LETTER FROM HON. T.L. CLINGMAN.
[Raleigh: 1852]. Printed Folio Broadside, 12-1/2" x 17-3/4." Printed in four columns beneath caption title. Old folds, pinhole at a fold intersection affecting portions of a couple of letters. Signed in type and dated at the end. The name of the Letter's recipient, Dr. Ladson A. Mills, is also printed in type at the end. Light edge wear, Very Good.
Clingman's Letter, written on 8 October 1852 a few weeks before the presidential election, announces his final break with the northern-dominated Whig Party. It expresses clearly the dilemma of moderate Southern Whigs like this North Carolina Congressman. Clingman was particularly dismayed by the anti-Southern policies of the late Whig President Zachary Taylor. Firmly supporting California's admission to the Union as a Free State, Taylor rejected the counsel of Clingman and his moderate Southern brethren. "The death of Gen. Taylor alone prevented a struggle which would have shaken the country to its centre."
The 1852 Whig nominee, General Winfield Scott, is an enemy of the South. By opposing "the acquisition of Mexican territory," Scott thus "oppose[s] such acquisition as might keep the South even with the North." Scott has thus made an "open, undisguised declaration of his wish to be regarded as the NORTHERN Presidential candidate." Scott's opponent, Franklin Pierce, though a New Hampshire man, "Upon all questions connected with slavery and the rights of the South, no man that I know of, from any section of the Union, has a better record."
Thornton 2397. Hummel 1579. OCLC 24289678 [4- all in NC]. Item #36885
Price: $1,500.00