Campaign Circular of Alexander Smyth.

• imprint_number: 1816.128
• title: Fellow citizens, electors of Wythe County. When I retired from your immediate service in the House of Delegates, it was with a view to be still more useful in the Senate of the State … Your fellow citizen, Alexander Smyth. March, 1816.
• sequence_number: 128
• year: 1816
• place_issued: Virginia
• issuing_press: Uncertain
• author: Smyth, Alexander (1765-1830).
• notes: Smyth was a long-standing member of the House of Delegates representing Wythe County who had resigned that office to serve in the U.S. Army during the War of 1812; he returned to the House for the 1815-16 session and had intended to run for the Virginia Senate in the 1816 elections; but the retirement of Federalist congressman Daniel Sheffey (1770-1830), Smyth decided to seek that open seat instead, as he explained in this letter to his Wythe County neighbors; he defeated Federalist Benjamin Estill (1780-1853) by a 2-1 margin and represented the 6th Virginia Congressional District (then Lee, Grayson, Russell, Tazewell Washington, and Wythe counties) until 1825, then again from 1827 until his death.
  Sheet lacks colophon; the press then closest to Wythe was at Abingdon, Estill's home base, so this item was likely not printed there; previously, Smyth had employed printers in both Staunton and Richmond to issue earlier political publications; hence, assigning any press to this particular circular would be purely speculative, so the indeterminacy here.
  
  
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