HARRISON, WILLIAM HENRY President. Autograph letter signed ("W.H. Harrison") to William Ayres, North Bend [Ohio], 25 June 1840. 1 page, 4to, 246 x 195 mm. (9 15/16 x 7 5/8 in.) A PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE'S BURDEN OF CORRESPONDENCE In the midst of what has been termed the first modern Presidential campaign, Harrison responds to a complaint that he has neglected to write to an old acquaintance: "Your letter...was sent to me...with thirty-one others. You are about the fifteenth friend that I have offended by not answering their letters. But I cannot help it. If I neglect my own affairs to the great injury of my family & make it a point to answer no family letters excepting to a daughter in law in L[ouisian]a who is dependent upon me for support....If I write till I am afflicted with neuralgia I am assured by my Physicians that I shall fix it upon my constitution. I think I am doing quite as much as could reasonably be required of me. I have written to no one in Harrisburg...unless it was in answer to your inquiry as to make some statement that was required of me [by politics]...I am unconscious of having ever treated a friend with intentional disrespect...If however any assurance of mine can satisfy you that no diminution of my friendship has occurred & that I still recollect with gratitude your early & constant exertions in my bahalf, I now offer it...." The political leaders who managed Harrison's successful campaign against Van Buren did not encourage him to state his opinion, formulate policy, or even to comment on the issues to the press, either in personal appearances or in correspondence. Several years earlier Nicholas Biddle had advised that Harrison "say not one word about his principles...Let him say nothing - promise nothing....Let the use of pen and ink be wholly forbidden as if he were a mad poet in Bedlam" (quoted by Paul Boller, Presidential Campaigns , p.70).
HARRISON, WILLIAM HENRY President. Autograph letter signed ("W.H. Harrison") to William Ayres, North Bend [Ohio], 25 June 1840. 1 page, 4to, 246 x 195 mm. (9 15/16 x 7 5/8 in.) A PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE'S BURDEN OF CORRESPONDENCE In the midst of what has been termed the first modern Presidential campaign, Harrison responds to a complaint that he has neglected to write to an old acquaintance: "Your letter...was sent to me...with thirty-one others. You are about the fifteenth friend that I have offended by not answering their letters. But I cannot help it. If I neglect my own affairs to the great injury of my family & make it a point to answer no family letters excepting to a daughter in law in L[ouisian]a who is dependent upon me for support....If I write till I am afflicted with neuralgia I am assured by my Physicians that I shall fix it upon my constitution. I think I am doing quite as much as could reasonably be required of me. I have written to no one in Harrisburg...unless it was in answer to your inquiry as to make some statement that was required of me [by politics]...I am unconscious of having ever treated a friend with intentional disrespect...If however any assurance of mine can satisfy you that no diminution of my friendship has occurred & that I still recollect with gratitude your early & constant exertions in my bahalf, I now offer it...." The political leaders who managed Harrison's successful campaign against Van Buren did not encourage him to state his opinion, formulate policy, or even to comment on the issues to the press, either in personal appearances or in correspondence. Several years earlier Nicholas Biddle had advised that Harrison "say not one word about his principles...Let him say nothing - promise nothing....Let the use of pen and ink be wholly forbidden as if he were a mad poet in Bedlam" (quoted by Paul Boller, Presidential Campaigns , p.70).
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