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Jackson Andrew

Andrew Jackson Related Political Letter

Anti-Jacksonian Congressman Tristam Burges seeks re-election in 1829 after Democratic challenger Andrew Jackson won an overwhelming victory over incumbent President John Quincy Adams in November 1828. Burges responds to criticisms from his opponent and predecessor Samuel Eddy, who was running as a Jacksonian candidate.

Tristam Burges, broadside to citizens of Rhode Island, August 22, 1829, Providence, Rhode Island.  1 p., 15.25" x 15.75".

Excerpts

“Mr. Pearce and myself have been your public agents and Representatives in Congress for the last four years.... The friends of Mr. [Samuel] Eddy and Mr. [Job] Durfree, have with the knowledge and by the permission of these gentlemen, sent over the State the most false and slanderous pamphlets and newspapers against me and Mr. Pearce.” (c1)

 

“Whether I shall, if chosen, harmonize with the present Administration, depends on their measures. If this Administration like the last, fosters the great interests of this State, and of this nation, I shall be with them. Let them cherish agriculture, manufactures, mechanic arts and commerce; let them improve roads, canals, rivers, harbors, lighthouses, and fortifications; let them go on with our navy for our security on the high seas; and finally let them ‘cultivate peace and honest friendship with all nations entangling alliances with none,’ and they will find me and my late colleague among the most zealous supporters of their measures. If they forget all these and desert the great policy of the nation, to cherish the interests of a mere party, we shall rise up against them; and the South may threaten, but they shall never ‘drive us to the wall,’ or nail us to the counter as base metal, or reproach us for any change in the material or the colour of our faces.” (c2)

 

“The men opposed to us were set up as the opposers of these great principles; the opposers of the American System; the opposers of the Tariff.” (c2)

 

“Mr. Eddy’s vote on the Missouri question, gave no additional vote to New-England; because Maine and Massachusetts when all in one State, sent quite as many members to Congress in the House of Representatives as both can now send. His vote will enable Missouri to send representatives for her slaves. I will say nothing concerning the moral effect of this vote on the great question of Slavery in the Christian world.” (c2)

 

“Mr. Eddy accuses me of a want of political integrity. He says I have betrayed like a Judas and am the Benedict Arnold of my party. This would be hard talk from any man other than him, who caucussed for Mr. Crawford and then voted for Mr. Adams. The world will call it abuse; he may think it praise. It does not touch me. I was never for Mr. Crawford; and the day of my return to Washington in 1824, I announced to many gentlemen my decided preference for Mr. Adams.” (c3)

 

“The opposition to Mr. Pearce and me, has risen up not among the original and sincere friends of Gen. Jackson; but among those who since his election have crowded to his standard that they might receive their rations as his faithful soldiers. They are now recommending themselves to his notice by a course of fraud, falsehood and calumny, against all the friends of the great policy and the truly national measures of the last Administration.” (c3)

In the twentieth Congress (1827-1829), Tristam Burges and Dutee Jerauld Pearce (1789-1849) represented Rhode Island in the U.S. House of Representatives. Both were National Republicans and supporters of President John Quincy Adams, as were Rhode Island’s two U.S. Senators.

Rhode Island held its Congressional elections in August 1829 for the twenty-first Congress (1829-1831) after the term began in March but before Congress convened in December 1829. Four other candidates challenged Burges and Pearce in the at-large election, in which the two top candidates were elected. Their most important challengers were former U.S. Congressman and Rhode Island Secretary of State Samuel Eddy (1769-1839) and former Congressman Job Durfee (1790-1847), who had both been Adams-Clay Republicans, but who were now campaigning as Jacksonians.

In this fascinating broadside, Burges responds to criticisms from Eddy and defends his support of Henry Clay’s American System of tariffs, internal improvements, and a national bank and his support for a strong navy as “truly national measures.” Burges also criticizes Eddy’s vote while in Congress for the Missouri compromise in 1820, which brought Missouri into the Union as a slave state. In reply to Eddy’s charges that Burges was a “Judas” and a “Benedict Arnold” traitor, Burges insists that he had been a consistent supporter of John Quincy Adams, while Eddy supported William H. Crawford of Georgia in the four-way 1824 presidential election, then voted for John Quincy Adams in the contingent election in the House of Representatives in February 1825, and now supported Andrew Jackson after his election in 1828.

In the Rhode Island Congressional election on August 27, 1829, incumbents Burges and Pearce won reelection. Pearce gained 37.5 percent of the vote, and Burges received 35.6 percent. Eddy and Durfee trailed far behind with 10.8 percent and 9.8 percent of the vote, respectively, while the other two candidates divided the remaining 6.3 percent of the ballots.

Tristam Burges (1770-1853) was born in Rochester, Massachusetts, and graduated from Rhode Island College (now Brown University) as valedictorian in 1796. He studied law, gained admission to the bar, and opened a law practice in Providence, Rhode Island, in 1799. He served in the Rhode Island General Assembly in 1811 and as chief justice of the Supreme Court of Rhode Island in 1815-1816. From 1815 to 1830, he was a professor of rhetoric and oratory at Brown University. He represented Rhode Island in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1825 to 1835 as a Federalist and an Anti-Jacksonian, before losing a bid for reelection. He was an unsuccessful Whig candidate for governor of Rhode Island in 1836.

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