Beschreibung:

HARRISON, William Henry (1773-1841), President . Autograph letter signed ("W.H. Harrison") to William Corwin, North Bend, Ohio, 18 December 1839. 3¼ pages, folio (12 3/8 x 7 5/8 in.), recipient's docket. In very fine condition. THE PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE SPELLS OUT HIS POSITION ON "THE VEXED QUESTION" OF SLAVERY AND ITS EXPANSION A lengthy private letter of outstanding political content, written only a week after Harrison won the Whig Party nomination for President. To a supporter, Harrison, goes to elaborate lengths to justify actions from his past which might be interpreted as favoring the southern, pro-slavery political bloc. Harrison even reveals that he has been, since his young adulthood, a pledged member of an Emancipation society. He assures Corwin that "I am...all awake to the subject to which your letter...refer[s]," and adds that although he had been ready to "dispatch to Gov r. Owen of N.C. my answer to the committee communicating my nomination," Corwin's communique has suggested the propriety of sticking into it some general principles...." Harrison proceeds to give a lengthy account of his personal history in relation to the "vexed question" of slavery. It is worth noting that Clay had failed to win the 1832 election partly due to his reputation as a slave-owner, which fatally antagonized many anti-slavery voters; Harrison, the present letter clearly demonstrates, intended to please both sides, if at all possible: "I will give you the facts in my political life which may make me an Abolitionist with one party & an Anti[a]bolitionist with the other...." When I was a youth of 17, studying Medicine in Richmond, I joined an Emancipating Society that was formed there & came under a solemn engagement not to hold a Slave longer than I could provide for his emancipation. This promise I have faithfully kept. I have bo[ugh]t as many as 7 or 8 & freed them simply on their promise to remain with me for some years. The greater part fulfilled their engagements but several left me immediately. After the war (1814) I settled in this place. I found the people on both sides of the [Ohio] river under great excitement in relation to fugitive slaves. A society was formed at Cincinnati to protect them." Harrison describes attempts to mediate between the pro-slavery (Kentucky) and abolitionist (Ohio) factions: "My utmost efforts were used to prevent the effects of their violence & injustice." On one occasion, he relates, "These had produced so much corresponding violence in the Citizens of K[entuck]y that an armed party crossed the river on one occasion to take justice in their own hands & as a comp y. of militia was called out...to resist them there would certainly have been bloodshed if I had not gone in pursuit of the Kentuckians & induced them to return [to Kentucky]..." His success in dissuading them, he writes, was due to "their leader being one of my old Captains and many of the men my former Soldiers. I take to myself some credit for having allayed in great measure the hard feelings which existed between the two sides of the River..." Harrison then turns to his service in Congress (1816-1819), in the Ohio legislature (1819-1821) and the Senate (1825-1828): "You know the part I took on the Missouri question in the last session of the 15th Congress, voting against all my colleagues [those who voted against the expansion of slavery], who entreated me not to abandon them." Later, a representative from Indiana told him "that I would 'ruin myself by my southern feelings.' My answer was that it was not feeling that dictated my course but the obligations of duty & the oath I had taken." His votes in support of the southern faction on the admission of Missouri and the territorial status of Arkansas, though, were used against him by an opponent, Gazley of Cincinnati, in the 1822 Congressional race: "A caricature [of Harrison] leading a Negro in chains was circulated. I defended myself in addresses & on the stump -- upon the Missouri