Your Obedient Servt.
LETTER FROM GEORGE B. PORTER TO PRESIDENT ANDREW JACKSON
Detroit, December 15th, 1833.
Gen’l Andrew Jackson,
President of the United States,
Sir,
After a fatiguing tour of more than three months, in performance of the several public duties assigned to me, I arrived here last evening, and have the honor to acknowledge the receipt, this morning, of your letter of the 2nd inst. with its inclosure.
Personal respect for you, Sir, restrains the expression of feelings, outraged and indignant at having been made the object of calumnies, so wantonly malicious and grossly untrue, as those contained in the paper laid before you, a copy of which you have transmitted.
I appreciate, with a proper sense of the obligation, the considerate justice which has offered me the means of confronting my accusers, whenever they shall declare themselves; and I thank you for the renewed mark of confidence in my integrity, thus indicated.
The statements contained in this tissue of fabrications, shall be met fully and fairly, by my own distinct declarations, which, if deemed insufficient, shall be sustained by ample testimony, incapable of refutation. And if in vindicating my honor from unmerited aspersion, the detail should prove tedious, I ask, not doubting it will be granted, your forbearance for a temper, smarting under a sense of undeserved injury.
I may be permitted to premise, that like other public men, I too, have my enemies. But for this peculiar and vindictive rancour that assails me, I cannot otherwise account, than by attributing it to that fruitful source of evil passions—disappointed expectations. If, in the endeavor faithfully to discharge my duties, it has not been in my power to accomplish all the wishes of all, it is but the common lesson which experience has taught, to others as well as to myself. The invidious feeling which these causes produce, seeks to gratify itself, by wresting from me the credit of having effected an important Treaty, and would willingly sacrifice to its object the best interests of the country.