Catalog 63

T he R aab C ollection ~Philadelphia~

T he R aab C ollection

C atalog 63

P.O. Box 471 Ardmore, PA 19003 (800) 977-8333 www.raabcollection.com

All material is guaranteed to be genuine, without time limit, to the original purchaser. We want you to be satisfied, so any item not purchased on layaway may be returned (in the same condition as received) for a full refund within 5 days of receipt. We accept Mastercard, Visa, American Express, check or money order. A layaway plan is also available and can be customized to fit your needs. The cost of shipping and insurance is $40 on invoices under $10,000.

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President George Washington Calls the Senate Into Session For His Second Inauguration The only call into session for a Washington inauguration we can find in private hands The success of the American Revolution was a long-shot, as an unorganized group of farmers took on the greatest military power of the day.

Its leader Washington had been a minor officer in the British Army over a decade earlier, yet he was the best the Americans had, and though a very wealthy landowner with everything to lose, he agreed to lead. Victories were few and far between for the Americans, and at times the army under his command was reduced to a few thousand dedicated but ill-armed, ill-fed and ill-housed men. There were a number of moments during the Revolutionary War when it actually seemed over except for British mopping up operations, and it was only the determination of Washington that held the American cause and army together. The success of the Revolution was an astonishing achievement for Washington. Afterwards, he had every opportunity to become a king or dictator, but he refused, instead supporting ratification of the U.S. Constitution.

“...the Senate shall be convened on Monday the 4 instant, you are desired to attend at the Senate Chamber in Philadelphia on that day”

Washington was Inaugurated as President for the first time on April 30, 1789, in front of New York’s Federal Hall. He had not wanted to be chief executive, and took the job reluctantly, lamenting that in assuming the presidency, he felt “like a culprit who is going to the place of his execution.” With the inaugural ceremony complete, the crowd below let out three big cheers and President Washington returned to the Senate chamber to deliver his brief Inaugural address. In it, he hoped the American people would find liberty and happiness under “a government instituted by themselves.” He realized full well that he would be setting important precedents in the office, and saw it as his responsibility to set positive ones, saying “As the first of everything, in our situation, will serve to establish a precedent, it is devoutly wished on my part that these precedents be fixed on true principles.”

Washington’s first important presidential determination was to use as an advisory cabinet the principal Federal officials he would select, and to fill the cabinet with men of stature and character, not just supporters or sycophants. These included Thomas Jefferson as Secretary of State and Alexander Hamilton as Treasury Secretary. In fact, a conflict between these two quickly created for Washington the necessity of determining whether the executive under the brand new Constitution was a passive position, as many assumed, or one of active leadership. Jefferson’s opinion was that the Federal government and its head could only exercise powers specifically granted by the Constitution, while Hamilton saw the Constitution as implying powers which the government could utilize for beneficial ends. Washington agreed with Hamilton and accepted the concept that the Constitution allowed actions that it did not expressly authorize. This decision proved a sound one and helped make the nation’s future prosperity possible. Washington also used national power in the Whiskey Rebellion to establish the primacy of Federal laws. All of these actions set a strong precedent for presidential leadership.

Washington was re-elected in 1792. France declared war on Great Britain on February 1, 1793, so by the time of his second inauguration, He was aware that hostilities were brewing; news of the war declaration was speeding across the Atlantic at that very moment. The U.S. now faced a thorny political problem, as France was America’s ally during the Revolutionary War, yet Great Britain’s financial support was important to American ship-owners and businessmen. It was in this tension-laden atmosphere, in which actions in Europe would surely have momentous yet uncertain consequences in the U.S., that Washington’s second term would begin.

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The inaugural ceremony would take place before the U.S. Senate and in the Senate Chamber, but for this to happen it would first be necessary to call the Senate into session for inauguration day.

There were 15 states in the Union at this time, and therefore 30 U.S. senators, but only 17 were in Philadelphia to receive a call into session and be able to attend the history-making moment.

Thus, in all likelihood, only 17 Senators received letters commanding their presence that day.

This is one of those original letters.

Manuscript Letter Signed as President, Philadelphia, March 1, 1793, to Rhode Island’s U.S. Senator Theodore Foster. “Certain matters touching the public good requiring that the Senate shall be convened on Monday the 4 instant, you are desired to attend at the Senate Chamber in Philadelphia on that day then and there to receive and deliberate on such communications as shall be made to you on my part.” John Fitzgerald relates in his work “The Writings of George Washington” that “This extra session of the Senate convened and adjourned on March 4.”

The second inauguration of George Washington as President of the United States took place in Philadelphia, in the Senate Chamber of that part of Independence Hall known as Congress Hall, on March 4, 1793. The inauguration marked the commencement of the second four-year term for not only Washington as President, but John Adams as Vice President, and was the first such ceremony to take place on the date fixed by the Congress for inaugurations. Before an assembly of congressmen, cabinet officers, judges of the federal and district courts, foreign officials, and a gathering of Philadelphians, Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court William Cushing administered the oath of office, becoming the first Supreme Court justice to swear in a president. Though his oath of office took place indoors, the sun shone in Philadelphia that day, as only seems fitting, with Washington being sworn in the very building where independence had been declared and he had been named to command the American army just 18 years earlier. Temperatures were mild with a high of 61°F. Washington also delivered an inaugural address in which he stated: “I am again called upon by the voice of my country to execute the functions of its Chief Magistrate. When the occasion proper for it shall arrive, I shall endeavor to express the high sense I entertain of this distinguished honor, and of the confidence which has been reposed in me by the people. Previous to the execution of any official act of the President, the Constitution requires an oath of office. This oath I am now about to take, and in your presence...”

In his second term, President Washington promoted the concepts of American nationalism and unity. He quickly determined that the U. S. should be neutral in the European quarrel, and on April 22, 1793, issued a proclamation to that effect. The following year, the Jay Treaty settled some outstanding issues with the British and thus reduced the chance of the U.S. getting entangled in the European war. Towards the end of this term, he refused to seek another. This proved to be another valuable precedent, as seeing his example, future presidents knew that one day they would go home and resume life as private citizens. Washington believed that public virtue led to prosperity, and as President conducted himself with pure motives and complete honesty.

His virtues were so pronounced that they actually influenced the way people thought about the concepts of leadership and greatness. In setting this example and high standard, Washington made it very difficult for his successors to materially deviate.

Our research has turned up only one other such letter that demonstrably still exists. There are none listed in auction records over the past 35 years, and we know of none in private hands otherwise. There is one, Sen. Roger Sherman’s copy, in the Massachusetts Historical Society. The Papers of Washington project believes that there may be a few others in institutions somewhere, but they are not specifically aware of any. Nor did they know of any in private hands. They took a copy of this letter as an example for the others. $62,000

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President Thomas Jefferson’s Glittering Table: He Orders Payment For Dining, Wine and Expenses This letter also contains the autograph of Etienne Lemaire, one of America’s great pioneering chefs, who introduced cooking with wine into this country President Jefferson’s salary was $25,000, seemingly magnificent for the times, but he was expected to cover not only openhanded hospitality in the Executive Mansion, but upkeep, incidental repairs, furniture, livery, a carriage and feed for the horses, food for the servants, and other outlays as well. No expense account in the modern sense existed.

Jefferson loved to entertain and his dinners were usually given in a dining room on the mansion’s south front; generally the company numbered fourteen. The hour for dining was four o’clock; the style was easy and informal. Rules of precedence were abolished, titles ignored. The host, a tall, lean man of distinction and sensitivity in his early sixties, would typically be clothed in a neat though casual manner, wearing twilled corduroy breeches, scarlet embroidered waistcoat under a more somberly colored coat, and satinette shoes comfortably worn—less costly and splendid apparel than the blue livery coats, trimmed with silver lace, worn by his servants. While Congress was in session Jefferson extensively entertained representatives and senators, often holding three banquets a week for them. He also invited diplomats, distinguished travellers, and men of science; he was interested in everyone. When Congress recessed and he had not yet left for Monticello, his guests included plain citizens of every rank as well as writers, explorers, and Indian chiefs. His daughter Martha and other ladies were occasionally in the company.

The portly Etienne Lemaire served as Maitre d’Hotel to Jefferson from 1794 through the end of his presidency (which means he ran every aspect of the kitchen) and was Executive Mansion butler from 1801-9 (so he handled wine purchases and bottling as well). Lemaire acted as chief chef, and like many great chefs, liked to select and purchase the menu items himself. He was often seem in the markets in Georgetown purchasing meats, poultry, oysters, produce, bread, and milk. Jefferson was known for his appreciation of fine wines, and Lemaire would acquire wines for him with labels like Chateau Margaux. Lemaire’s lasting claim to fame is that he is widely credited with introducing the fine art of cooking with wines into America. He made wonderful sauces also, and Jefferson was known for his fondness for meals with his light sauces and garden-fresh herbs. It was Lemaire that received and opened the shipment of artifacts and animals sent by Lewis and Clark in April 1805.

Lemaire’s journal relates that Jefferson loved turkey pies with flaky crusts and venison. He ate beef but particularly enjoyed produce. His kitchen would serve roasted suckling pig to guests, the host not enjoying it himself. And with a very Jeffersonian touch, he invited guests to dinner without regard to their religion, and when the meal was on Friday and Roman Catholics were to be at the table, he made sure Lemaire bought fish. At the end of each week, Lemaire handed his expenses Day Book to the President, who studied the sixty to eighty entries, checked the addition, and translated the Virginia currency of pounds, shillings, and pence (which Lemaire used in shopping) into dollars and cents. At month’s end, after Lemaire had added the incidental expenses to table expenses, Jefferson recorded in the Day Book how his debts for hospitality stood (they were generally between $500 and $600), and then issued to Lemaire an order or orders for payment. These were generally addressed to his private banking agent and advisor, John Barnes, who managed Jefferson’s accounts.

Autograph Letter Signed as President, Washington, April 11, 1803, to Barnes, requesting him to make a payment to Lemaire. “Mr. Barnes, Pay to Mr. Lemaire on order $75.50 for value received on

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account of your humble servant, Th. Jefferson.” Lemaire then notates in his hand, and signs, that he has received the money. This notation is significant both because it shows that this is the received, original pay order rather than Jefferson’s retained polygraph copy, and it contains an autograph of one of the great chefs in American history. Interestingly, the very day Jefferson wrote this letter to Barnes, in France, French Foreign Minister Talleyrand offered to sell all of Louisiana Territory to the United States. This would prove the highlight of Jefferson’s term in office.

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The Annapolis Convention, Cradle of the U.S. Constitution: Patrick Henry Sends the First Notification of Virginia’s Passage of the Call for the Convention Congress tried to establish a basic governmental framework with the Articles of Confederation, ratified by the states in 1781.

But the central government remained little more than a loose alliance of independent states, and Congress experienced difficulty in restoring a war-torn economy, guaranteeing an effective defense, and in regulating both domestic and foreign trade.

These problems had at their source a deficiency in the national government’s capacity to raise and collect money.

In November 1785 the Virginia House of Delegates began debates to consider the commercial state of the union. Resolutions were offered supporting a permanent grant of power to Congress to regulate foreign and domestic commerce. These resolutions were tabled in favor of another proposal that Virginia call for a meeting of states to consider measures to redress the confederation’s deficiencies. On January 21, 1786, on the last day of that session, both houses of the Virginia legislature passed a bill: “Resolved, That Edmund Randolph, James Madison, jun. Walter Jones, Saint George Tucker and Meriwether Smith, Esquires, be appointed commissioners, who... shall meet such commissioners as may be appointed by the other States in the Union... to examine the relative situations and trade of the said States; to consider how far a uniform system in their commercial regulations may be necessary to their common interest and their permanent harmony; and to report to the several States, such an act relative to this great object, as, when unanimously ratified by them, will enable the United States in Congress, effectually to provide for the same.” This was the famed call for the Annapolis Convention, which commenced the process that led to the U.S. Constitution.

Patrick Henry was Governor of Virginia from 1776 to 1779 and then again from 1784 to 1786, and while in office he was charged with communicating acts of the legislature to other states, when these acts had inter-state implications and might require the other states to act. Virginia’s government operated with several layers of checks and balances at the time. In addition to receiving instructions to forward acts from the legislature, a Council of States, composed of other leading officials, had to grant their consent that it be done. Minutes of the Council of State from January 26, 1786, show that Henry was given authority to communicate acts of the legislature to the Continental Congress or to governors of neighboring states, as was appropriate.

Letter Signed as Governor of Virginia, Virginia Council Chamber, January 30, 1786, to Richard Caswell, Governor of North Carolina, sending him the first notification of the passage of the Virginia bill calling for the Annapolis Convention. “I am desired by the Assembly to communicate the enclosed Resolutions to you, & with Regard am Your Excellency’s most obedient humble servant, P. Henry.” Henry would follow this letter with a subsequent one inviting the other delegates to attend, but that letter came subsequent to this first notification.

The Virginia commissioners fixed the first Monday in September 1786 as the time, and the city of Annapolis as the place for the meeting. The formal title of the convention was a Meeting of Commissioners to Remedy Defects of the Federal Government. James Madison, the architect of the proposal, had little expectation for the Annapolis Convention but thought it “better than nothing.” George Washington himself saw the country in jeopardy and felt “something must be done or the fabrick must fall, for it is certainly tottering.”

In the end, only four other States were represented: Delaware, New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania; the commissioners appointed by Massachusetts, New Hampshire, North Carolina, and Rhode Island failed to attend. Unable to act for lack of numbers, they nonetheless produced a report that was sent to the Congress and the states. The report asked support for a broader meeting to be held the next May in Philadelphia and expressed the hope that more states would be represented and that their delegates would be authorized to examine areas broader than simply commercial trade. The direct result of the report was the Constitutional Convention of 1787.

Formerly on display at The National Constitution Center.

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John Hancock Appoints Azor Orne, a Fellow Committee of Safety Member Who Was With Him As the British Marched on Lexington and Concord, to a Significant Judicial Office Rare Early Hancock signed document as Governor of Massachusetts Massachusetts militia Colonel Azor Orne was a notable patriot, serving on one of the Committees of Correspondence formed to call to the world’s attention the grievances of the colonists. He was elected to the First Continental Congress in 1774, but had to decline, instead accepting a post on the important provincial Committee of Safety (which controlled the military stores), where he served alongside Samuel Adams and John Hancock. On the fateful night of April 18, 1775, in company with fellow Marbleheaders Elbridge Gerry and Jeremiah Lee, Orne attended what was to prove the committee’s final pre-war meeting at Weatherby’s Black Horse Tavern just outside of Cambridge. The meeting adjourned late, and while Hancock and Adams left for nearby Lexington to sleep at Rev. Mr. Clarke’s house, the Marblehead men decided to spend the night at the tavern. The 800 British soldiers who were on their way that night to Lexington and Concord learned of the presence of the Committee members in Cambridge, so the tavern there also became a target. When patriots learned that this was the case, in addition to Paul Revere being despatched to Lexington to warn the province leaders that the British were coming, another courier was sent to Cambridge with the same news. Orne, Gerry and Lee were roused from their slumbers. They did not even have time to put on their clothes, but ran at once from the house and hid themselves in a cornfield while British regulars searched the tavern looking for members of the “Rebel Congress.” During the Revolution, Azor remained active and loaned a great deal of money to the cause.

