloquent political letter introducing General Thomas Lane, the Senator-elect from Henry, Wakely, and Albion counties, Polk quotes his idol Andrew Jackson, and admiringly evokes five other U. S. Presidents. He writes:
"Dear Sir, I take pleasure in introducing to your personal acquaintance my friend General Thomas Lane, the Senator elect, from the counties of Henry, Wakely, & Albion. He is a Democrat of the school of '98, - voted for Jefferson, for Madison, for Monroe, for Jackson and for Van Buren. He was the contemporary and personal friend of Macon, was for thirty years a member of the North Carolina Legislature, and has during his whole public life, adopted as his rule of action - Genl. Jackson's maxim - viz - 'Let principle be your guide, the public good your end, and trust the rest to God and his country.' - Genl. L. will spend some days among his relations in Warren and you may confer as freely as you choose with him. - You will of course introduce him to the personal acquaintance of as many of our friends in your county, as may be convenient. I am Very Truly Your friend James K. Polk."
A biographer of Polk has said of his early life, "…His success, based upon his thorough acquisitions and the influence of his family associations, for there were numerous emigrants of his stock to the district, was so rapid that in less than a year he was acknowledged as a leading practitioner" of law. We find in this letter of introduction the very same reliance upon personal associations, which for Polk was a time-honored and dignified tradition. Polk's moral character, his traditionalism and sense of propriety, and his vision of the lineage of democratic ideology, with its roots in the Jeffersonian Republican party, are marvelously expressed.
Very Fine.
Estimated Value $3,000 - 4,000.
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| Realized $2,760 |
