James Madison (1751-1836). Fourth President of the United States. Interesting Autograph Letter Signed ‘James Madison.’ Two pages quarto. Montpelier, January [3], 1828. Very fine condition.

Benjamin Franklin Bache inherited a printing house and materials upon the death of his grandfather and namesake, Benjamin Franklin. In 1790, Bache began publishing a daily newspaper, the General Advertiser, later named Aurora General Advertiser, in which he strongly supported the Jeffersonian Republican Party. Imprisoned in 1798 for his printed opposition to the President, Bache was released soon after, only to become a victim of the yellow fever. Bache died young at 29, and the newspaper was taken over by Benjamin’s wife and his apprentice, William Duane. Under Duane, the newspaper continued to support Republican policy. Benjamin’s son Richard, who worked at the family press, grew weary of the newspaper wars in Philadelphia between Federalists and Republicans, and proposed the publication of an unbiased gazette in January 1818. This venture apparently failed, and Richard continued to work at the Aurora General Advertiser until it ceased publication in 1822. James Madison, after refusing subscription to the gazette, requests that Richard determine whether a letter he encloses is indeed written by his great-grandfather, Benjamin Franklin, and whether or not it has been published. In this fine letter, written after Madison left the Presidency, he makes reference to finding a possible Benjamin Franklin article previously published in limited circulation. Madison writes in part:

“...In assorting some old pamphlets I met with a magazine containing a re-publication from an English newspaper of a letter to its Editor, in a stile [sic] and with an object which seem strongly to denote the person [of] Dr. Franklin. The name on the outside page is not unlike his handwriting; but that circumstance would be no evidence of the fact. I have not at hand the means of decoding whether the Doctor was in England at the date of the letter; nor whether, if the
letter was his, it may not be among his printed writings. I enclose the magazine that you may ascertain these prints. If the letter be from the conjectured man and has never been printed, it certainly deserves to be so...”

To the modern reader it is interesting to note that Madison wished to preserve the writings of Benjamin Franklin as we wish to preserve his own today. An unusual association of two great American statesmen.

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