The True Whig Sentiment - General Taylor's Two Allison Letters

Election of 1848:
THE TRUE WHIG SENTIMENT GEN. TAYLOR'S TWO ALISON LETTERS. BATON ROUGE, APRIL 22, 1848.
[Boston: Eastburn's Press, 1848]. [4] pp. Folded bifolium. Very Good Condition.

This circular, printed shortly before the presidential election of 1848, reprints two letters that the Whig candidate Zachary Taylor sent to his brother-in-law J. S. Allison, in which he outlined his political positions.. Taylor says he is "not engaged to lay violent hands indiscriminately upon public officers, good or bad, who may differ in opinion with me. I am not expected to force Congress, by the coercion of the veto, to pass laws to suit me, or pass none. I would not be a partisan President." 

In the first letter, called "the most important document of the preconvention campaign" by Taylor biographer Holman Hamilton, the future president stated, "I am a Whig, but not an ultra Whig." That really clarified the issue and so in September, while in East Pascagoula, Mississippi, Taylor wrote a second letter to Allison to further explain his views. The letter offers an account of Taylor's path to the Whig nomination, which he pursued by pretending not to have political ambitions.

In the second letter, Taylor states, "I have said I was not a party candidate, nor am I, in that straitened and sectarian sense which would prevent my being the President of the whole people in case of my election ... I would not be partisan President."