$2,600
Estimate: $5,000 - $8,000
Auction: November 12, 2020 10:00:00 AM EDT
Hermitage, (Tennessee), April 23, 1838. 2 pp. on one sheet. 12 1/4 x 7 5/8 in. (311 x 193 mm). Autograph letter, signed and initialed by Jackson to lawyer R(obert). M(inns). Burton. Creasing from original folds, scattered separations along same; scattered soiling; chipping in top edge affecting a few words; bottom horizontal fold repaired in two places. Lot includes an engraved portrait of Jackson.
Written against the backdrop of the Panic of 1837, former President Andrew Jackson, deep in his own financial crisis caused by the mismanagement of his estate, seeks to call in a debt: "The object now is to get the mony at as early a day as possible. The Tennessee mony is much depreciated since last Christmas, & is daily going down..." The instability caused by the panic gives Jackson's request a sense of urgency and despair: "If, as you say, they are ready to pay, it would be illnatured to bring suit against them, but I asure you I have been much disappointed, and some what injured by their failure to pay their notes..." As an outgrowth of his own monetary policies during his second term, the Panic of 1837 wreaked havoc across the nation, leading to the collapse of hundreds of banks and businesses, depressing wages and raising prices, as well as causing mass unemployment and discord that could be felt well into the 1840s.