Hancock was elected the first governor of Massachusetts under the new 1780 state Constitution, taking office on October 25 of that year. At that time, the Revolution was still ongoing and its outcome not certain; Cornwallis’s surrender at Yorktown was a year away. Soon after, he made his initial appointments and these included the first Massachusetts justices of the peace. Back then, a justice of the peace had more judicial powers than today, acting as an extension of a court of common pleas and initiating all civil cases. So men of the caliber of Orne were the recipient’s of these significant appointments.

Document Signed as Governor, on vellum, December 30, 1780, naming Orne a Justice of the Peace for twelve counties in eastern Massachusetts. This was a suitable position of responsibility for Orne, who had been with Hancock from the start and remained loyal and trustworthy.

The format of this appointment is unlike any we have seen previously, and a different format was soon selected for future appointments; the latter is the one commonly seen. This one is 13 1/2 by 16 1/2 inches, has ruffles and flourishes, and has the recipient’s name written in red ink.

A search of auction records for the past 35 years shows no other Hancock document dated 1780 has reached that marketplace. This surprising complete absence indicates that this may be the earliest Hancock signed document as Governor of Massachusetts in private hands.

After the war, Orne was a delegate to the Massachusetts Constitutional Convention, voting in favor of ratification of the new U.S. Constitution, and was named as Elector for the country’s first Presidential election in 1789. $7,500

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A Court Order Written and Signed by Judge Stephen A. Douglas Everyone who has read the Lincoln - Douglas debates knows that Lincoln always referred to Douglas not as Senator Douglas, but as Judge Douglas. And indeed Douglas was a judge earlier in his career. In February 1841 he was elected a judge of the Supreme Court, though he held those duties only until 1843, when he was elected to Congress. Nauvoo was in Douglas’s district, and while on the bench in 1841, Douglas set aside a Missouri writ to extradite Mormon prophet Joseph Smith for charges still pending there.

Autograph Document Signed, Quincy, Illinois, in the “Adams County Circuit Court at the September term thereof 1841.” The case involved Henry and Adelaide Mane, executors to decedent Charles Meinkie, who in April were authorized by Douglas to sell some real estate. They filed a report as required by law, and in this order their actions were accepted by the court: “Thereupon it is ordered by the court...that all the proceedings of the petitioners under such decree be hereby approved and confirmed.” The Judge then confirms title in the property to the purchaser at the sale, Hippolet Drouhet. Documents from Douglas’s brief judgeship are uncommon, particularly those completely in his hand.

By addressing Douglas as Judge rather than Senator, Lincoln hoped to minimize any advantage Douglas may have had due to his national recognition and experience (and Lincoln’s lack of the same), and remind Illinoians that Douglas was, after all, on the same par as all of then. $1,000

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Sam Houston, Stepping onto The National Stage as a Protege of Andrew Jackson, Accurately Predicts the 1824 Election Joining the army in the War of 1812, Houston served under Andrew Jackson in his battles against the Creek Indians. At Horseshoe Bend in March 1814, he was wounded by a Creek arrow. The wound was bandaged, and he rejoined the fight. When Jackson called on volunteers to dislodge a group of Creeks from their fortifications, Houston volunteered, but during the assault was struck by a bullet in the shoulder and arm. This was the kind of bravery that attracted Jackson, who became personally close to Houston. Elected to the Tennessee House of Representatives in 1822, Houston became a staunch supporter of Jackson and was widely considered to be his political protégé. He was elected to Congress with Jackson’s concurrence and arrived in Washington to begin his great career of public service in 1823. As a member of Congress, his first major undertaking was to work for the election of Andrew Jackson to the presidency in 1824.

“You wish to learn who will be the next President...My own opinion is that General Jackson will be the man! If not him, Mr. Adams.”

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Autograph Letter Signed, 3 pages, Washington, April 8, 1824, to his cousin William Houston Letcher, assessing the prospects for the election, and accurately predicting that either Jackson or John Quincy Adams would emerge victorious. “...You are excusable for not answering my letter sooner but I certainly did expect an answer before this time. I am very happy to hear of the welfare of cousin Betsy and the little ones, and have a request that you will give my love to her, with all my relations. You wish to learn who will be the next President. On this subject, we can only speak from con-

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jecture. My own opinion is that General Jackson will be the man! If not him, Mr. Adams. Mr. Crawford is surely down! You say my horse is doing well. I wish you would see Mr. West and if he will give $150 let him have him, as my intention at this time is to go north and return by the Canada Lakes to the west.

My wound is worse than it has been for eight years and on that account I wish to travel north. The moment you get this letter, I wish you would see Mr. West, for if he does not want him (my horse), I will send him to Tennessee in the course of a few days by a friend on his way to Nashville. My horse cost me two hundred & thrity dollars, and I will not lose more than $80 on him. He is a most excellent animal.”

Houston was right to deprecate the chances of William Crawford, and also by omission, Henry Clay. In the four-way race that year, Jackson received the most popular votes with Adams second, but Adams won the election in the House of Representatives with Jackson runner-up.

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From One Inventor to Another: Thomas Edison Revises His Contract With A.B. Dick to Produce and Sell the First Mimeograph Machine Since the 18th century, inventors had been trying to discover a method of mechanically reproducing documents, so that they would not have to be tediously hand-copied. Some, like Thomas Jefferson’s polygraph, worked but were impractical for wide-spread office use. In 1876 Thomas Edison came up with his first solution and patented his “Edison Electric Pen” which was based on a stencil system for copying handwritten documents. It was successful, but sales were constrained by the fact that many office clerks did not have the skill to maintain the complicated battery that was required. In 1884, basing his work on Edison’s and experimenting with a file and waxed wrapping paper, A.B. Dick discovered the mimeograph process. His company acquired Edison’s copying system patents and, with Edison’s active support, began manufacturing and marketing Edison Mimeograph systems in 1887. Models were sold in rectangular wooden boxes that contained a hand printing frame and a hinged frame that held the stencil. The boxes also contained an ink roller, an inking slate, ink, varnish and a brush for making corrections, waxed stencil paper, blotters, a writing stylus, and a writing plate with a file-like surface.

Typed Letter Signed on his early, scarce Wall Street letterhead, New York, December 30, 1887, to the A.B. Dick Company, amending their contract to set the timing for payment of royalties for the first mimeograph machines. “In reference to our contract regarding the Edison Mimeograph, which provides that reports of your sales shall be sent to me on the first of each month as specified therein, I hereby authorize you to tender these reports on the 15th day of each of said months instead of the first.”

The Edison/Dick relationship was successful. Dick sold over 80,000 Edison Mimeographs by 1892 and over 200,000 by 1899. The mimeograph was not merely the first practical office reproduction technology, but it remained the primary one until it began to be supplanted by photocopying in the 1960s.

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Letter of Benjamin Franklin from July 1776, Possibly The Only One in Private Hands With the independence of the United States at center stage, in a letter referencing Pennsylvania Hospital, which he founded, Franklin shows he was also watching after the well being of his family In June of 1776, a proposal to declare the colonies an independent nation was submitted to the Second Continental Congress. It appointed a committee to draft the Declaration of Independence. The committee consisted of Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Robert R. Livingston, and Roger Sherman. Thomas Jefferson was the primary author while Franklin was foremost in suggesting changes and improvements. The Congress approved American independence on July 2, 1776 and the Declaration of Independence was agreed to on July 4, 1776. Four days later, on July 8, it was read publicly in the State House Yard in Philadelphia and the Liberty Bell was rung. On August 2, the Declaration of Independence was signed by all the delegates, Franklin very much included.

Franklin was very fond of his widowed younger sister, Jane Mecum. During the Revolution, Jane moved to Rhode Island and stayed with Franklin’s friends, Catherine Ray Greene and her husband William. From there she went to the Philadelphia home of Franklin’s daughter and son-inlaw, Sarah and Richard Bache. She lived there and in nearby Burlington, New Jersey for the duration of the war. Throughout her life she corresponded with Franklin, keeping him informed of public opinion in America while he was abroad. Her husband had left her nothing, and she was usually short of money. Her son Benjamin was named after her noted brother, and uncle Benjamin Franklin set him up as a printer in 1752. Benjamin Mecum later quarreled with his uncle and bought the press from him, moving it to Boston in 1757 and from there to several other colonial cities. He became the first American to attempt (though unsuccessfully) to make type by the technique of stereotyping. Benjamin went insane, (as had his brother Peter), and by 1776 had to be institutionalized. The family chose Philadelphia’s Pennsylvania Hospital, the oldest hospital in the nation, which Franklin had raised money to help found in 1751 and where he had served as its second president. Franklin paid out of his own pocket for his nephew’s care.

Soon after the vote for independence, Franklin received a letter from leading town officials of Burlington, William Smith and John Lawrence (who had been Mayor), that Benjamin Mecum had escaped from Pennsylvania Hospital and gone to Burlington, where he had lived for a time and where his mother was. The town’s residents appealed to Franklin for help in a letter to him of July 19, saying, “At the Request of Mrs. Mecum (who has been an Inhabitant of this city for some time past and behav’d with prudence and Industry,) we take the liberty to Inform you that her husband’s [son’s] conduct is such, as to render her situation disagreeable, and at times very dangerous he being often depriv’d of his reason, and likely to become very troublesome to the inhabitants. If a place in the Hospital of Philada. can be procured or any other way of confining which may be thought more eligable she begs your assistance...”

Franklin responded promptly to this family crisis. Autograph Letter Signed, Philadelphia, July 23, 1776, to Smith and Lawrence. “I received yesterday your favour of the 19th. About 4 months since I procured admittance that unhappy person into the Hospital here, agreeing to pay 15 shillings a week for his maintenance there; but he escaped and returned to Burlington. If Mrs. Mecom or her friends can send him back and deliver him at the Hospital, I will take care to pay the House; or if he can be secured and maintained cheaper at or near Burlington, I may save something out of it towards her own better subsistence. I am, Gentlemen, Your most obedient and humble servant, B. Franklin. [P.S.] A brother of Mr. Mecon in the same unfortunate circumstance has been years upon my hands; and being taken care of in a country family, at a dollar per week, makes me think Mrs. Mecom may get the same done for less than the Hospital price.”

Ultimately, care was arranged for Mecom in Burlington, but in the turmoil surrounding the Battle of Trenton, he escaped again. This time he was never found.

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Benjamin Franklin was a very busy man in July of 1776 and had little time for personal correspondence. Research fails to reveal any other Franklin letter from July 1776 reaching the marketplace in the last 35 years. The online and printed versions of the Franklin Papers show that, though there were some half dozen official letters of committees of Congress signed by Franklin and at least one other member that month, Franklin personally wrote just two letters. One was to British General Howe on July 20 and the other to George Washington on July 22. The original letter to Washington is in an institution in Europe and the location of the original to Howe is unlisted. Relying on the Franklin Papers, this would therefore appear to be the only letter of Franklin from July 1776 clearly known to be in private hands. $60,000

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President Washington instructs Secretary of State Jefferson to Implement a System of American Neutrality “with as little loss of time as may be” In the first major foreign policy crisis for the United States, Washington walks a fine line between France and England, demonstrating his policy of avoiding foreign entanglements

President Washington was inaugurated in April 1789 and his first concerns were domestic.

Through his first term, with the exception of lingering problems with Britain left over from the American Revolution, foreign policy issues were not a significant concern for him.

That changed in April 1793 when word reached the United States that war had broken out between revolutionary France and Great Britain and its allies. Washington and his Cabinet members agreed that the nation was too young and its military too small to risk any sort of engagement with either France or Britain. On April 22, 1793, Washington issued a Proclamation of Neutrality that barred American ships from supplying war matériel to either side. This was Washington’s first major foreign policy decision and his first important foreign policy paper.

But if the Americans had any thought that a declaration of neutrality would end the matter as far as the United States was concerned, they soon found they were very much mistaken.

The threat to American neutrality Citizen Genêt was dispatched by the French government to the United States to promote American support for France in the war. He arrived in Charleston, South Carolina on April 8, weeks before the neutrality proclamation. Instead of traveling to the then-capital of Philadelphia to present himself to President Washington for accreditation, Genêt stayed in South Carolina where his goals were to recruit and arm American privateers which would join French expeditions against the British. He commissioned four privateering ships in total: the Republicaine, the Anti-George, the Sans-Culotte, and the Citizen Genêt. His actions endangered American neutrality and when Genêt actually met with Washington, he asked for what amounted to a suspension of that neutrality (but was refused). Meanwhile, Genêt’s privateers were capturing British ships and rearming them as privateers.

The British minister to the U.S., George Hammond, complained to Secretary of State Jefferson about this on May 8, 1793, saying that these privateers, illegally fitted out at Charleston, had gone to sea and made prizes of several British vessels which they had brought back into American ports. Hammond announced that he doubted not “that the executive government of the United States will pursue such measures as to its wisdom may appear the best calculated...for restoring to their rightful owners any captures” so made.

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Washington’s Cabinet-style government seeks to avoid entanglements What to do about the Genet problem generally and the prizes and goods Genet’s ships were bringing into U.S. ports posed a serious problem for the U.S. government. The President decided to request written opinions from his advisors on the problem. This style of governing, where Washington solicited a range of Cabinet-level opinions to guide his thought process, became a hallmark of his leadership. Consequently, members of the Cabinet submitted their opinions.

Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton, seconded by Secretary of War Henry Knox, thought that the prizes should be restored to the British. This opinion was submitted to the President on May 15. Hamilton argued that the U.S. had been bound in duty to prevent this situation from occurring in the first place, and if it could not prevent the injury, it should redress it by means of the remedy that was present; that is, by restoring the prizes now resting in her ports. If it did not Britain would be justified in considering it an act of aggression upon her by the United States.

In his opinion, Jefferson acknowledged that the United States should prevent France from fitting out privateers in our ports, in order to preserve a fair and secure neutrality. But, he continued, Great Britain should be satisfied with a moderate apology on the part of the United States. As to restoration of the prizes--that was impossible. The commission given to the privateers was acknowledged to be valid as between the belligerents. At the moment of capture, then, property in the prizes had been vested in the captors; the English owner had lost all right to the property.

The United States could only restore it to him through an act of reprisal against France. Attorney General Edmund Randolph’s opinion essentially agreed with Jefferson, but added a new wrinkle. Even if the British had no right to restoration of the prizes themselves, it might have a right to compensation from the U.S.

The President was impressed with the weight of the arguments for compensation but against restoring the prizes themselves; so he decided. This was a compromise between the conflicting opinions that existed in the Cabinet. Besides the question of restitution this question also involved a decision on what was to be done about the privateers illegally fitted out. Were they and their prizes to be permitted to use American ports the same as all French vessels or were these vessels to be considered as having forfeited their rights because of their illegal origin? Both sides on this issue took positions, with the final opinion, Randolph’s, favoring ordering away

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the privateers and doing nothing more. Jefferson said, “The President confirmed the last opinion & it seemed to be his own.” Thus the U.S. would not go to extremes to stop the privateering, but might opt to compensate the British instead.

This decision was officially announced to the British and French foreign ministers in letters dated the same day in June. In the one to Great Britain, Jefferson wrote that British citizens could have their grievances heard in the U.S. Admiralty Courts, and he hoped Hammond would see “in these proceedings of the President, unequivocal proof of the line of strict right which he means to pursue. The measures now mentioned are taken in justice to the one party; the ulterior measure of seizing and restoring the prizes, is declined, in justice to the others.” Hammond was not unhappy overall with the attention the Washington administration was giving to a number of issues related to Britain’s war with France, and rather than object to this decision about prizes, he expressed “satisfaction with its [the U.S. government’s] general disposition...”

