By Missy Schrott | mschrott@alextimes.com
The Potomack Company will auction off a nearly 220 year-old-letter from then-President Thomas Jefferson to John Dickinson at its Feb. 2 auction.
Jefferson wrote the letter shortly after becoming president in 1801.
“A document like this is a chance to own a piece of presidential history with remarkable relevance to today’s political issues,” Elizabeth Wainstein, owner and CEO of the Potomack Company, said in a statement. “The words of Thomas Jefferson remind us all that, just as it was 200 years ago, political divisiveness is part of democracy.”
In the letter, Jefferson writes about the political division between Federalists and Republicans, a topic that is particularly relevant today in light of the discord between Democrats and Republicans that led to a government shutdown.
The letter reads “…every man cannot have way in all things. if his own opinion prevails some times, he should acquiesce on seeing that of others preponderate at others. without this mutual disposition we are disjointed individuals, but not a society.”
The full letter will be auctioned at the Potomack Company’s Americana session, which will feature other historic items including a section of the Civil War frieze created for the exterior of the old Pension Building and a Boston bonnet-top chest on chest.
The live auction will begin at 10 a.m. on Feb. 2. It will be followed by an online auction on Feb. 5 and 6.
