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  John Langdon declines Vice Presidency
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ContributorChronicler 
Last EditedChronicler  May 16, 2008 06:13pm
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CategoryNews
News DateSunday, May 24, 1812 12:00:00 AM UTC0:0
DescriptionText from the Easton MD Republican Star, 5/23/1812.

Portsmouth, [5/23/1812]

Gentlemen, By the mail last evening, I had the honor of receiving your letter of the 22d inst., which informs me that at a meeting of the Republican Members of Congress I was recommended for the office of Vice-President of the United States. This mark of attention and confidence shewn me by honorable gentlemen demands my most grateful acknowledgements.

I wrote the honorable [U.S. Rep. Samuel] Ringgold the day before yesterday, giving some farther reasons why I could not consent to be brought forward as a candidate for Vice-President of the United States, to which I beg leave to add, that I am now 71 years of age, my faculties blunted, have lived the last forty years of my life in the whirlwind of politics, and am longing for the sweets of retirement.

I am therefore under the painful necessity of declining the honorable offer of my friends of being brought forward as a candidate for the office of Vice-President of the United States. My advanced age forbids my undertaking long journies, and renders me incapable of performing the duties of the important station of Vice-President with any advantage to our beloved country, or honor to myself. To launch again into the ocean of politics at my time of life, appears to me highly improper.

I therefore am assured that my honorable friends will forgive me for declining to accept their kind offer.

I have the honor to be, Gentlemen, your obliged humble servant,

John Langdon
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