Three Political Letters to Dr. Wolfred Nelson, 1840 Campaign

What it is

This is a printed pamphlet of 64 pages titled Sutherland's Political Letters, Addressed to Dr. Nelson, published in New York in 1840. The letters are addressed to Dr. Wolfred Nelson, who had been of Lower Canada and was then of Plattsburgh, New York. The pamphlet is catalogued under the author Thomas Jefferson Sutherland and includes a diagram of the Battle of Tippecanoe, which the letters refer to. Its subjects include Harrison and Democratic campaign literature of 1840.

The scanned copy is a PDF from the Internet Archive. The text that a computer reads from the scan is garbled, so students should read the page images rather than any automatic transcription.

Why it matters

The 1840 election was one of the first in which both parties ran large public campaigns with songs, pamphlets and printed debate. Letters like these show how writers argued about Harrison's record, including his role at the Battle of Tippecanoe in 1811.

Look closer

• Who is the letter-writer, and how does the pamphlet present its arguments to a reader?
• Why would a campaign pamphlet include a battle diagram, and what might it leave out?
• What does it suggest about the audience for political debate in 1840?