Letter from Roger B. Taney to Arthur Shaaff

Maryland Attorney General Roger Brooke Taney writes Arthur Shaaff, an attorney in Georgia, to offer advice about seeking an office in President-Elect Andrew Jackson's administration. "While nobody can undertake to say what course Genl. Jackson will take," Taney notes that Jackson's "friends hope and believe that he will cleanse the offices" of the federal government. Taney believes that this action will almost certainly take place because many current government "clerks" have been "lauding Messrs [President John Q.] Adams and [Secretary of State Henry] Clay" over the past four years. Transcript included.