American Manuscripts & other Property from the Collection of Elsie and Philip Sang

American Manuscripts & other Property from the Collection of Elsie and Philip Sang

View full screen - View 1 of Lot 5. JAMES MONROE | James Monroe, as 5th President of the United States, addresses his Scottish ancestry, evidencing that the biographical dictionaries of the period were wrong .

Property from the Collection of Elsie and Philip Sang

JAMES MONROE | James Monroe, as 5th President of the United States, addresses his Scottish ancestry, evidencing that the biographical dictionaries of the period were wrong

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October 14, 04:05 PM GMT

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3,000 - 5,000 USD

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Property from the Collection of Elsie and Philip Sang

JAMES MONROE

AUTOGRAPH LETTER SIGNED ("JAMES MONROE") AS 5TH PRESIDENT, TO SIR JOHN SINCLAIR, REGARDING HIS SCOTTISH ANCESTRY


2 pages (8 x 10 in.; 203 x 254 mm) on a single leaf, written recto and verso in sepia ink, Washington, 17 November 1817; old folds, one or two short closed tears, minor spotting.


A remarkable letter, in which Monroe evidences that the biographical dictionaries of the period are incorrect in their record of his family's emigration to America


"My family was from the Highland, of Scotland, a place called Fowles..."


In the present piece of correspondence, Monroe replies to Sir John Sinclair's letter of 27 March 1817, in which the latter stated: "I am very happy to find, that a Gentlemen, with whom I have the honour, (I believe), to be distantly connected...has been elected to the Presidency of the United States of America, the highest political situation to which any private individual can now aspire; and having corresponded with all your respectable predecessors, I cannot deny myself the pleasure, of addressing myself to you on a subject of peculiar importance..." Sinclair was the first president of the Board of Agriculture in Great Britain, and sent materials from his The Code of agriculture (which would be published in 1819) for the President's consideration. Sinclair was at the same time corresponding with Thomas Jefferson, and very much hoped that his forthcoming treatise could be published in the Unites States as well as Britain, as he believed it would prove useful for burgeoning in that "rising Empire." Despite this objective, it would seems that Monroe was set on clearing up the matter of his ancestry: "My ancestor emigrated about the year 1745," he writes, "having been an adherent of the house of Stuart, and induced, to leave the country, in consequence of its misfortunes. He settled on the Potowmack [sic] in Virginia, where I was born. Tho' young, at the commencement of our revolution, I took part in it, & its principles have invariably guided me since. Nothing can be more deeply fixed, in the judgement & heart of any one, than are the principles of our free system of government, in mine..."


REFERENCE:

cf. The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, Retirement Series, ed. Looney, 11:381–382