AUTOGRAPH LETTER, SIGNED, TO NEW YORK CITY'S TAMMANY HALL COMMITTEE, REPRESENTING "THE DEMOCRATIC REPUBLICAN ELECTORS OF THE CITY OF NEW YORK," DECLINING WITH REGRET THEIR INVITATION FOR HIS ATTENDANCE AT THEIR DINNER, BUT SETTING FORTH HIS POLITICAL VIEWS.
New York: 1851 [3 May]. 4to. 3-1/2 pp on a folded sheet, in Douglas's ink script. Signed at the end, "S. A. Douglas." Very Good. With typed transcription. Old folds, minor wear, Very Good.
When he wrote this Letter, Douglas was 33 years old, serving his first term as a U. S. Senator from Illinois. Successful in crafting the unusually complicated Compromise of 1850, Douglas was already being discussed as a future Democratic presidential candidate. Despite his youth, he had become a national political figure. Thus this invitation from members of the influential Tammany Hall Democratic Club.
Douglas expresses gratitude for the invitation, a "testimonial of your respect and confidence," and "a manifestation of your approbation of my course as a member of the Democratic Party and a senator in the Congress of the United States. You do me no more than justice when you say that my public career has been marked by fidelity and devotion to the principles and measures of that great party whose triumphs are identified with the most glorious achievements in our national history."
Douglas recites the bedrock political principles which he, Tammany, and all good Democrats share: "The necessity for confining the federal government clearly within the limits of its legitimate functions- for preserving the rights of the States in their original purity and vigor - for maintaining ethe supremacy of the laws - and for a strict observance of every provision of our constitution- state and national, - has never been rendered more manifest than by our recent experience."
Alas, Douglas must decline the invitation: "My public duties have kept me absent from my home nearly all the time for the last two years. I leave the city for the west this afternoon & therefore will not be able to accept your kind invitation."
At the end of his Letter Douglas lists the Members of the Tammany Committee: "F. B. Cutting, Isaac Townsend, S. Livingston, E. B. Hart, Charles A. Secor, Edward C. West, Henry Nichol." Item #41520
Price: $2,000.00