Washington had again found the wisest course to be that which lay between the positions of Jefferson and Hamilton.

Hammond’s conclusion that it was inadvisable to try to obtain a reversal of the decision not to restore these prizes marked the end of the controversy so far as prizes already captured were concerned. But unfortunately these were not the most important aspect of the situation, as future prizes could dwarf the existing ones in number. Genet did not send the proscribed privateers away as requested and they remained in or cruising out of American ports; they brought more prizes into these ports and would bring others. This marks the beginning of the second and most crucial stage in the controversy. Everyone in the U.S. government, including Jefferson, acknowledged that the U.S. ought to prevent American ports being used for belligerent purposes.

But the question was what to do if they were nonetheless.

A long term threat to neutrality and national security The President again raised the question of the prizes on August 2. Jefferson wrote, “He desired we would meet at my office the next day to consider what should be done with the vessels armed in our ports by Mr. Genet & their prizes.” Hamilton acknowledged, at a cabinet meeting on August 3, that he had lost patience with the French minister and his privateers. He proposed to suppress the privateers by military coercion and to deliver their prizes to their original owners. There is not much doubt that the conduct of Genet and the captains of these vessels would have justified such action by the United States, but was it the wisest course? Jefferson thought not. He proposed to “require from Mr. Genet a delivery of the prizes to their owners, otherwise that, in consequence of the assurance we had given the British Minister, we should be bound to pay for them & must take credit for it with France.” He would also inform the French Minister that we would allow no further asylum in our ports to the proscribed privateers. Jefferson believed that it would be cheaper to pay Britain for the prizes brought into American ports against U.S. policy than to risk a war with France, by seizing her armed vessels. Either course would equally well fulfill the neutral duties assumed by the United States. All that Great Britain could claim was restitution or compensation. Jefferson’s plan was agreed to, with the additional provision that the governors of the states were to be notified that the proscribed privateers were not to be permitted to stay in our ports. This last provision was an attempt to remove the cause and prevent the need of frequent new decisions.

Jefferson prepared letters to the two ministers, and these he submitted to the President. They were accepted by him and sent each containing the phrase “The President considers it as incumbent upon the United States” to make compensation for the vessels if the prizes were not restored”. Washington insisted that “the expression be so guarded as to convey nothing more than an opinion of the executive” and Jefferson succeeded in so guarding it. The decision that the U.S. should furnish compensation for these prizes that had been taken by the proscribed privateers brought into American ports, and which could not be restored to Great Britain, was acceptable to Hammond, but he was not satisfied with all the details. The letter to Hammond on August 7 had restated the complaint, named the individual prizes to which the complaint applied and concluded with a statement that if measures for restitution should fail, the President considered it as incumbent on the United States to make compensation “for the vessels.” On August 30, Hammond officially requested an interpretation of these words specifically to determine whether the letter applied just to named prizes or also those that might be taken in the future by proscribed privateers. This was a very pertinent question in view of the failure of the privateers to leave the ports of the United States after a similar decision of the cabinet in June.

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An opportunity to set a general rule for neutrality Jefferson immediately saw that Hammond wished to establish a general rule that either restitution or compensation would be made. He drafted a letter to Hammond dated September 5 to establish the grounds on which he thought a general rule should be formed. This letter furnishes a good summary of the administration’s policy on this key point, and it is included in Yale University’s list of important documents of American diplomatic history, precisely because of the efforts of the Washington administration to create a safe position for the United States and to walk a fine and neutral line. The United States, wrote Jefferson, was bound by treaties with certain belligerents to protect and defend, or restore “by all means in their power,” the vessels of these nations which might be in the waters or ports of the United States. If all the means in its power were used and failed in their effect, this country was not bound by the treaties to make compensation to those nations. The United States did not have a similar treaty with Great Britain but the President decided that, to avoid any suspicion of unneutral conduct, the United States should apply the same rule toward that country as applied to the others. Further, the President thought it incumbent upon the United States to make compensation for already-taken vessels. As to prizes made under the same circumstances and brought in after the date of Jefferson’s former letter (August 7), the President determined that all the means in the power of the country should be used for their restitution. If these failed, since compensation would not have been due to the three other powers in an analogous case, it was his opinion that it ought not to be granted specially to Great Britain, (lest with no treaty with the U.S., Britain find itself more favored than nations with such a treaty). This language could be considered tantamount to a rejection of Hammond’s compensation requests, and the administration decided it did not want to go that far. So a sentence was added to the effect that the President was willing to formulate a general rule to the extent of expressing his opinion that compensation would be appropriate if any future cases should arise similar to those before August 7: “But still if any Cases shall arise subsequent to that date, the circumstances of which shall place them on similar ground with those before it, the President would think Compensation equally incumbent on the United States.” In other words, indemnity should be given if the United States again decided not to use all the means in its power to expel the offending privateers or to prevent new armaments.

In accordance with Washington’s Cabinet style of governing, Secretary of State Jefferson submitted this draft letter to the President for his review, which was all the more important seeing as how the President himself was making representations to a foreign power. Washington approved it two days later in this letter. Autograph Letter Signed as President, Philadelphia, September 7, 1793, to Thomas Jefferson. ”Sir: I have received your letter of yesterday’s date, and approving the measures suggested therein, desire you will make arrangements for carrying them into effect with as little loss of time as may be.” This letter is included in Fitzgerald’s The Writings of George Washington, volume 33, page 84, with Fitzgerald noting that the text and recipient are contained in the “letter book” in the Washington Papers.

Per these very instructions, Jefferson then sent his important letter to Hammond, setting forth American neutrality policy and that letter, approved by Washington here, was considered so important that Article 9 of the Jay Treaty of 1795 incorporated the entire letter within the treaty itself.

This is the first letter of George Washington to Thomas Jefferson we have carried. A search of auction records for the past 32 years (1975-2007) reveals no Washington-to-Jefferson letters as President/Secretary of State having reached the market. It showed just one letter of Washington to Jefferson of any kind sold over the past two decades: a cover letter of Washington from 1787 sending Jefferson a copy of the new Constitution, which sold for $230,000. $100,000

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10

Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Autograph Quotation Signed From Little Eva’s Deathbed Scene in “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” It is one of the key passages of the book Uncle Tom’s Cabin was the best-selling novel of the 19th century, and the second best-selling book of that century, following the Bible. In the first year after it was published, 300,000 copies of the book were sold in the United States alone. It fueled the abolitionist cause in the 1850s and sharpened regional differences and perspectives about slavery.

The book’s impact was so great, that when Abraham Lincoln met its author Harriet Beecher Stowe at the start of the Civil War, he is purported to have declared, “So this is the little lady who made this big war.”

“‘I’m going there,’ she said, ‘to the spirits bright, Tom. I am going there before long.’”

In the book, Eva, whose real name is Evangeline St. Clare, is the daughter of Augustine St. Clare. She enters the narrative when Uncle Tom is traveling via steamship to New Orleans to be sold, and he rescues the 5 or 6 year-old girl from drowning. Eva begs her father to buy Tom, and he becomes the head coachman at the St. Clare plantation. He spends most of his time with the angelic Eva, who constantly talks about love and forgiveness. Eventually Eva falls terminally ill and her death is one of the melodramatic high points of the novel. Before she dies, Eva makes her father promise to free all of his slaves. Eva gives each of the slaves a lock of her golden hair as a keepsake and begs them all to become Christians. When St. Clare dies unexpectedly before freeing the slaves, his wife sells the slaves at public auction. Uncle Tom is bought by the villainous Simon Legree.

In the moving culmination of the deathbed scene, Little Eva points to the heavens, and here Stowe picks up the text. Autograph Quotation Signed, March 30th 1894. “‘I’m going there,’ she said, ‘to the spirits bright, Tom. I am going before long.”‘ Uncle Tom’s Cabin, Chap.

XXIII, Harriet Beecher Stowe. Written for Charlotts Nichols.”

The deathbed scene is one of the key scenes in the book. It, wrote Prof. Jane Tompkins of Princeton, “presents in miniature the structure of the whole novel.” Tompkins also makes the point that Little Eva’s protracted death accomplishes what never comes to fruition during her life: the unification of all the members of the household in a community of Christian feeling. Another critic agrees that this scene is a “moment of transcendence”, where “death is the equivalent not of defeat, but of victory.”

An English scholar goes so far as to call the death of Eva “a formative moment “ in 19th century literature. And engravings of the deathbed scene entitled “I am going there” were readily for sale at the time. $6,000

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Martin Van Buren Gives the Clearest and Strongest Statement of Support for the Civil War and President Lincoln Made by a Former U.S. President He “approved of the call which had been made by the President...to suppress the Rebellion and...was in favor of the earnest & vigorous support of the Federal Government in the prosecution of the war for its own maintenance & for the maintenance of the Union and the Constitution...”

Van Buren saw early, and feared, the prospect of civil war. When President, he determined to do all he could to promote sectional harmony, and that meant supporting a number of pro-Southern measures such as the gag rule in the House of Representatives. However, feeling that the admission of Texas as a slave state would fan the flames of confrontation and risk disruption of the Union, Van Buren opposed it, declining to negotiate a treaty of annexation. His opposition to the annexation of Texas eventually damaged his career, as it denied him the 1844 presidential nomination of his Democratic Party. In 1848, he ran for President on the anti-slavery Free Soil ticket but was not a factor in the election. When the Civil War broke out, despite political differences with the Republican administration of President Lincoln, he threw his support squarely behind the administration and the war effort.

“...the attack upon our flag and the capture of Fort Sumter by the secessionists could be regarded in no other light than as the commencement of a treasonable attempt to overthrow the Federal Government by military force...”

When war came in 1861, there were five former presidents living: Martin Van Buren, John Tyler, Millard Fillmore, Franklin Pierce and James Buchanan. Tyler joined the Confederate Congress, which was a clear enough statement of his views. Pierce barely gave lip service to supporting the cause, but indiscreetly gave evidence of personal pro-Confederate sympathies. He openly opposed the Lincoln administration and was widely excoriated by his New England neighbors.

Buchanan made one statement in a private letter supporting the President’s calling for volunteers, and the armies in the field, but otherwise preferred to remain silent. Fillmore supported the war effort but not the Lincoln administration. So two Presidents had pro-Confederate sympathies and two gave overall support to the war, but somewhat equivocally, not to Lincoln and his policies. Only one former President was foresquare in approving of the war and the Lincoln administration both, and that man was Martin Van Buren.

What follows must be the clearest and strongest statement of support for the Civil War and President Lincoln given by any former U.S. President. Autograph Letter Signed, Lindenwald, New York, November 28, 1861, to young John Habberton, then a typesetter for Harper Brothers.

“I received your letter of the 31st October on the eve of a visit to the western part of this state from which I have just returned. You ask whether I have made ‘any public manifesto regarding the questions of the day’, and give as your reason for making the enquiry that you are engaged in compiling a diary of the times, and wish to substantiate all you commit to paper. Early in the month of May last, a Union meeting of the citizens of Kinderhook was called, and a portion of my townsmen, who had been instrumental in making the call, gentlemen who differed from me in their general political views, did me the honor to ask me to advise with them in regards to its proceedings. My opinion and feelings upon the subject to be acted on were freely communicated to them. These were, in substance, that the attack upon our flag and the capture of Fort Sumter by the secessionists could be regarded in no other light than as the commencement of a treasonable attempt to overthrow the Federal Government by military force - that I approved of the call which had been made by the President upon the loyal states for the necessary means to enable him to suppress the Rebellion and rejoiced at the manner in which that call had been responded to, & was in favor of the earnest & vigorous support of the Federal Government in the prosecution of the war for its own maintenance & for the maintenance of the Union and the Constitution which had been forced upon it.

“These opinions I requested one of the gentlemen to communicate to the meeting as my views of the subject which would call them together, which was done. The sense of the meeting was expressed by the unanimous adoption of the following resolutions, which met my approbation. They were published in the newspaper printed in the village of Kinderhook, accompanied, editorially, by this declaration: ‘We were also gratified by the assurance that our distinguished townsman, ex-President Van Buren, was in favor of the immediate suppression of treason & rebellion.’ ‘Resolved, that forgetful of all past political differences, we pledge ourselves heartily to the support of the Government & the Constitution, and will devote ourselves with unanimity & patriotic zeal to the suppression of rebellion and treason, for the maintenance of the laws and the supremacy of the Union at all hazards. Resolved that, while deploring the

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advent of civil war, which the madness of secession has precipitated upon us, we believe that policy and humanity alike demand the most vigorous and energetic measures to crush out treason now & forever; and that we will fully sustain the Government in such policy.’

“These declarations to my townsmen are the only avowals of my opinions on the subject referred to which have been made for publication. They have, at no time, undergone the slightest change and have been freely repeated in conversation to my friends & neighbors and to all others who have asked to be informed of them.”

Van Buren died in 1862 and never saw the policies he supported here succeed. As for the recipient, Habberton, that same year he enlisted in the army and served through the war. He went on to become a noted author and journalist, with an editorial position on the New York Herald.

$15,000

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Henry Clay, After the Presidential Succession Crisis of 1841, Denounces John Tyler as “Acting President” To his political confidant: “Everywhere I find great confidence prevailing among the Whigs of their success in 1844.”

In 1841, with Pres. William Henry Harrison at the helm, the Whigs came to power for the first time. However, after just a month as President, Harrison died and John Tyler, put on the ticket merely to bolster Whig appeal in the South, took office. His authority was immediately questioned by his opponents, men like John Quincy Adams, who claimed he did not have the right to enact his own agenda but was rather “acting president,” a caretaker until the next election. Article 2, Section 1 of the Constitution reads: “In case of the removal of the President from office, or of his death...the same shall devolve upon the Vice President and the Congress may by law provide for the case of removal, death, resignation or inability, both of the President and Vice President, declaring what officer shall then act as President, and such officer shall act accordingly, until the disability be removed, or a President shall be elected.” This engendered a debate on the intent of the Framers of the Constitution. Did they intend that the full powers of the office itself, or simply the responsibility to run the Executive branch, should devolve on the vice president? Tyler made it clear that he intended to serve as President, the same as if he’d been elected. Mail sent to the “Vice President” or “Acting President” was returned unopened. Others vehemently disagreed and maintained that he was usurping power. He convinced Congress in 1841 to pass a resolution recognizing him as the 10th president, thus setting a key Constitutional precedent that has always been upheld.

Though theoretically a Whig, Tyler repeatedly used his veto to thwart Whig action. Democrats saw him as a turncoat, so he had no friends on either side of the aisle. This led to broad gridlock and the failure of the Whig agenda. In the congressional elections of 1842, the Whigs lost control of the House to the Democrats. It was a bitter defeat.

