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195

Martin Van Buren

Currency:USD Category:Collectibles / Autographs Start Price:NA Estimated At:2,000.00 - 4,000.00 USD
Martin Van Buren

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Auction Date:2010 Jun 16 @ 10:00 (UTC-5 : EST/CDT)
Location:5 Rt 101A Suite 5, Amherst, New Hampshire, 03031, United States
ALS - Autograph Letter Signed
ANS - Autograph Note Signed
AQS - Autograph Quotation Signed
AMQS - Autograph Musical Quotation Signed
DS - Document Signed
FDC - First Day Cover
Inscribed - “Personalized”
ISP - Inscribed Signed Photograph
LS - Letter Signed
SP - Signed Photograph
TLS - Typed Letter Signed
Bid online at www.rrauction.com. Auction closes June 16.

Uncommon ALS as president signed “M. Van Buren,” seven pages on two pair of adjoining sheets, 5 x 8, June 15, 1837. A friendly albeit politically motivated letter, written to "H[arrison] G[ray] Otis Esqr." former US Senator, member and speaker of the Massachusetts Senate, Mayor of Boston, and local power broker, on the occasion of Otis' withdrawal from public life. In part: “Although you were good enough to say, that you desired no reply to your interesting letter, I cannot, in justice to my own feelings, omit to thank you for the liberal and friendly spirit which distinguishes it. It shall receive the consideration that is due to the sincere respect I have towards the author; and of my mind does not arrive at the same conclusions he offered, that it will not be because I entertain the slightest doubt of your attachment, either to the country or to myself…

The favourable impressions then made have lost most of their force, & are founded on considerations of too durable a character to be easily opposed…the usually deleterious effects of political difference, they are on all counts safe. I find it well to do…to take care of my own politics, & have no desire to meddle in an officious & far less in an unfriendly stint with those of other people. Indeed, I cherish no other feelings than those of pity for those unhappy men who make differences of that sort the basis of such rancorous personal hatred.

You do wisely in withdrawing yourself from the bustle of party strife. Such a concern is not inconsistent with the possession of a timely solicitude for the public good—a solicitude which I am sure you knowingly feel & of which the…eloquence of your letter afford abundant proof.”

In very good condition, with a intersecting folds, moderate damp staining to bottom of pages, heavier to second set of pages, several small pencil notations to text in another hand, and light show-through from text on opposing sides.

Van Buren was replying to a letter that Otis, one of the most important leaders in the Federalist Party as well as being one of the wealthiest men in Boston, sent a week earlier advocating a strong national currency. At the time, the nation was facing a financial crisis—the Panic of 1837—that had started in May after every US bank stopped payment in gold and silver coinage. The panic was followed by a five-year depression, with the failure of banks and record-high unemployment levels. Van Buren, who became president five weeks before the crisis engulfed the young republic's economy, was blamed for the fiscal problem, and his refusal to involve the government in the economy was said to have contributed to the damages and duration of the event. That refusal is perhaps what Van Buren refers to when he tells his wealthy friend, “I find it well to do…to take care of my own politics, & have no desire to meddle in an officious & far less in an unfriendly stint with those of other people.”
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