Page:Andrew Erwin - Gen. Jackson's Negro Speculations (1828).djvu/21

 tual torture I have undergone for ten years by your printers, partisans, dependants and expectants, and particular:y for my present persecution here and elsewhere, by co-workers in the fire side business, Eaton and Calhoun, who used Wirt's official character for your special benefit, I do not positively say knowingly on his part. Is a man to be elevated to the Presidency who will not only resist, himself, the constituted authorities of the country, and boast of his arms as his only passports, but will even encourage his negro slaves in rebellion, and order them to fight their way, and if resisted, to spill the blood of respectable freemen, engaged in the discharge of public duties!!!

I will now ask your attention to the following brief extract of a letter written by you to a gentleman on business, (not in bank) and dated Hermitage, March 20th, 1812.

"Having to attend Wilson circuit court, it will not be in my power to be in Nashville next week. I am very much engaged to arrange my business, so that I can leave home on the trip with my negroes for sale."

The letter containing the above sentence is in your own hand writing, and is signed

I shall not trouble myself to conjecture whether it relates to some of the same negroes purchased of Epperson, by the firm of Coleman Green and Jackson, or whether it refers to another speculation. It is enough to show, at any rate, that you did not hesitate to speak freely at that time of your being actually engaged in negro traffic. Nor is it necessary to dwell upon a dispute between yourself and Epperson, which was referred to the arbitration of Judge Haywood and Judge Overton, respecting a negro fellow you bought for the express purpose of selling to Kenner and Henderson, at New Orleans, expecting to obtain for him the enormous sum of $2000, provided yon could procure the certificate of D. Moore, and others, as to his being a good black-smith. You, no doubt, recollect the circumstances of that case, and notwithstanding the reluctance which may be felt, to encounter unnecessarily the "indignant flashing of your eye," something can be produced in relation to it, in your own hand writing likewise, if it should be found expedient to recur again to the threadbare topic.

I have already made this communication so long, that I will only trouble you at present with one other little document, relative to another instance of negro traffic in which you were concerned. The writer of this letter is a respectable citizen of Sumner county, and he is well supported by the records of a controversy about this same negro in court, of many years standing, in the names of Jackson and Hutchins vs. Rollings. The following is Mr. Blythe's letter to a friend:

", July 20th, 1828.

Sir: In reply to your inquiry as to my knowledge of General Jackson being concerned in buying and selling slaves, I will briefly state, that about the year 1805 or 6, Gen. Jackson and a Mr. Hutchings, (his nephew by marriage) had a store in Gallatin. About that time, they purchased of Dr. Rollings a negro boy, and sent him to the