Beschreibung:

POLK, JAMES K., President . Autograph letter signed ("James K. Polk") AS PRESIDENT-ELECT, to Pennsylvania Representative Henry Horn of Philadelphia; Columbia, Tenn., 21 November 1844. 1 pages, 4to, pale gray-blue paper, integral address leaf in Polk's hand and circular "Columbia" postal stamp . ON HIS ELECTION AS PRESIDENT: "THE GREAT CONTEST...HAS BEEN HAPPILY TERMINATED" A fine letter, marked "Private," in the immediate wake of his recent election as President (Polk was the first successful dark-horse candidate), stating his non-partisan views and commenting on a case of political forgery. The President-elect writes that Horn's last letter "came to me under the frank of General [Andrew] Jackson, to whom I presume you had enclosed it. The great contest in which the country has been engaged, has been happily terminated. I trust we may not regard it as an ordinary and mere party victory, but that we not so act as to make it advance the lasting and best interests of the country. The vote in this State has been exceedingly close, and...has not yet been officially announced. Our opponents have probably carried the State..." He comments on a letter "purporting to come from" Horn but which he ragards as "a hoax, played off by some Federalist...It is not in your handwriting, nor does it bear your signature. I send it to you...that you may see the liberty which some of your neighbors have taken with your name..." Polk, the Democratic candidate, had called for the annexation of Texas, the "reoccupation" of Oregon, and non-interference in the issue of slavery. While the popular vote was, as Polk here acknowldges, extremely close, the elctoral vote gave Polk the victory of Whig Henry Clay by a margin of 170 to 105.