Tyler had once made common cause with Henry Clay in opposing Andrew Jackson’s presidential program, but they were no longer on friendly terms. Tyler vetoed Clay’s national bank bill, leading Clay to deride Tyler on the Senate floor and add his name to those considering Tyler “acting president.” Then Tyler was expelled from the Whig Party and was under threat of impeachment proceedings. So in February 1842, looking forward to a presidential bid in 1844, Clay announced his resignation from the U.S. Senate. Clay sought to broaden his appeal by showing sensitivity and not appearing overly partisan, as well as relying on his long and successful legislative career. His daughter lived in New Orleans, and in his first winter after resigning his senate seat, he went there to visit and conduct business; and while keeping his eyes open, he refused to appear in a political posture. Judge Francis T. Brooke of Virginia was one of Clay’s closest friends. The Papers of Henry Clay at the Library of Congress lists him along with just two other people as “his political confidants.” In this letter to Brooke, Clay denigrates Tyler ’s Administration and simultaneously comments on the Whig prospects in 1844.

Autograph Letter Signed, New Orleans, La., December 30, 1842, to Brooke. “My Dear Sir, I received your favor by Mr. Porter as I had received your previous letters to which it refers. I should have before written to you but that I really possessed nothing to communicate and I write now only to assure you of the receipt of your favors and of my constant regard.

“My voyage has been distinguished by enthusiastic demonstrations wherever I have been. My effort has been rather to repress than to excite them. So far I have succeeded in avoiding my tone being given a political aspect. I expect to remain at the South until sometime in February. I feel already benefited by the climate, although my health was not bad when I left home. Your sources of political information are so much better than mine that I can add nothing to the stock which you possess. Everywhere I find great confidence prevailing among the Whigs of their success in 1844. All of the elections of the past fall which have been lost by them have been lost not by the increased strength of the opponents but by voters remaining absent from feelings of mortification and disgust created by the acting president. Such is the

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view which I find everywhere taken. The problem to be solved is whether the Whigs can be rallied in ‘44.

I hope and believe they will be.

“I have seen a Mr. Carter and his lady here, near relations of Mrs. Brooke and promised them to say so.

They were well and I believe doing well. Present my best regards to Mrs. Brooke and your daughter.

Always I am faithfully your friend, Henry Clay.”

Sadly, Clay’s enthusiasm was ill-placed. Although his popular support resulted in his selection as the Whig Party presidential candidate, he lost the election of 1844 to James Polk and the demise of the Whig Party was but a decade away. $3,200

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Amidst Shay’s Rebellion and a Disintegrating Articles of Confederation, John Adams Predicts Americans Will Reject Anarchy and That Government Will Emerge From Its “Difficulties” He worries about what changing the American forms of government will mean The Constitution of Massachusetts was drafted in 1779, mainly by John Adams, and was ratified and became effective in 1780. It remains the oldest functioning written constitution in continuous effect in the world. The document had the most well-developed doctrine of separation of powers to date. It provided for a genuine system of checks-andbalances: a strong executive with veto power, an independent judiciary with life tenure, and a legislature “formed by two branches, a Senate and House of Representatives: each of which shall have a negative on the other.” This exact structure would later be the prototype for the U.S. Constitution, and Adams was justly proud of his Constitutional authorship. After its passage, he marveled that he had “been sent into life at a time when the greatest lawgivers of antiquity would have wished to live. How few of the human race have ever enjoyed an opportunity of making an election of government, more than air, soil, or climate, for themselves and their children!”

In 1782, Adams was sent as Minister Plenipotentiary charged with the mission of negotiating treaties of amity and commerce with Great Britain and Holland. The assignment obligated him to travel to Europe and forced the Adams family to endure the hardship of separation for their nation’s well being. He spent time in both Holland securing recognition of the United States and France assisting with the negotiations leading to the Treaty of Paris. He took advantage of the opportunity that peace provided to reunite his family, with wife Abigail and daughter Nabby joining him to Europe in 1784. In 1785, he was appointed the first American minister to Britain.

While in London, the Adamses had to suffer the stares and hostility of the Court; it was not a comfortable experience and he longed to be relieved of duty.

Being away, the Adamses were kept informed of developments by friends and correspondents, official and unofficial. Two of these were Richard and Mary Cranch. In 1762, Adams accompanied his old friend Cranch to visit Cranch’s fiancee, Mary Smith. At her home, he was introduced to Mary’s younger sister, Abigail. John was quickly attracted to Abigail Smith and she to him; they married and were henceforth John and Abigail Adams. Richard Cranch was now more than Adams’ old friend, he was his brother-in-law; and Mary Cranch was the sister and sister-in-law of the Adamses.

In August 1786, Shays’s Rebellion broke out in western Massachusetts. Initially, debt-ridden farmers petitioned the government in Boston to issue paper money, to halt foreclosure of mortgages on their properties, and end their own imprisonment for debt as a result of high land taxes.

Anger was particularly high against the commercial interests who controlled the state senate, a body they condemned as aristocratic and inappropriate in a representative republic. When the state senate failed to undertake reform, a thousand armed insurgents in the Berkshire Hills and the Connecticut valley, under the leadership of Daniel Shays and others, began forcibly to prevent the county courts from sitting to make judgments for debt. In September they forced the state supreme court at Springfield to adjourn. Meanwhile, demonstrators and rioters protested high taxation, the governor ’s high salary, high court costs and similar grievances. This revolt threatened to plunge the area into a full scale insurrection, and to spread; and while the poor were ready to fight, the wealthy classes were frightened.

As the inadequacy of the Articles of Confederation manifested itself at home with weakness if not paralysis of government, and economic conditions worsened, the Adamses in London began receiving reports that things were amiss and chaotic. In 1786, they learned that Virginia was asking for states to send representatives to Annapolis to consider revising the basis of government.

This meant that the situation was indeed serious, but what would this type of action lead to, both Adamses worried. Then, late that year, they began getting alarming and alarmist reports

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of Shay’s Rebellion and heard of the outbreak of violence and the challenges to government in their own state.

His proudest work, his Massachusetts Constitution, was under attack at home. But that was not all, as something he had long feared used Shay’s Rebellion to rear its head: critics in Europe were saying that the American form of government could not work after all, and was breaking down.

Others essentially supported Shay’s rebels by quoting the French philosopher A.R.J. Turgot, who had criticized bicameralism, thus agreeing with the farmers’ contention that the state senate was undemocratic. To counter these critics and attackers, and to influence trusted colleagues considering changing the Federal or state Constitutional system, in October 1786 Adams started his three volume work, “A Defence of the Constitutions of Government of the United States of America.” He worked on it all through 1787, and the magnum opus was published as it was completed in 1787-8. In it, Adams argued strongly in favor of separation of powers and used examples from other republics to show how the balance of power limits corruption and supports stability. On the question of whether the legislature should be separated into two chambers or should be a single body, he wrote: “A single assembly ...is to make a constitution and laws by its own will, execute those laws at its pleasure, and adjudge all controversies, that arise concerning the meaning and application of them, at discretion.

What is there to restrain them from making tyrannical laws, in order to execute them in a tyrannical man“The people, I think, canner?”

not be so weak and wicked

as to continue their outrages In early 1787, as far as Adams knew, Shay’s Rebellion against all government.” was still in full swing, with its end result unknown; and the Cranches were telling the Adamses that the Annapolis Convention had achieved nothing, yet an even greater convocation was being called for. This was to be the Constitutional Convention that would meet in Philadelphia in September 1787.

And while we know that it produced a document Adams would gladly support, and resulted in stability and prosperity, Adams, sitting in London before the event, could only wonder and worry what it would all mean. He was personally dealing with the British who were hardly friendly at that time, and with critics of America, and was knee-deep in researching and writing his books defending his cherished Massachusetts Constitution.

Autograph Letter Signed as U.S. Ambassador to Great Britain, two pages, London, February 21, 1787, to Richard Cranch, worrying about the nature of American government, but correctly predicting that anarchy would not prevail and that Shay’s Rebellion would end. ”I believe there is not another man in the world whose life has been such a series of removes as mine. It seems as of there was a destiny that I should never be paid. The time is drawing near, for eleven or twelve months will soon be round, when we are to embark for home. This is an irksome undertaking - to break up a settled habitation and remove a family across the seas, at any time of life, is no small matter. But when people grow into years and are wary of changes it is more disagreeable. It is in vain to murmur, and we must submit. In every point of view, it would be imprudent for me to think of remaining longer in Europe. It would be some expense to the public without any benefit, and a great torment to me, without any profit. I shall leave to future conversations at your fireside all further speculations upon the subject - it is idle to complain. If there is not some other plan pursued at home, no good can be done abroad.

“I am certainly anxious about the wild projects of government both for the Confederation and for particular states that I am informed are in circulation. Yet I cannot but hope and trust that Massachusetts will get the better very soon of her difficulties. The people, I think, cannot be so weak and wicked as to continue their outrages against all government. I shall hardly find my homely home a scene of tranquility or of pleasure; but it cannot be worse for myself or others than to stay here. My tender affection to my sister and all our friends. Though I have not had a youth of pleasures, I must reckon on an old age of cares. These, however, will be softened by the neighborhood and society of my old friends, in the cheering hope of which permit me to subscribe myself your affectionate and obliged brother.”

Adams was right to be confident in the American people overall. The Constitutional Convention would adopt a document based on his own work, and he would refer to it as “the greatest single effort of national deliberation that the world has ever seen.” Its success soon silenced critics, domestic and foreign. And Shays Rebellion fizzled out soon after he wrote this letter, with no long-term damage to government. He was right, as well, about his service in London coming to an end. In another year he would return home. $32,000

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Shay’s Rebellion

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An Extensive Autographic Survey of the Executive Administration Zachary Taylor, Including the Then-Sitting U.S. Supreme Court

of

President Taylor took office on March 4, 1849 and his administration ended with his death on July 9, 1850. The most pressing issue was the extension of slavery into the territories newly conquered from Mexico. Taylor had his own strategy to resolve sectional strife and strongly opposed the proposed Compromise of 1850, which he saw as opening up partisan competition to settle and control the territories, leading the nation into constant slavery/ anti-slavery agitation. This, he felt, would yield plenty of trouble but no benefit. But he died before he could pursue his plan.

This is a large autograph book bound in leather, with the neatly rendered title page, President Taylor ’s Administration. The first page contains Taylor ’s autograph and the second page contains that of his Vice President, Millard Fillmore, who dates his signature October 16, 1849, and identifies himself as being from Buffalo, New York. Excepting only the Attorney General, all of Taylor ’s Cabinet members have signed the book, as follows: Secretary of State John M. Clayton, Secretary of the Treasury William M. Meredith, Secretary of War George W. Crawford, Secretary of the Navy William B. Preston, the nation’s first Secretary of the Interior Thomas Ewing, and both present and future Postmasters General Jacob Collamer and N.K. Hall. The U.S. Supreme Court is well represented, with eight of the nine justices signing. They are Chief Justice Roger B. Taney, John McLean (who dissented in the Dred Scott case), James M. Wayne, John Catron, Peter Daniel, Samuel Nelson, Levi Woodbury and Robert C. Grier.

This is followed by an extensive survey of the Executive Departments, with many hundreds of signatories including such officials as Commissioner of Patents Thomas Ewbanks and his clerks in the Patent Office, the first clerks of the Interior Department, virtually the entire Treasury Department with its auditors and clerks, customs officials, officials in the Indian Department, Navy Department, and War Department. Familiar Civil War names include future Generals Lorenzo Thomas and E.D. Townsend, Unon Admiral Samuel F. Dupont, and likely sitting in the same room if not at the next desk from him, later Confederate Captain Franklin Buchanan, who commanded the CSS Virginia (Merrimac).

Despite all the significant officials in the book, its focus is unlike any other autograph album we have seen. Rather than a list of great names on the surface of events, it delves deep into the government to afford as extensive an autographic survey of the Executive branch as it can. It is truly a chronicle of its times. $6,500

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General Andrew Jackson Officially Announces the Signing of the Treaty of Fort Jackson, Which Ended the Creek War, and the Acquisition of 23 Million Acres of Land This territory comprises most of the state of Alabama and much of southern Georgia In 1812, a faction of Creeks known as Red Sticks sought aggressively to return their society to a traditional way of life. Their leaders allied themselves with the British when the War of 1812 broke out soon after. This faction violently clashed with other chiefs within the Creek Nation that were inclined to work with the Americans settling in or near what was then Creek territory in the South. The Red Sticks sought a military solution and attacked Fort Mims, north of Mobile, Alabama, on August 30, 1813. Their goal was to strike at opponents and mixed blood Creeks that had taken refuge at the fort. The assault was a success and left over 400 dead. Other forts in the area were subsequently attacked by the Red Sticks, including Fort Sinquefield. Panic spread throughout the American southeastern frontier, whose residents demanded government intervention.

Secretary of War John Armstrong notified General Thomas Pinckney, Commander of the Military District involved, that the United States was prepared to take action against the Creek Nation.

The Tennessee legislature authorized Governor Willie Blount to raise militia to respond to the crisis, and he called out a force of West Tennessee men under Militia General Andrew Jackson to “repel an approaching invasion...and to afford aid and relief...” They went down into Alabama.

The arrival of the 39th U.S. Infantry on February 6, 1814, provided Jackson a disciplined core for his force, which ultimately grew to about 5,000 men when more Tennessee militia came. In addition, Indian Agent Benjamin Hawkins organized the friendly Creeks to aid the American effort against the Red Sticks (though most Americans made no distinction between friendly and unfriendly Creeks).

Jackson spent the next month building roads and training his force. In mid March, he moved against the Red Sticks who were concentrated on the Tallapoosa River. He went first to the Coosa River, about half the distance to the Creek position, and established a new outpost at Fort Williams. Leaving a garrison there, he then moved on Tohopeka with a force of about 3,000 effectives augmented by 600 Cherokee and Creek allies. The Battle of Horseshoe Bend, which occurred on March 27, was a decisive victory for Jackson, effectively ending the Red Stick resistance. Jackson wrote, “The carnage was dreadful.” Interestingly, at the time of this, his first major victory as an Indian fighter, Jackson was not a commissioned officer in the United States Army, but acted as a Tennessee militia general.

In April, Secretary of War Armstrong chose Pinckney and Hawkins to negotiate a treaty to end the fighting. This move was very unpopular with the Tennesseans, who were involved because they wanted Creek land, and were sure Pinckney and Hawkins would not insist on taking enough. They proved right, as the negotiators offered friendly tribal leaders conciliatory terms, with only a general provision for taking land to indemnify losses. Jackson and his supporters were outraged at this leniency and lobbied successfully to have Armstrong replace Pinckney and Hawkins. He did, with Jackson, who in May 1814 was commissioned Major General of the U.S. Army to have sufficiently high standing as negotiator. Jackson’s goal was rather more ambitious; he wanted to break the Creek Nation altogether. Acting on his own initiative and without instructions from the War Department, he demanded tens of millions of acres of land, some of which belonged not to the defeated Red Sticks, but to his own Native American allies. The tribesmen were shocked, but they were also fearful of Jackson. He was a man who got what he wanted, and the resulting treaty was his conception all the way.

The Treaty of Fort Jackson (also known as the Treaty with the Creeks) ended the Creek War. It was signed on August 9, 1814 at Fort Jackson near Wetumpka, Alabama, and opened by stating: “Articles of agreement and capitulation, made and concluded this ninth day of August, 1814, between Major General Andrew Jackson, on behalf of the President of the United States

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of America, and the chiefs, deputies, and warriors of the Creek Nation.” The terms of the treaty ceded 23 million acres of Creek land now in Alabama and Georgia to the United States government. Jackson lost not a minute before sending his superior, Tennessee Governor Blount, his official report on the treaty signing and terms.

