| Summary: | After the nomination of Lewis Cass as the Democratic candidate for president in 1848, a committee of men from Alabama asked Tazewell to run against him. In the first letter, Tazewell declines the invitation, though he also disagrees with the candidate selection: "It requires but little sagacity, I think, to foresee the rapid approach of a state of things teeming with the future destiny of our Confederation. The spirit in which our Federal Compact was concieved [sic] has long since ceased to be felt. A strict adherence not merely to the letter but to the intent of that instrument...has long been disregarded. The efforts of our Statesmen are no longer directed to the maintenance of our institutions and the advancement of the common good; but to the promotion of Sectional interests at the expense [sic] of the general welfare - to the substitution of attachment to party for love of country." In the second letter, addressed only to Semple, Tazewell mentions that he has received the documents the committee sent, but he reiterates his refusal to run for office. He also gives his opinion of the current presidential nominees: "I am glad to find that there are others who...concur with me in the opinion which I have long entertained and express’d of General Cass. No consideration will ever induce me to vote for him - As between the two candidates, I greatly prefer Genl. Taylor. But his Whig nomination, cunningly coupled as it is with that of a notorious Abolitionist, and the dangerous renunciation of the Veto power, will oblige me to withold [sic] from him my support from him." A transcription is included.
|
|---|
