Beschreibung:

FILLMORE, MILLARD, President . Autograph letter signed ("Millard Fillmore") as President, to Tennessee Senator John Bell Washington, D.C., 8 May 1851. 2 pages, 4to, second leaf neatly inlaid, docketed on verso , in very good condition. A HARRASSED PRESIDENT COMPLAINS THAT "MY TIME IS OFTEN OCCUPIED BY MATTERS OF THE MOST TRIFLING IMPORTANCE" President Fillmore conciliates a Southern Whig leader and discusses sectional politics: "...the P[ost] M[aster] Gen[era]l...informed me that he had no recollection of the fact to which you allude, and assured me, and this I believe sincerely, that no intentional disrespect could have been designed. I regret indeed that I did not have the pleasure of seeing you before you left, but the truth is that I have been...run down with calls, and every day many go away without my being able to see them. This is sometimes very painful, as I can not discriminate...and my time is often occupied by matters of the most trifling importance, with which I have nothing to do, and I am thereby prevented from seeing persons whom I greatly desire to see and on business of the greatest importance...I feel much anxiety about the results in your state. It will be regarded as a test of the popularity of the administration...The true Union Whigs are certainly gaining in the North..." John Bell (1797-1869), a Nashville lawyer, was Whig representative (1827-1841) and Speaker of the House in 1836, then served as Secretary of War in the Harrison and Tyler administrations. In the Senate (1847-1859), he supported slavery, but opposed its extension into new territories. He was the presidential nominee in 1860 of the Constitutional Union Party, and after Lincoln's victory, tried unsuccessfully to keep Tennessee in the Union.