Letter Signed, Head Quarters 7th Military District, Fort Jackson, Augt. 9, 1814, to Governor Blount, announcing the acquisition of the Creek land that encompasses much of Alabama and southern Georgia, and criticizing Pinckney and Hawkins for making his efforts more difficult.

“Sir, I detained the Express to give you the result of the pending negotiation with the Creeks. They have this moment consummated the Convention by their signatures. The enclosed is a true copy [not present].

I found considerable difficulty in making the arrangements with them in consequence of a letter written

by Genl. Pinckney to Colonel Hawkins, which he requested to be made known to the Chiefs as the terms of peace, and which contained several promises of indemnity for losses sustained by them in the present war unauthorized by any power as instructions possessed by me, and consequently I could not, nor have not, embraced in any member of the Treaty. However at their particular solicitation I have forwarded to the President of the United States Genl. Pinckney’s letters and Colonel Hawkins reply, for his consideration and that of the Congress. The whole of Alabama and the valuable parts of Coosa and Kahawha in all containing about twenty two millions of acres are contained in this cession.”

This definitive victory freed Jackson to continue south to Louisiana to engage the British forces at the Battle of New Orleans. After the war, pursuant to the peace terms of the Treaty of Ghent, the lands taken from Britain’s allies were to be returned to them. The Creeks and British argued that the Treaty of Fort Jackson was therefore null and void, and they demanded back the ceded land. Jackson came up with a technicality to counter this, and the Treaty, with its 23 million acre land cession, stood as signed. $35,000

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Implementing His Indian Removal Policy, President Andrew Jackson Approves the Sale of Creek Land to a Notorious Speculator Before 1830, the Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Creek, and Seminole tribes (sometimes collectively referred to as the Five Civilized Tribes) were living as autonomous nations in the American South. The process of cultural transformation was gaining ground and many felt they would be integrated in some way into American life.

However, strong forces did not want acculturalization; they wanted the Indians’ land and wanted them to leave altogether. President Jackson was one of these, and after making an unsuccessful effort to get the Indians to leave their ancestral lands voluntarily, he secured passage by Congress of the Indian Removal Act. This gave the President power to negotiate removal treaties with Indian tribes living east of the Mississippi. Under these treaties, the Indians were to give up their lands in exchange for lands to the west. The removal was supposed to be voluntary, but when Native American nations resisted, Jackson forced them to leave. Hence the Trail of Tears.

In the Treaty of Washington that was signed on March 24, 1832, the Creek Indians ceded to the United States all of their land east of the Mississippi River. The treaty also provided that the Creeks would be allocated portions of the land they were giving up and allowed five years to sell it. It stated, “The United States engage to survey the said land...to allow ninety principal Chiefs of the Creek tribe to select one section each, and every other head of a Creek family to select one half section each, which tracts shall be reserved from sale for their use for the term of five years, unless sooner disposed of by them...These tracts may be conveyed by the persons selecting the same, to any other persons for a fair consideration, in such manner as the President may direct.” It specified that the sales “shall not be valid until the President approves the same.” Thus, if a Creek found a buyer for his land, President Jackson himself would have to approve the transaction.

Pursuant to this treaty, in 1833 a census was taken of Creek heads of families who were entitled to tracts of land. It reveals that quite a number of them had the family name of Harjo, including some chiefs. Document Signed, February 19, 1834, in which one of these men, Hillabee Harjo, agreed to sell his land to Daniel McDougald. The land made up one-half of Section 36 in Township 16, in Macon County, Alabama, and Harjo signed his name with an “X.” The sales price was $400 and the document stated that the transaction was subject to the President’s approval.

Two days later McDougall signed the sales agreement, and on March 8, the Indian Agent gave his consent. One May 30, 1834, the document reached the President’s desk, and he wrote “Approved” and signed it in full with a huge signature. It has been about two decades since the last similar document reached the marketplace, according to a search of auction records.

That is not, alas, the end of the story. The government may have interposed itself into the transaction, but it did not protect the Indians from speculators, who quickly cheated them out of land and cash. McDougall was a notorious speculator whose name appears in the book, “Alleged Frauds on Creek Indians.” That book relates that it was admitted by McDougald and his cohorts that they had stolen the land in 170 cases and paid in just 40. This Harjo probably never saw his $400. By 1835, the despoiled Creeks were so destitute, they began stealing livestock and crops from white settlers. In 1836, the Secretary of War ordered the removal of the Creeks as a military necessity. By 1837, approximately 15,000 Creeks had been forced to migrate west. $5,500

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President Grover Cleveland Recites the Causes of His Veto of a Private Pension Bill His veto of these bills first established him as independent of special interests and devoted to fiscal responsibility The Arrears of Pension Act was the most significant and costly piece of pension legislation of the post–Civil War period. The act provided that all soldiers’ pensions commence from the date of discharge, not from the date the pension law was passed, forcing the government to retroactively pay arrears at the same rates an original pension. Pushed by a well-organized veterans’ lobby, it received only eight negative votes, excluding the southern congressmen and senators, most of whom abstained. Moreover, although the vast majority of deserving pensioners had long since filed for pensions (they had between 1865-1879 to do so) and were enjoying the prospect of obtaining a windfall for a limited term of years before their filings years ago, the desire for a large lump sum pushed many veterans who had not previously filed claims to do so. Many deemed these late-filed claims questionable. And between existing pensioners and new applicants, the expense for pensions threatened the national treasury. To limit late claims, an amendment was passed requiring that arrears applications be filed by July 1, 1880, which left scant time for the new claims to be filed.

Thomas S. Hopkins was an attorney and Department Commander of the Grand Army of the Republic. In November 1880 he filed for a pension alleging that while in the service, he contracted malarial fever and chronic diarrhea, and was seized with convulsions. A pension of $50 a month was granted to him in June 1881, dating from the time of filing his application. However, the limitation in the law to allow him retroactivity was not met, as he filed a year too late. Many people found themselves in Hopkins’ shoes, and they came upon a way out of their dilemma have Congress pass a special bill for their relief waiving the date limitation. Hopkins used this exact method and a bill was passed entitling him to about $9,000 of back pension, a large sum.

President Cleveland took office promising financial responsibility and vetoed hundreds of these pension “There are circumstances bills as unwarranted raids on the U.S. Treasury. Hopsurrounding this case which kins’ relief bill was one of those vetoed, and his veto appeal most strongly to symmessage stated: “This is claimed upon the ground that the soldier was so sick from the time of the paspathy, but there are also cirsage of the act creating the limitation up to the date cumstances...that invoke the allowed him to avail himself of the privileges of the most careful...examination.” act that he could not file his claim. I think the limitation thus fixed a very wise one, and that it should not, in fairness to other claimants, be relaxed for causes not mentioned in the statute; nor should the door be opened to applications of this kind.

The beneficiary named in this bill had fifteen years after the accruing of his claim, and before it is alleged that he was incapacitated, within which he might have filed his application and entitled himself to the back pension now applied for. The facts here presented come so far short of furnishing a satisfactory excuse for his delay that, in my judgment, the discrimination asked in his favor should not be granted.” Thus, Cleveland’s veto was based on delay, or to use a legal term, laches. On March 3, 1887, that veto was sustained.

This left Hopkins with one alternative - appeal through channels to the Commissioner of Pensions John Black and President for a reversal of determination. The matter came to the President in May 1887, with Black’s recommendation that they seek counsel from the Attorney General’s office. Cleveland instead seized control of the case himself. Autograph Letter Signed as President, Executive Mansion letterhead, six large pages, Washington, May 23, 1887, to John Black, Commissioner of Pensions. “...I have arrived at a conclusion which I propose to give you...without seeking legal advice as was proposed.” He pointed out that the amendment provided the limitation “within which application must be filed in order to gain the advantages of its provisions.” He continued that the July 1, 1880 date was required for a filing by “all persons then having claims entitling them to pensions.” The law’s “intention was to fix that limit,” and Cleveland then discussed the few statutory exemptions, the primary one being insanity of the applicant. He believed that if

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Hopkins was not entitled to apply for a pension until March 1880 and was insane between then and July 1880, he would have a case. But he could have applied before and was not insane then.

The President follows by turning to the basis of his veto of the Hopkins bill, confirming that if, contrary to the case, “under law Mr. Hopkins had no right to arrears until March 3rd, it weakens very much the argument of the veto based on laches.” Cleveland finishes on a different note. “There are circumstances surrounding this case which appeal most strongly to sympathy; but there are also circumstances connected with it even in the light of the additional facts furnished that invoke the most careful...examination.”

This is about as long an ALS as president as we can recall seeing by any chief executive, nor could there be a more thorough disposition on any matter for which a president is largely known and remembered. $3,500

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Benjamin Harrison Appoints a Commissioner For The Columbian Exposition in Chicago This was the famed “White City.”

By 1889, public opinion and individual efforts had mobilized enough support to launch a celebration of the upcoming 400th anniversary of Columbus’s voyage in 1492. Contenders for the massive exposition site included St. Louis, Chicago, New York and Washington, but Chicago raised $10 million and was selected. A bill to authorize the exposition was passed by Congress and signed into law by President Harrison on April 25, 1890. It was entitled “An Act to provide for celebrating the 400th anniversary of the discovery of America by Christopher Columbus, by holding an international exhibition of arts, industries, manufactures, and the products of the soil, mine, and sea, in the city of Chicago, in the State of Illinois.”

The new law also provided for the establishment of the World’s Columbian Commission (WCC), a body that would plan and manage the undertaking. Dedication of the buildings was scheduled to take place with appropriate ceremonies on October 12, 1892, and the exposition itself set to open in May 1893 and to close that October.

The WCC was composed of two commissioners from each state, territory, and the District of Columbia. There were also eight at large commissioners. The state and territorial commissioners were selected by their respective governors, and the commissioner from the District of Columbia and at-large commissioners were selected by the President. When all were appointed, the WCC commissioners met in Chicago. Allowed payment not to exceed $6 per day, they were assigned the tasks of finding an appropriate site, determining the plan and scope of the exposition, allotment of space for exhibitors, classification of exhibits, and appointment of judges and examiners. The WCC was required to also appoint a Board of Lady Managers, to extend invitations to foreign governments to take part in the exposition, and to generally take charge of all dealings with the representatives of exhibitors and foreign governments. The first commission meeting was held June 26, 1890.

Document Signed as President, folio, Washington, May 24 1890, appointing Edward H. Ammidown one of the WCC’s eight at large commissioners. The document is countersigned by James G. Blaine as Secretary of State. Ammidown was known to the President and was a professor at Harvard at the time he was called upon.

The fair was a stupendous success. The White City built for the exposition represented an unprecedented collaboration of artists, architects, engineers, sculptors, painters, and landscape architects who joined forces to create a single work - an ideal model city. Their effort was considered the largest single common artistic project ever undertaken and the greatest event of its kind in history. It also brought extraordinary attention to Chicago, which can date its international eminence from then. $3,000

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Just Days After Mexico Broke Off Diplomatic Relations with the U.S., President Polk Names a Temporary Secretary of State The first time we recall seeing a temporary cabinet post go to another cabinet member On March 4, 1845, James K. Polk becomes the 11th President of United States. His most important appointment, Secretary of State, went to James Buchanan, who was immediately faced with the Oregon controversy with Britain (that would be amicably settled the following year) and the tense situation with Mexico over a former province, Texas (that would lead to the Mexican War).

In recognition for his support at the Democratic Convention that nominated Polk, the President gave George Bancroft the cabinet post of Secretary of the Navy. This meant that Bancroft was succeeding John Y. Mason, Tyler ’s Navy Secretary and temporary Secretary of War, of whom Polk was quite fond. So rather than lose Mason from the cabinet, Polk named him Attorney General.

Back then, with the first few telegraph lines just going up, when a cabinet member was away from Washington, either at home or on government business, he was essentially out of the loop and unable to respond to crises or perform his duties. When that happened, the President would generally appoint the number two or three man in the department to temporarily take over his responsibilities.

On March 28, 1845, Mexico broke off diplomatic relations with the U.S. and war was one giant step closer. Buchanan left Washington a few days later, but with matters at a critical juncture, Polk did not want affairs at the State Department to devolve on a functionary, no matter how capable. Instead, he wanted the trusted Mason involved directly.

Letter Signed as President, Washington, April 2, 1845, to Attorney General John Y. Mason. “You are hereby authorized and requested to perform the duties of secretary of state ad interim, during the temporary absence of the Honorable James Buchanan, Secretary of State, from the seat of government.”

This is the first time we can recall seeing a temporary cabinet post go to another cabinet member, one that already had his own duties to perform. That gives us a measure of the importance of the moment and the trust Polk had in Mason. $4,500

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The Papers of Major George K. Leet, Who Served as One of U.S. Grant’s Staff Officers During and After the Civil War (Introduction to pieces 20-25) At any given time, Grant’s staff while he was supreme commander of the armies consisted of thirteen officers only, and was not larger than that of some division commanders. The chief of staff was Brigadier-general John A. Rawlins. There were four senior aides-de-camp, one of whom was Brigadier-general Horace Porter. Grant had two military secretaries, Adam Badeau being the most noteworthy. There were four assistant adjutant-generals, the most famous being Ely Parker, a full-blooded Indian and grand nephew of the great Chief Red Jacket. Another was George K. Leet. The 1866 book “Grant and His Campaigns” says this about Leet: “Major George K. Leet, assistant adjutant-general of volunteers...entered the service as a private in the Chicago Mercantile Battery, and served with it in General Sherman’s expedition against Vicksburg, in the battle of Arkansas Post, and the battles and siege of Vicksburg. In August following the fall of Vicksburg, he was detached from his company as clerk at General Grant’s headquarters; and in October next thereafter, on General Grant’s recommendation, was appointed captain and assistant adjutant-general, and was with him in the campaign and battles of Chattanooga. On General Grant’s appointment to the command of all the armies, Leet was assigned to duty in Washington, in charge of office headquarters there. He was promoted to a majority in the adjutant-general’s department. As a private, he was a splendid soldier; as an officer, prompt and efficient in the performance of his duty — a courteous gentleman and man of sense. He possesses the respect and confidence of all who know him.” So Leet was Grant’s man at the War Department in the final year of the war, and he was eventually promoted to Lt. Colonel. Leet remained in service to Grant after war ’s end, and when Grant became President, Leet secured a position at the Customs House in New York, where for a time his superior was Chester A. Arthur.

The following items show Grant interacting with his own staff, and as such are quite uncommon. They were recently obtained by us directly from a Leet descendant and have never before been offered for sale. The letters are all unpublished and were previously unknown; the Grant Papers Project asked for, and received, copies of them.

(above) Grant’s Staff (top right) George K. Leet

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Abraham Lincoln Appoints Leet to Ulysses S. Grant’s Staff and Gives Him a Promotion, As Grant Arrives in Washington to Take Control of All Union Forces in 1864 All through the end of 1863, Union leaders vented their unhappiness with General George G. Meade as commander of the Army of the Potomac. Out in the West, U.S. Grant had taken Vicksburg in July and in late November beaten Confederate forces in the Chattanooga campaign. He seemed the obvious man to win the war and a bill was introduced into Congress to create a new senior rank to allow for one general to have overall command of all Union forces, under the assumption that man must be Grant. But President Lincoln did not know Grant. So in early 1864, Lincoln called Grant’s greatest booster, Cong. Elihu Washburne, into a conference and asked him: “All I know of Grant I have got from you. I have never seen him. Who else besides you knows anything about Grant”. Washburne referred Lincoln to J. Russell Jones, a mutual friend of the General and the President, and assured him that Grant’s sole desire was to win the war, and that he had no political ambitions. The bill passed Congress in late February; Lincoln had meanwhile decided upon Grant and signed it on February 29, 1864. Now Grant had the job and made immediate plans to come East.

