Jackson, Andrew. Autograph letter signed ("Andrew Jackson" with postscript signed "A.J.") as President....

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Jackson, Andrew. Autograph letter signed ("Andrew Jackson" with postscript signed "A.J.") as President. Jackson, Andrew. Autograph letter signed ("Andrew Jackson" with postscript signed "A.J.") as President, 2 pages, (8 x 9 ¾ in.; 203 x 247 mm.) front and verso. "Washington" 20 April 1834 to his daughter-in-law, Sarah Jackson. Integral leaf addressed by Jackson to "Sarah J / Hermitage - sweet / home Tennessee." Separation at folds; nicks at right edge. Address leaf soiled. Watermarked laid paper. President Jackson lambasts the Senate majority, which included Calhoun, Clay, and Webster, for censuring him and refusing to publish his protest, calling the Senators' actions "profligate...unworthy of their stations...only suited to blackgards & brothels...disgrace..." On April 4, 1834, Andrew Jr. wrote his father to tell him that his wife Sarah had given birth to a son whom they named Andrew Jackson III (1834-1906). In this letter, the President first responds with warm and affectionate sentiments about the arrival of his grandson. Jackson concludes by giving his strong opinion of the Senate after being censured: "I have an unpleasant time with the majority of one of the most profligate Senates that ever did exist, My protest which I have sent Andrew has brought them to stand & the only reply they can make is, strain of abuse unworthy of their stations, and only suited to blackgards [sic], & brothels; and which perfectly disgrace the Senate..." In 1832, President Jackson had vetoed an act to re-charter the Bank of the United States, a major issue in his presidential campaign against Henry Clay. While Jackson decisively defeated Clay in the 1832 election, Clay's anti-Jacksonian coalition had an eight vote majority over Jackson's Democrats in the 23rd Congress which convened on December 2, 1833. On December 11, 1833, Sen. Clay introduced a resolution "That the President of the United States be requested to communicate to the Senate a copy of the paper which has been published, and which purports to have been read by him to the heads of the Executive Departments...relating to the removal of the deposits of the public money from the Bank of the United States and its offices." It passed 23-18. Jackson refused. After a ten-week debate, on March 28, 1834, the Senate, by a vote of 26-20, "Resolved, That the President, in the late Executive proceedings in relation to the public revenue, has assumed upon himself authority and power not conferred by the constitution and laws, but in derogation of both." For the first and only time in its history, Senate had censured the President of the United States for assuming power not conferred by the Constitution. On April 15, 1834, five days before writing this letter, Jackson responded to his censure with a lengthy protest denying the validity of the Senate's action. In another unprecedented move, the Senate responded by refusing to print the President's message in its journal. John C. Calhoun, Henry Clay, and Daniel Webster all three voted to censure Jackson. Jackson's protest of the censure was received by the Senate three days before he wrote this letter. On October 13, 1834, the Hermitage mansion was damaged by a fire and Sarah and Andrew and their two young children moved to the White House in November. Sarah and the President's niece, Emily Donelson, shared the duties of White House hostess. From the website of the U.S. Senate: "For nearly three years, Missouri Democrat Thomas Hart Benton campaigned to expunge Jackson's censure resolution from the Senate Journal. By January 1837, having regained the majority, Senate Democrats voted to remove this stain from the record of an old and sick president just weeks from his retirement. With boisterous ceremony, the handwritten 1834 Journal was borne into the mobbed chamber and placed on the secretary's table. The secretary took up his pen, drew black lines around the censure text, and wrote 'Expunged by the order of the Senate.' The chamber erupted in Democratic jubilation and a messenger was dispatched to deliver the expunging pen to Jackson. Dressed in the deep black of a mourner, Henry Clay lamented: "The Senate is no longer a place for any decent man."