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DEMONSTRATINGTHAT HIS GRANDFATHERWAS
NOTORY INTHE REVOLUTION
164
●
POLK, JAMES K. Autograph Letter Signed, to Editor of the Nashville
Union
Samuel H. Laughlin, sending papers [demonstrating the falsity of Whig claims about Polk’s
grandfather; not present], requesting that he forward the testimony of two men in Warren
[County, TN?] to Dr. [J.G.M.] Ramsey for publication, and noting that he has sent to
[Robert] Armstrong a list of invitees for the [Democratic Party] mass meeting in Nashville
on August 15. 1 page, 4to, with integral address leaf; address leaf inlaid, folds. (TFC)
Columbia,TN, 8 July 1844
[3,500/5,000]
“
I enclose these papers, being
part
of the evidence in my possession. I send them
not for
publication
, but as a guide to you in taking the testimony of the two old men in Warren, of which
you speak in your letter arrived on Saturday.
Dr. Ramsey
is preparing a full vindication [which] will
appear in N. Carolina soon. He will forward his paper when prepared to Gen’l
Saunders
&
Mr
Senator Haywood.
I wish nothing therefore to be published on the subject until
Ramsey’s
vindica-
tion appears. My object in writing to you a week ago was to have you forward the statements of the
two old men in Warren to
Ramsey
with as little delay as possible.
Ramsey
will know what use to
make of them when he receives them. Can you procure and forward them soon?
“
I sen[t] Armstrong to day a list of persons who ought to be invited to the
mass meetings
at
Nashville on the 15th August.Will you attend to it, and add any others you may think of?”
After receiving the presidential nomination from the Democratic Party in May, Polk was active in
countering Whig efforts to discredit him, including the charge that his grandfather, Ezekiel Polk, had
been a Tory during the Revolution.“Vindication” articles were published in several newspapers during
1844, including one by NC Senator William H. Haywood, Jr. in the Washington
Globe
on
September 2, and an editorial in the Nashville
Union
on September 11.