On March 8, 1864, Grant arrived in Washington. That evening he was the honored guest at a reception at the White House and was received as a hero. It was there Grant met the President for the first time. The next day Grant visited Lincoln’s office and received his commission as Lieutenant General; and on March 12, he was appointed General in Chief of all U.S. armies. He first visited the Army of the Potomac on March 10, 1864.

In the few days available to him between learning of his appointment and leaving for Washington, Grant selected the few staff members he would take East and finished his other preparations. In line with his own promotion, did Grant request the President to make appropriate presidential promotions for these staff members? Clearly so, as a number of their biographies show promotions dating March 1864. Leet was one of these. Document Signed as President, folio on vellum, Washington, March 8, 1864, the very day Grant arrived in Washington, with the striking graphic eagle, flags and military accoutrements, and the blue seal still intact. The document appoints “George K. Leet...Assistant Adjutant General of Volunteers with the rank of Captain in the service of the United States: to rank as such from the Third day of October 1863...” The document is countersigned by Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton and is in superb condition, with the vellum fresh and white. $12,000

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Ulysses S. Grant Wants to Preserve a Pictorial Record of the Life of the Native Americans, Which With Great Sensitivity He Sees Must Soon “pass away as a real existence” An evident explanation for the actions Grant took as President relating to the Indians In July 1866 Grant received the rank of full General of the Army, the first American to hold that distinction since George Washington. His postwar duties included enforcement of Reconstruction policies in the South, protection of the transcontinental railroad workers in the West, and overseeing Indian affairs. At the time, many if not most Americans saw Indians as little more than impediments that stood in the way of progress, and favored their removal or worse. Grant was, however, an exception, promoting what he saw as fairness to Indians and a policy very liberal for its time. He opposed army schemes to seek confrontations with Indians, especially Custer ’s decision to seek gold on Indian lands in South Dakota, though with the nation and the Army leadership (Generals William T. Sherman and Philip B. Sheridan) in an aggressive mood, he was unable to control those events. At his inauguration, he said that he would “favor any course toward them which tends to their civilization and ultimate citizenship.” While in office, he adopted what was called Grant’s “Quaker” Indian Peace Policy. Under his leader“...sketching the Indians ship, the U.S. government recognized for the first time the need to insure the welfare of Indians as individuals rather than as in their native condition tribal entities. This ultimately led to the Indians’ citizenship. to preserve on canvass Educational and medical programs were institutionalized in the what in a few years must, Interior Department, and tons of food, clothing, and books were from the growth of cividonated by churches and relief organizations to tribes. Between lization..., pass away as a 1868 and 1876 the number of houses on reservations climbed from 7,500 to 56,000. The amount of land under cultivation inreal existence.” creased sixfold. Teachers and schools tripled. Indian ownership of livestock increased by over fifteen times. Today we may see these policies as designed for assimilation rather than to protect Indian culture, but Grant saw the Indian way of life as destined to end, so he crafted his policies to assist individual Indians rather than get rid of them.

Here we see that Grant’s personal view was marked by great sensitivity and even appreciation of Indians. Very few American politicians or general officers would have been capable of writing this letter. Autograph Letter Signed on Headquarters Army of the United States letterhead, Washington, May 6, 1867, to N.G. Taylor, Superintendant of Indian Affairs, seeking to arrange for an artist to go West and sketch Indian life. “I take pleasure in introducing to you Mr. F. Buchon, an artist sent to this country to gather subject growing out of the late Rebellion for historical paintings. Mr. Buchon proposes now to join one of our generals on the plains for the purpose of sketching the Indians in their native condition to preserve on canvass what in a few years must, from the growth of civilization in this continent, pass away as a real existence. It is in connection with this enterprise Mr. Buchon wishes to consult you.” Buchon was possibly a relative of French cartographer Jean A.Buchon, known for his maps of America.

In our years in this field, we do not recall seeing a letter like this, with its sense of history, implication of respect, and touch of poignancy. It shows an unusual and important side of Grant, and helps explain his actions as President.

Interestingly, Grant was himself a very accomplished painter and many of his works still survive. Some of them are sympathetic portrayals of Native American subjects. Though self-effacing, Grant was proud of his ability to paint, and as President spoke of the satisfaction he derived from producing something “artistic.” $13,000

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Painting of Native Americans done by Grant

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U.S. Grant Orders Military Protection for Freed Slaves Living at the Arlington Estate of Robert E. Lee Freedman’s Village was established on the Arlington estate of Confederate General Robert E. Lee in June 1863, to serve as a camp for Civil War contrabands. The name “contrabands” was the linguistic solution of Maj. Gen. Benjamin F. Butler to a real problem. Many slaves from Virginia and Maryland escaped to Washington, D.C., seeking freedom after President Lincoln emancipated the district’s slaves in 1862. Butler, who did not want runaway slaves turned away, rationalized that because slaves were considered property in the South, they could be used to help the Confederate war effort. Therefore, these people were deemed “contrabands”, who would not be returned to their masters for their use but would be set free instead. A camp, called Freedman’s Village, was established for them, the exact location of which is believed to have been in what is now the southern section of Arlington National Cemetery. The village was dedicated December 4, 1863.

The village was run by the Freedman’s Bureau during most of its existence. It began as little more than a tent camp and grew into a community not only for refugees, but also for many of the former Arlington slaves. As the community grew, the village was able to provide housing, education, training for employment skills, church services, medical care and food for the former slaves. Homes in the village were wooden and housed two to four families each. The first school, which opened shortly after the camp dedication, began with 150 students and peaked with 900 students. In addition to children, adults could be counted among the student population.

During the Civil War, with Southerners still maintaining the freedmen were slaves, and with so many defenseless women and children living there, there was concern about their security. According to the Arlington Cemetery website, U.S. Colored Troops were used “to protect fugitive slaves from their former slave owners.” They also aided in policing the community.

Autograph Note Signed “U.S.G.”, Washington, circa 1864-5, to George K. Leet, showing this very policy in action. “Direct Department Commander to send a commanding officer & 20 men to Freedman’s Village, Va. to be stationed until further orders.”

The village received less support after the war and even less after Reconstruction. It remained open until December 7, 1887, when the people there were given 90 days to leave. $3,700

Freedman’s Village

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Ulysses S. Grant Orders an Investigation into the Murder of an Indian and Wounding of Women, and Receives Back a Report Exonerating U.S. Officers and Soldiers The report, apparently a cover-up, states that the only people involved were an “inferior class of Indians and Negroes, Indian scouts and quartermaster’s employees.”

Autograph Letter Signed with initials “U.S.G”, on Headquarters Army of the United States letterhead, Washington, not dated but January 18, 1868, to George Leet, asking him to look into disturbing reports about soldiers firing into a crowd of Indians, soldiers and women at a dance. “At Ft. Gibson on New Years Eve some soldiers fired into a ballroom when Cherokees and some Army officers were present, killing one Indian and wounding several women. Cause report to be made and call special attention order issued in ‘65 against whiskey being taken into Indian country.” That same day, Leet wrote Gen. Andrew Smith ordering the investigation Grant sought.

“on new year’s eve some soldiers fired into a ballroom...killing one Indian and wounding several women...”

Leet received back a report dated March 5, 1868, endorsed by Gen. Philip B. Sheridan, who was then head of the Department of the Missouri and in whose command the incident took place. He was no friend of the Indians. It stated that in the town of Ft. Gibson in Indian Territory (present day Oklahoma), a Cherokee who owned a store - one Jesse Bushyhead - threw a party above his shop. After it broke up at 1:00 AM, Bushyhead and others at his party “proceeded to a house of doubtful character” where they found a party “composed of an inferior class of Indians and Negroes, Indian scouts and quartermaster ’s employees.” It continued that Bushyhead and his friends were intoxicated and the women present fled, “fearful of the consequences.” Bushyhead, says the report, was shot by an Indian scout, and the wounding of the women was ignored, but a statement inserted that nobody seemed willing to talk about the incident. In any event, there were no United States officers or soldiers present at all during the entire night. That scout was arrested and would stand trial. As for the whiskey, it had been supplied by an Indian, who was arrested and released, as it was not unlawful for one Indian to sell alcohol to another. It went on to criticize Cherokee law as inadequate to the incident. Another report accompanied this first one, making it clear that the shooting occurred at a home owned by a Negro, and that since everyone who saw the incident was drunk when it happened, valid evidence would be hard to find.

The reports smack of a whitewash, with language designed to trivialize the incident by saying that the only people involved were an “inferior class of Indians and Negroes, Indian scouts and quartermaster ’s employees.” And as for the women, it is no wonder they wouldn’t talk, considering their exposed position and dependence on Army dollars for sustenance. $4,500

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In the Field, General Grant Requests That His Asst. Adjutant General, George. K. Leet, Be Promoted to Major or Lt. Colonel Just eight months after President Lincoln promoted Leet to Captain, Grant seeks an even higher promotion for him. The personal nature of the letter indicates that this was not just a form adapted for the occasion, but specifically related to Leet. Letter Signed on his Head Quarters Armies of the United States letterhead, City Point, Va., December 14, 1864, to Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton.

“I would respectfully request the promotion of Captain George K. Leet, Assistant Adjutant General, either to the rank of Major or Lieutenant Colonel in his Department. He is eminently worthy of the latter rank. Capt.

Leet has risen from the ranks on his merits alone, to his present rank. Promotion has not spoiled him. Since I have been commanding the armies Capatin Leet has been in charge of the office in Washington, where I doubt not he has won the respect and esteem of all...” Grant wrote this letter while at his wartime City Point, Va. headquarters.

In the few months the war yet had to run, Leet became first a Major and then a Lieutenant Colonel, with which rank he finished the war. $5,000

25

General Grant Extends Leave For General Sully During the Civil War, Alfred Sully was brigadier general of the 1st Minnesota Volunteers and fought in the Virginia Peninsula campaign. From 1863 to 1866 he commanded the North Western Indian Expeditions directed against the Arapaho, Sioux, and Cheyenne. In 1866, Sully married Sophia Henrietta Webster, was mustered out of the Volunteers, and returned to the regular army with the rank of lieutenant colonel. He chaired a commission to investigate the Fetterman Massacre at Fort Kearney and helped to establish peace with the Indians of the Powder River country.

Autograph Note Signed, Washington, April 2, 1867, to George K.Leet. “Give General Sully permission to delay twenty days beyond his present leave. U.S. Grant, Genl.” $1,500

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William T. Sherman Consoles a Friend About His Retirement As General of the Army Following the Civil War, Sherman remained in the service, succeeding Grant as the commander of the U.S. Army in 1869. This position often kept him in Washington. He retired in early 1884 and returned to his home in St. Louis to stay, making for quite a change for the Sherman family and their friends. These included Mrs. Mary Audenreid, widow of one of his favorite officers, whom Sherman looked after while in Washington.

Autograph Letter Signed, 4 pages, St. Louis, April 27, 1884, consoling Mrs.Audenreid, who was worried about the impact of his retirement on her. “...I like to hear from you because I take a personal interest in your well-being and don’t want you to forget us though it will be natural and proper that with permanent separation you will form new associations and drift further away...I will be careful about your letters and will destroy them and meantime assure you that none of yours go on file. I don’t know that you have heard of the death of my aunt in California...She was a very brilliant woman and used to write me letters that were models of skill and expression...I will take my Sunday drive today in the buggy...” $850

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Jefferson Davis Orders a Disbursal from the Confederate Secret Fund for Covert Operations It was quite likely used by operatives in Canada, where the plot to kidnap Abraham Lincoln is known to have been advanced In February 1864, the Confederate Congress passed a bill that authorized a campaign of augmented sabotage against “the enemy’s property, by land or sea.” The bill established a large Secret Service fund to finance the sabotage, one million dollars of which was specifically earmarked for use by agents in Canada in a broad program of clandestine action, a corresponding effort to encourage and assist in the organization of an effective antiwar political movement in the north, and a major operation to capture Lincoln as a hostage. Jefferson Davis himself signed the requests for disbursements from the fund, which according to the book “Confederate Covert Action in the American Civil War” by William A. Tidwell, numbered 63 from the war ’s start. Of these, 3/4 of the monies were requested in the little over a year after the February 1864 law went into effect. The forms for Davis’s signature generally cited the enigmatic term “Necessities and Exigencies,” though sometimes “Secret Service” was used. Most of the forms specified that the funds requested were to be issued in gold or in British sterling. The originals signed by Davis went to the Treasury, where a warrant was issued; the request form was then returned to the State Department. After the war, the originals of these documents were dispersed, though records of them remained.

Partly-printed Document Signed as Confederate President, on Department of State letterhead (which as usual was hand-altered to read “Executive Office”), Richmond, January 30, 1865, being one of the allocation requests mentioned above. It orders Secretary of the Treasury George Trenholm to “cause a warrant“ for the sum of $1,500 in gold for “Necessities and exigencies under laws already passed or which may be passed &c. &c.” to be issued to Secretary of State Judah P. Benjamin and “charged to him on the books of the Treasury...” The exact use of this disbursement is not referenced. However, a review of the requests contained in Tidwell’s book shows that those designed for miscellaneous locations other than Canada tend to reference those locations (such as saying “Exchange on England”), while Canada is not specifically referenced. Thus the lack of a designation here, the amount corresponding to known sums sent to Canada, and the large amount of money left in the Canadian fund at war ’s end all suggest that this allocation was destined for Canada as well.

How was this money utilized? It may have been sent to England or Southern cities with active blockade-running operations to purchase arms and supplies, but ues was different if it went to Canada. Not far from the Canadian border were three large prisoner of war camps holding Confederate soldiers - on Johnson’s Island, near Sandusky, Ohio in Lake Erie; at Fort Douglas in Chicago; and at Elmira, New York - and operations against these were a prime goal. Confederate agents in Canada were also busy with other operations. They seized a U.S. steamer near Detroit but then had to abort the mission. Soon after, 20 agents in civilian clothes entered St. Albans, Vermont and robbed three banks of about $200,000. In November 1864, Confederate Commissioners Jacob Thompson and Clement Clay authorized the boldest operation yet: the torching of New York City by eight agents. Their agents set fires in 19 hotels, a theater, and P.T. Barnum’s American Museum. However, the fires did not amount to much and the action was unsuccessful.

