Presidential Candidate James K. Polk Fights Off Whig Attacks Against Himself and His Family

“I think you are right in your wires that the Union should keep up the attack & not be thrown too much on the defense. Still it is necessary occasionally to notice charges made by the Federal papers, in a brief manner”

On May 29, 1844, Polk became the first dark horse presidential nominee of a major party. He received the nod of the Democrats when, at their national convention, the major candidates (Martin van Buren, Lewis Cass and James Buchanan) were in a stalemate and a compromise acceptable to all was sought.

Polk ran on a nationalist platform of territorial expansion – what would soon be called Manifest Destiny – including the annexation of Texas and the demand for the acquisition of the entire Oregon Territory. He also maintained the Democrats traditional, Jacksonian antipathy toward federal power over the states, being against most domestic measures national in scope. Polk’s opponent was Whig candidate Henry Clay, who had taken a stand against expansion, and stressed “honor and prosperity” – economic growth and internal improvements. The Whigs also  campaigned on Polk’s relative obscurity, and because Polk had voted against extension of pensions for Revolutionary war soldiers, they attacked him as ungrateful and anti-veteran. Polk felt the need to explain and justify his position. The Whigs also sought to gain votes by claiming that Polk’s grandfather Ezekiel (of North Carolina) had been a Tory during the Revolution, a charge that really got under Polk’s skin. His supporters published a pamphlet designed to vindicate Ezekiel, with testimony from North Carolinians with first-person knowledge, and the candidate saw to it that it was widely distributed and printed in newspapers.

Samuel Laughlin was editor of the Nashville Union, a newspaper that spoke for Polk during the 1844 campaign. Moreover, its policy was to some degree directed by Polk, who wrote to Laughlin a number of times with instructions. Laughlin worked hard to advance Polk’s prospects, but Polk thought Laughlin was too timid for a national campaign (wanting more “fire & spirit & power”), and in this letter he demands a more aggressive policy, rather diplomatically maintaining that the idea for this was Laughlin’s rather than his. In this letter, the Haywood mentioned was William H. Haywood, U.S. Senator, and Saunders was Romulus Saunders, a U.S. Representative; both were Democrats from North Carolina and Polk supporters.

Autograph letter signed, two pages, Columbia, Tenn., August 5, 1844, to Laughlin, dealing directly with campaign issue. “Mr. James Walker (my brother-in-law) will forward to you by today’s mail an article for your paper.  It will be sufficient until the North Carolina vindication appears, which may be expected in a few days unless Saunders & Haywood have neglected it. A statement on the subject appeared in a late Sommerville paper signed by Dan Alexander, which was badly taken; and I mention it to you for the purpose of saying that in its present form it ought not to be republished. Pay no attention to it, unless the Whig papers taken it up, and attempt to…make something out of it. I think you are right in your wires that the Union should keep up the attack & not be thrown too much on the defense. Still it is necessary occasionally to notice charges made by the Federal papers, in a brief manner…such articles have appeared in the Democrat lately, and I suggest to you that you look over each Democrat carefully to see if it contains anything which ought to be copied into the Union. The Democrat has but a county circulation…The last Democrat (Aug. 3rd) contains an article relating to my course on the Revolutionary Pension Bills, which ought to be republished in the Union.” The address leaf in Polk’s hand, and with the Columbia, Tenn. postmark, is still present.

Letters of Polk from during his presidential campaign, showing him running the campaign, no less fending off attacks, are extremely uncommon. An examination of public sale records shows none having been offered in the last decade, and this is our first.