On December 6, 1864, Secretary of State Judah Benjamin named Edwin Gray Lee, second cousin of Robert E. Lee, to run the Canada operation. Gray met with Benjamin in Richmond pursuant to his new assignment and there received some or all of $1,500 in gold charged to “Necessities and Exigencies”. Lee then ran the blockade, went to Montreal, and from there rode herd on the fund of cash in Canada. He was the likely recipient of these funds. There is another, and more sinister, possible use of the $1,500 allocated here: funding for the conspiracy to kidnap Abraham Lincoln that would eventually lead to his assassination. John Wilkes Booth went to Montreal in late 1864 to meet with Confederate operatives there. Then he met John Surratt in Washington on December 23, 1864, and told him of his plot to kidnap President Lincoln. Surratt willingly joined Booth’s group of conspirators and brought in George Atzerodt; eventually his own mother,

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Mary Surratt, became implicated. On the night of Wednesday, March 15, 1865, Surratt met with Booth and other conspirators to discuss the possible abduction of the President. Booth and his associates tried to capture Lincoln on March 17, 1865, but the enterprise failed and they gave up the abduction plan. On March 31, as Surratt related, “I was told that Mr. Benjamin, the then Secretary of War of the Confederate States, wanted to see me...He asked me if I would carry some dispatches to Canada for him. I replied ‘yes.’ That evening he gave me the dispatches and $200 in gold...I took the cars for Montreal, arriving there the next day. I put up at the St. Lawrence Hotel...I saw General Edward G. Lee, to whom the dispatches were directed, and delivered them to him...” This meeting took place April 6 and the dispatches concerned disposition of Confederate funds in Canada. So Surratt met with Booth, then with Benjamin and then went to Canada to see Lee. All of these men must have had knowledge of the abduction conspiracy.

At the trial of Booth’s associates on May 26, 1865, one Henry Finnegass, a former Union officer, testified. He said that he had been in the St. Lawrence Hall in Montreal on February 14 or 15, 1865, and that he had overheard a conversation of a Confederate operative: “If the boys only have luck, Lincoln won’t trouble them much longer...Oh, yes. Booth is bossing the job.”

$7,500

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Abraham Lincoln Rewards the Man Who Nominated Him as Illinois Favorite Son Candidate for President With a General’s Command He became one of Sherman’s corps commanders on the March to the Sea By 1860, Lincoln had become part of the national political scene due to his debates with Stephen A. Douglas and Cooper Union speech in New York. As the 1860 campaign got underway, he was mentioned for the presidency but was hardly considered a contender. However, many felt that he was a viable candidate for Vice-President on a ticket with William A. Seward running for the presidency. It was almost universally believed that the State Republican Convention of Illinois, meeting in Decatur, would present his name for that office to the National Convention in Chicago. On May 6, 1860 the largest step in Lincoln’s political career occurred as the Decatur convention convened at a hastily constructed wood and tent structure called ‘The Wigwam.’ The roof was so low that the heads of men as tall as Lincoln, when on the platform, almost touched the canvass roof. The seats were constructed of plank, staked on edge with boards laid over them.

But despite the rough-hewn quality of the building, this was to be a momentous convention.

John M. Palmer had always been a Democrat, but his anti-slavery position led him to help organize the Illinois Republican Party. In 1856, he was president of the first Illinois Republican Convention, and was a delegate to the national convention in Philadelphia that nominated John C. Fremont. In 1860, he was a strong supporter of Abraham Lincoln and in Decatur for the convention. Also very much a presence was Richard Oglesby, a friend of Lincoln’s who was preparing a surprise for the convention. Though the delegates thought the principal business was to nominate a candidate for governor, Oglesby decided to advance Lincoln’s presidential prospects by presenting him as a representative of free labor to show the possibilities that existed for poor men in a free State. So Oglesby and Lincoln’s cousin, John Hanks, went to a clearing John had made with Lincoln when they were splitting rails many years before. They took two of the rails from the area, took them to town, and hid the rails in Oglesby’s barn until the day of the convention. He talked with Palmer and a few other Republicans about the plan and decided that Hanks would take the rails into the convention. They made a banner and attached it to a board fastened across the top of the rails: “Abraham Lincoln, The Railsplitter Candidate, for President in 1860.

Two rails from a lot of 3,000 made in 1830 by John Hanks and Abe Lincoln.”

Things really started to get rolling at the convention. At a prearranged moment, Hanks carried the banner in. Palmer jumped to his feet with a resolution declaring that “Abraham Lincoln is the first choice of the Republican Party of Illinois for the presidency,” and instructing “the delegates to the Chicago convention to use all honorable means to secure the nomination and to cast the vote of the state as a unit for him.” Thomas Turner, a champion for Seward, bitterly attacked the resolution. Palmer followed with an impassioned speech for Lincoln, his resolution was adopted, and such was the pro-Lincoln enthusiasm that ensued that the Wigwam was almost wrecked. The roof was cheered off the building as hats, canes, papers, etc. were thrown in the air. At the peak of this excitement, Lincoln could not be found. He was hunted for and discovered in the back room of a jewelry store, where he had wandered in and taken a nap on the couch. He was taken into the convention through a rear entrance, not fully realizing what was happening. He stood dazed for a few moments, but when asked if he had split those rails said, “Gentlemen, John and I did split some rails down there, and if these are not the identical rails, we certainly made some quite as good.” At the national convention a few weeks later, as Seward’s men were promoting the idea of having Lincoln’s name brought forward as a candidate for vice president, they were confronted personally by Palmer who followed them telling delegates that he could guaranty that Democrats and former Democrats would not vote for Seward and Seward could never be elected president. The best candidate for chief executive, he maintained was Abraham Lincoln.

In February 1861, Palmer was requested by Lincoln to be a delegate to the peace convention in Washington which failed when no compromise could be reached. When Fort Sumter was fired upon, Palmer quickly put aside his law practice and organized the 14th Regiment, Illinois Volunteer Infantry. He was elected its colonel, and with his unit was mustered in on May 25, 1861.

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Soon after, Lincoln promoted him to general.

Autograph Letter Signed as President, Executive Mansion, December 7, 1861, to Secretary of War Simon Cameron. Lincoln almost always couched requests for senior military appointments in language that permitted his Secretary of War to find a polite way to decline, prefacing his wishes with phrases like “If you know of no reason to the contrary” or “if it is in the interests of the service”, but in this case he issued a mandatory instruction with no escape clause: “My dear Sir, Let John M. Palmer of Illinois be appointed as Brigadier General of Volunteers. Yours truly A. Lincoln.” Thus was Palmer rewarded for his loyalty to Lincoln. The appointment turned out to be a wise one, as Palmer was quite successful as a military commander.

Upon his promotion, Palmer was given a division under John Pope and took part in the successful New Madrid and Island No. 10 campaign; he then commanded a brigade during the advance on Corinth, and a division of Crittenden’s left wing at Murfreesboro. On November 29, 1862, he was promoted to major general, and was conspicuous in the Battle of Stones River, where his division held an important position within the Union lines. He effectively led his troops during the Battle of Chickamauga in September 1863. He was named commander of the 14th Corps of the Army of the Cumberland soon after and served in the Chattanooga and Atlanta campaigns.

Palmer ’s corps was a part of William T. Sherman’s famous March to the Sea and the actions to capture Savannah, Georgia. In early 1865, he was reassigned to command all Federal forces in Kentucky. After the war, in 1868, Palmer was elected Governor of Illinois on the Republican ticket. In 1890, he was elected to the U.S. Senate as a Democrat and served one term. His last foray into national politics took place in 1896, when opposed to William Jennings Bryan’s prosilver platform, he ran for president on the Gold Democratic ticket. $23,000

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Patriotism, Union Style: Union soldiers have “offered their lives...for their country,” says General Wool John Wool was a Union major general who helped save Washington, D.C. in the war ’s earliest days. Autograph Letter Signed, Washington, March 11, 1864 to Mrs. Foster. “If I would I could not refuse your request, it being for the Sanitary Commission, whose beneficent, humane and patriotic efforts is worthy of all praise, having for object the restoration of the sick and to heal the wounds of those who offered their lives as sacrifice for their country.”

Gen. Thomas’ Chief of Staff says this was a “war against treason” William Whipple was a Union general who served as Gen. George Thomas’ Chief of Staff. Autograph Letter Signed on Headquarters, Department of the Cumberland letterhead, Steamer Tarascon, Tennessee River, January 11, 1865, to noted collector C. L. Pascal. “...Having been reared with a profound love and reverence for our country and her institutions, increased by an education to the profession of arms bestowed upon me by herself, it has ever been a labor of love as well as a solemn duty to render to her my best, most earnest and untiring services. If those services have in any degree contributed to the successful prosecution of this war against treason to her, I am more than repaid by having my name held in remembrance by my fellow citizens.” $1,800

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Patriotism, Confederate Style: Gen. Waterhouse says “We have but two things to choose in this conflict, infamy or death, in the event we are not victorious” Richard Waterhouse was a Confederate general from Texas who served under Kirby Smith in the Trans-Mississippi sector. Autograph Letter Signed, Delhi, La., July 11, 1863 to his wife. “You have doubtless heard ere this of the fall of Vicksburg which surrendered on the 4th inst. for want of provisions. We surrendered 20,000 men at that point which is a dire calamity to our cause, though it will only have the effect to make the Confederate forces more determined. We have but two things to choose in this conflict, infamy or death, in the event we are not victorious. Therefore I think every true man, old & young, should rally to the standard at once & in driving the invader from our soil. We learn from the paroled officers from Vicksburg that Genl. Johnson & Grant are fighting on big black [river] and that Johnson has a strong force. We imagine this div. will leave from this point in a few days, probably for the Ouchitya River or Red River. I am unable to say what our line of defence will be on this side of the river, but I think it will be our policy to concentrate our forces as soon as possible & strengthen our lines as much as possible with the militia so as to be able to repel invasion on this side of the Mississippi. If we can succeed in concentrating our forces we surely can repel any force likely to invade Texas. Much depends on the active and energetic action of the entire population. Every man should respond at once with alacrity to the call of the country for assistance...should we remain here on the river and the prospect is not imminent for immediate service I may come home on a short leave to see you & the children if only for a few days.” The writing legible though somewhat faded.

General Ransom on the Peninsula: “The excitement of course is intense, for we expect an attack every moment” In early March, 1862, McClellan began leading his massive Union army into Maryland and Virginia, and Joseph Johnston, realizing his forces were not as large, moved back. Gen. Matthew General Ransom describes the situation. Autograph Letter Signed, Camp Price, Va., March 14, 1862 to his wife. “...The whole army excepting my brigade has fallen back behind the Rappahannock. Times are very exciting. The enemy is landing all along the river and we are here protecting the retreat. I wish dearest angel that I had leisure to write you but the excitement of course is intense, for we expect an attack every moment, tho I think the battle yet sometime off. Every one here though regards it as imminent. Do not be too anxious for me. Under all circumstances I will do my whole duty and trust our merciful Father to protect and preserve us all. Kiss the dear boys for me & tell them to be good and mind you. I have only time, my sweetest, noblest wife to tell you again of my perfect love for you and to ask you to be as happy as you can.” $2,000

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From the Great Progressive President to the Founder of the Progressive Movement: Theodore Roosevelt Signed Photograph to Robert La Follette

Robert LaFollette founded the progressive movement in the early 1890’s in an attempt to achieve good effective government for all and to limit the excessive power of the few. Serving as Republican governor of Wisconsin from 1901–6, his state became a laboratory for political and economic experimentation. He secured a direct primary law, tax reform legislation, railroad rate control, civil service and conservation programs, workers’ compensation, and many other reform measures that became collectively known as the Wisconsin Idea. Theodore Roosevelt liked what he saw in Wisconsin and began positioning himself as a Progressive. In 1906 La Follette entered the U.S. Senate, so for a time the two great Progressives - LaFollotte and Roosevelt - were in Washington together. After TR left office, at odds with the conservative leadership of President Taft, LaFollette helped found the National Progressive Republican League, with the aim of wresting the Republican presidential nomination from Taft in 1912. When Theodore Roosevelt announced his candidacy for the same nomination, many of La Follette’s supporters switched to Roosevelt, who eventually ran on the Progressive Party [Bull Moose] ticket. Embittered, La Follette supported Woodrow Wilson’s candidacy.

A 7 by 10 inch photograph of TR, beautifully framed to 13 by 16 inches, inscribed and signed as President “To Senator Robert M. LaFollette, with the regards of Theodore Roosevelt, March 1st 1909.”

We obtained this photograph directly from the LaFollette descendants and it has never before been offered for sale. $5,500

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Theodore Roosevelt, America’s First Conservationist President, Writes of His Love For the Wilderness “I have just your love for the desert. Not the fairest cultivation ever appeals to me quite as much as the wild loneliness of the wilderness.”

Roosevelt was the first conservationist president. He established the National Wildlife Refuge program, and was largely responsible for establishment of federal control and regulation over public lands of the West. He created many desert national parks and monuments, including Grand Canyon, Mesa Verde, Montezuma’s Castle and Petrified Forest. His National Reclamation Act of 1902 authorized western irrigation projects, and under this law Roosevelt initiated the construction of western dams, and the task of reclaiming the desert Southwest was started. Of the North Dakota Badlands, which is a desert in part, he said, “I grow very fond of this place, and it certainly has a desolate, grim beauty of its own, that has a curious fascination for me.”

Louisa Lee Schuyler was the great-granddaughter of Gen. Philip Schuyler and Alexander Hamilton, and in addition to her love of the country’s natural beauties, she devoted her life to charitable causes. She organized the Woman’s Central Association of Relief, the core of the United States Sanitary Commission, which worked in aid of the volunteer soldier throughout the Civil War. In 1873 she organized the New York Charities Aid Association and in the following year established the Bellevue School of Nursing, the first professional school of nursing in the United States. In so doing, Schuyler shifted the concept of assisting those in need from a moral do-good view to one that is professionally administered. In recognition of her 40 years of activity in charitable work she received in 1915 the first honorary degree of LL.D. ever conferred upon a woman

by Columbia University. Miss Schuyler was a friend and colleague of Theodore Roosevelt, Sr., the President’s revered father. The elder Roosevelt was a major charitable activist, co-founding a hospital, the YMCA, and other insitutions, and was also active with Schuyler in the Charities Aid Association. She delivered a memorable eulogy to him after his death in 1878.

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When Roosevelt took office in 1901, one of his initial decisions was to root out corruption, and having heard rumors that the postal service was rife with it, determined to investigate and take that on first. He found it was so, ordered the culprits indicted and managed to obtain a number of convictions. He used these as both a prototype and a warning; a prototype because he then turned to other agencies with the same task, and a warning to public servants that he was serious about rooting out corruption and they better take heed. Soon after, corrupt customs house examiners enabled importers of silk to evade customs, and TR again prosecuted.

Thomas W. Symons was Superintendent of Public Buildings and Grounds in Washington but was also an engineer involved with a project to update the Erie Canal in New York. He suggested placing bronze commemorative tablets on the canal, the content or location of which apparently interested Schuyler.

Manuscript Letter Signed on White House letterhead, in striking calligraphy, Washington, February 27, 1904, to “Not the fairest cultivation Louisa Lee Schuyler. “It was a great pleasure to receive your ever appeals to me quite as letter. You are always more than kind and I fully appreciate the much as the wild loneliness friendship you have shown me. I have just your love for the of the wilderness.” desert. Not the fairest cultivation ever appeals to me quite as much as the wild loneliness of the wilderness. I am particularly pleased at this moment because we have obtained convictions against several people, including the worst scoundrel of all in the post office cases; and we also secured convictions in the silk fraud cases. I shall take up the matter of the tablets at once with Colonel Symons, the Superintendant of Public Buildings and Grounds.” He signs with “warm regards to your sister.” This is the first Roosevelt White House letter in calligraphy we can recall, and seeing as how the text of the letter is clearly in his voice, he obviously wanted to send his father ’s old friend a letter beautiful in both look and content.

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President Warren G. Harding Sends the Former President of the Federal Reserve Bank on a Diplomatic Mission Document Signed as President, Washington, July 1, 1921, appointing William B. Thompson “a Member of the Commission to Represent the United States in the celebration of the first centennial of the proclamation of the independence of Peru.” William Boyce Thompson was the Director of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York from 1914-1919, and was twice a delegate to the Republican National Convention (1916 and 1920, when Harding was nominated). It appears he was rewarded with a trip to South America to help the Peruvians commemorate their 100th year of independence from Spain. The document is countersigned by Secretary of State (and future Chief Justice) Charles Evans Hughes. $900

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Woodrow Wilson, Writing on His Honeymoon With Edith, Thanks His Daughters For Welcoming His New Wife Into the Family

“I do not know how I can in cold type express the tenderness of love and gratitude with which it stirred me.”

Wilson married Ellen Louise Axson of Rome, Georgia, in 1885. The couple had three daughters: Margaret, Jessie, and Eleanor. Ellen Wilson’s time as First Lady was mainly spent with her health failing slowly from Bright’s disease, and she died August 6, 1914, just as World War I broke out in Europe and required her husband’s urgent attention. Wilson was distraught.

By a quirk of fate and a chain of friendships, Edith Bolling Galt met the bereaved President, still mourning profoundly for his first wife. A man who depended on feminine companionship, the lonely Wilson took an instant liking to Mrs. Galt, charming and intelligent and unusually pretty. Admiration changed swiftly to love. In proposing to her after a courtship of just three months, he made the poignant statement that “in this place time is not measured by weeks, or months, or years, but by deep human experiences...”

They were married privately on December 18, 1915, at her home; afterwards they took a brief honeymoon in Hot Springs, Virginia.

There was scandal in Washington because Wilson remarried so soon. But the President’s daughters knew that he had been devastated by the loss of his wife and was desperately lonely. They tried their best to be understanding and to welcome the new wife into the family. Wilson was more than appreciative of this, and in response to a message of support they sent to him on his honeymoon, he wrote a letter, which though addressed to one (most likely Eleanor), was explicitly designed to be communicated to them all. Known as a dour and sober man, this very personal letter to his daughters, actually written while on his honeymoon with Edith, shows an entirely different and unexpected side of him.

Typed Letter Signed as President on White House letterhead, Hot Springs, Va., December 29, 1915, to his daughter, whom he addresses as “My darling little daughter.” “The message in which you all joined yesterday made me very happy. It brought very vividly to my thought the dear circle at home, and I do not know how I can in cold type express the tenderness of love and gratitude with which it stirred me. I love you all very, very dearly and it makes me deeply happy that you should all give me the generous trust and affection which you constantly make me feel. It fills to overflowing the cup of happiness I have been drinking these blessed days here. Edith joins me in messages of dearest love to all.” It is signed “Your devoted father.” This is a very moving letter.

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The marriage was a very happy one, but it was just four years before Wilson’s health failed. In September 1919, while he was campaigning for Senate approval of the Versailles Treaty and the League of Nations, a stroke left him partly paralyzed. His constant attendant, Mrs. Wilson took over many duties and details of government; in fact, she was widely accused of making herself acting President. She denied that but certainly selected matters for her husband’s attention and let everything else go to the heads of departments or remain in abeyance. Her “stewardship,” she called this. And in “My Memoir”, published in 1939, she stated emphatically that her husband’s doctors had urged this course upon her. In 1921, the Wilsons retired to a comfortable home in Washington, where he died three years later. A highly respected figure in the society of the capital, Mrs. Wilson took on the role of keeper of her husband’s flame. She lived on to ride in President Kennedy’s inaugural parade in 1961, dying later that year. $4,000

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Raoul Wallenberg Saves a Jewish Attorney in Budapest from the Holocaust, Certifying he is Under the Protection of Sweden Scarce wartime autograph of the heroic honorary U.S. citizen German forces occupied Hungary on March 19, 1944 and forced the Hungarian head of state, Miklos Horthy, to appoint a pro-German government under Dome Sztojay. The Sztojay government was prepared not only to continue the war as a German ally, but also to deport Hungarian Jews to Germanoccupied Poland. Shortly after the occupation, Hungarian officials began to round up Hungarian Jews and to transfer them into German custody.

By July, the Hungarians and the Germans deported nearly 440,000 Jews from Hungary, almost all of them to the Auschwitz, where the SS killed approximately 320,000 of them upon arrival and deployed the rest at forced labor in various concentration camps. Nearly 200,000 Jews remained in Budapest, however.

In 1944, Franklin D. Roosevelt established the War Refugee Board (WRB), an organization whose task was to save European Jews from Nazi persecution.

Its representative in Stockholm worked with Swedes to mount a rescue operation in Hungary.

Among the participants was Raoul Wallenberg’s business partner, Kálmán Lauer, who suggested Wallenberg as a suitable candidate. Despite a complete lack of experience in diplomacy and clandestine operations, Wallenberg was assigned as first secretary to the Swedish legation in Hungary, arriving in Budapest on July 9, 1944. From this post, he would lead the most extensive and successful rescue effort during the Holocaust.

With authorization from the Swedish government, Wallenberg and his fellow Swedish diplomats issued “protective passports” (in German, Schutz-Passes), which identified the bearers as Swedish subjects awaiting repatriation and thus preventing their deportation. Although not technically legal, these documents looked official and were generally accepted by German and Hungarian authorities, who did not want to anger neutral Sweden and who sometimes were also bribed. The Swedish legation in Budapest also succeeded in negotiating with the Germans so that the bearers of the protective passes would be treated as Swedish citizens and be exempt from having to wear the yellow Star of David on their chests. With money raised by the WRB, Wallenberg set up hospitals, nurseries, and a soup kitchen; he also rented 32 buildings in Budapest and declared them to be extraterritorial, protected by diplomatic immunity. He put up signs such as “The Swedish Library” and “The Swedish Research Institute” on their doors and hung oversize Swedish flags on the front of the buildings to bolster the deception. These formed an “international ghetto” in Budapest that was reserved for those Jews and their families holding certificates of protection from a neutral country. Doing all this was an enormous task, and ultimately over 350 people were recruited to help Wallenberg carry it out.

After the Hungarian fascist Arrow Cross movement seized power with the help of the Germans on October 15, 1944, the Arrow Cross government resumed the deportation of Hungarian Jews, which Horthy had halted in July before the Budapest Jews could be deported. As Soviet troops had already cut off rail transport routes to Auschwitz, Hungarian authorities forced tens of thousands of Budapest Jews to march west to the Hungarian border with Austria. During the autumn of 1944, Wallenberg repeatedly, and often personally handed out certificates of protection, and intervened to aid those holding them, right from the columns of marching people, literally pulling many out of line, and saving as many as possible.

The name Vámbéri Lászlós appears on the list of Hungarian-Jewish attorneys in “Miscarriage of Justice: The Elimination of Jewish Attorneys in Hungary During the Holocaust.” He was one of those who received papers from Wallenberg. Document Signed on the letterhead of the Swedish embassy in Budapest, with its stamped seal, in Hungarian, October 22, 1944, stating: “The Royal Swedish Embassy certifies that the Schutzpass in Dr Vámbéri László’s possession is a valid passport.” It is signed “R. Wallenberg” as Secretary of the Swedish Royal Embassy. This document thus dates

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from the confused and desperate days just a week after the Arrow Cross Party’s coup.

Was Wallenberg’s attempt to save Vámbéri László’s life successful? Provided with the Wallenberg document is an identification card issued to him on June 27, 1945, after the war in Europe was ended and when Budapest was under Soviet occupation. It gives the following information about him: Name: Vámbéri László’s Year and place of birth: 1901, Budapest Mother’s name: Barna Jolán Occupation: lawyer Residence: Budapest, 8th district, Jozsef korut 37-39 Place and date: Budapest, 27.6.1945 Hungarian Police Budapest Headquarters So yes, he was saved by Wallenberg. Yad Vashem, Israel’s National Authority for the Remembrance of the Martyrs and Heroes of the Holocaust, states that Wallenberg “saved the lives of tens of thousands of Jews in Budapest during World War II...and put some 15,000 Jews into 32 safe houses.” The Talmud has a teaching that a person that saves one life has the same merit as if he’d saved the whole world. What then of Wallenberg, who saved tens of thousands?

Wallenberg’s relationship with the U.S.-sponsored WRB proved fatal to him. When the Russians arrived in Budapest in January 1945, they arrested him on suspicion of being a spy for the United States. He died in Soviet captivity, though nobody knows when or under what circumstances. In 1981, Wallenberg became an honorary citizen of the United States, which puts him in rare company. The only others to receive this honor have been Winston Churchill, the Marquis de Lafayette, William Penn and his wife, General Pulaski of the Revolution and Mother Teresa.

Interestingly, the schutz-passes themselves were usually signed by embassy officials rather than Wallenberg, although we have seen his name or initials added to some. His own signature was generally affixed to letters like this one certifying that the schutz-pass the bearer carried was legitimate. But in any case, his autograph on a Holocaust-related document is very rare, this being just the second we have had in our decades in business. A search of auction records for the last 35 years reveals none at all. $37,500

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As War Clouds Overhang Europe, Einstein Places His Hope In the United States On October 17, 1933, Albert Einstein moved to America, just months after Adolf Hitler took power in his native Germany. The great scientist wasn’t just fleeing persecution as a Jew but also seeking true freedom in which to express his scientific and political views. He explained that he had come to America “because of the great, great freedom which I heard existed in this country,” a freedom he hoped to embrace both in science and in politics. But he was by no means meerly a cheerleader, and could be critical of the United States when its performance failed to meet its ideals or promise.

In 1936, Germany moved its soldiers into the demilitarized Rhineland, thus breaking the Versailles Treaty. The other European nations stood by and did nothing. In Britain and France, many leaders even seemed to welcome the aggression.

Then civil war broke out in Spain, and while the Republicans were pressed on all sides and received no aid from the democracies, the Fascists under Franco were heavily supported by Germany and Mussolini’s Italy. Then, on April 26, 1937, planes of the German Luftwaffe “Condor Legion” and the Italian Fascist Aviazione Legionaria bombed the Basque town of Guernica, causing widespread death and destruction, with many left homeless. The Basque government reported 1,654 people killed in what was just the first example of pure terror bombing; in coming years it would be a commonplace. This act caused widespread revulsion around the world, and organizations sprung up to help Spanish refugees, especially children. Britain and France were aroused to sympathy and many refugees were in fact brought there. The hope arose that maybe now the democracies would help the Spanish Republican government to survive, but those that entertained that hope were destined to be disappointed. Einstein watched this with a little hope perhaps, but he was mainly sceptical. In the United States, Einstein saw a somewhat different story. Although officially neutral, many Americans overtly supported the Republicans, including Mrs. Roosevelt. Her husband, the President, started by fearing the war would spread and just wanting it to end quickly, but he came to see the threat the Fascists posed to American security. He took no steps to halt the very public activities of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade, a mostly-American volunteer unit that sent thousands of men to Spain to join in the actual fighting. The Spanish Republican cause was popular in America.

Einstein saw the world descending into chaos and began to think that the United States was the best hope for the future. Autograph Letter Signed, in German, written at his cottage overlooking Long Island Sound, c. June 1937, to Ruth Norden, who was responsible for translating a number of Einstein’s writings into English. One of these was his 1938 article “Why do they hate the Jews?”, which was his only public discussion of Hitler ’s campaign against the Jews. “I want to thank you very much for the two translations. They were so good that they were able to be used without the least bit of change. The intervention because of the doctor for the Stuttgart consular, by the way, did not help in the least, so that now I do not know at all what I could do in this scandalous matter that has little prospect of success. It would please me very much if you could visit us, especially since I now have a small sailboat, which we call Tinef [meaning, amusingly, ‘junk’] because of its impressive characteristics.

It is unfortunately difficult to get to our house, because it is rather far from the Huntington train station.

In the Spanish matter, the English and the French are acting energetically, but one can hardly take them seriously anymore. When one thinks of Europe, one appreciates America!”

Einstein applied for U.S. citizenship and received it in 1940. He stated then, “America is today the hope of all honorable men who respect the rights of their fellow men and who believe in the principle of freedom and justice.” $8,500

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Winston Churchill Arranges to Make His First Specific Proposal for an Alliance of Nations Against Nazi Germany Adolf Hitler took power in Germany in 1933, and by 1935 he had already begun formuling his designs on Europe. That year, he negotiated the Anglo-German Naval Agreement which practically eliminated the British naval presence in the Baltic Sea on Germany’s northeast flank. Then his ally, Italian dictator Benito Mussolini, invaded Ethiopia. The League of Nations, led by Britain and France, labeled him an aggressor but did nothing. Hitler observed this and now he was ready for his own first military action.

The Treaty of Versailles required the de-militarization of the German Rhineland to provide a buffer between Germany on one side and France, Belgium and Luxembourg on the other, which meant that no German forces were allowed there. On March 7, 1936, unilaterally scrapping the Treaty, Hitler sent his troops into the Rhineland and reoccupied it. Britain and France made no effort to stop the action and instead adopted a policy of appeasement. France was lost in a fog of pacifism, and many in Britain actually supported the German action, feeling with Lord Lothian that “the Germans are after all only going into their own back garden.”

In Britain, however, Winston Churchill had been watching Germany and Italy with a wary eye.

He immediately recognized the threat posed by this overt German action and on March 26 took the floor in the House of Commons to ask which nation would be Hitler ’s next invasion target (speculating perhaps Austria). He also pointedly asked the government and the House whether Britain would take the lead in establishing an “effective union” of those states threatened by Germany. He knew that the answer was no, as neither Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin nor the government leadership had the stomach to take on Germany. So, as Martin Gilbert relates in his book, “Winston Churchill: A Life”, he determined to take on the task of trying to create such a union himself. Gilbert writes of the first action Churchill took, saying, “To help such a union forward, he invited the Soviet Ambassador, Ivan Maisky, to lunch with him at the beginning of April.”

Typed Letter Signed on his letterhead, London, April 1, 1936, to Maisky, being the very letter referenced by Gilbert and Churchill’s first outreach to create an alliance of nations against Nazi Germany. “It would give me great pleasure if you would lunch here with me at 1:15 on Friday. We should be a deux [meaning they should dine alone, just the two of them].” Friday was April 3, so the meeting took place that day.

What was discussed at the meeting? The purpose was to pursue the possibility of RussianBritish cooperation, but it seems that Churchill came armed with specifics. On April 20, states Gilbert, Neville Chamberlain adviser Maurice Hankey told Defence Minister Sir Thomas Inskip of a ‘fantastic plan’ which Churchill had explained to him in detail for sending part of the British Fleet to the Baltic ‘to ensure superiority over Germany in that sea. It would stay there permanently, based on a Russian port of which we should obtain the use under this plan....He has buried his violent anti-Russian complex of former days and is apparently a bosom friend of M. Maisky.” Other authors of books on the subect link the Maisky meeting with the Baltic plan; one of these is “Churchill and Strategic Dilemmas Before the World Wars” by Handel. In the book “Churchill and Finland” by Ruotsila the author is even more specific, relating that Churchill approached the Russians about stationing a British naval squadron in the Baltic on the Russian island of Kronstadt.

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Thus did Churchill unveil his first initiative to form an alliance against Nazi Germany. Although Maisky was interested, the effort was not successful, as at that time few were ready to face the reality. Yet just five years later, Churchill had his alliance, one that won the war. $13,000

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Winston Churchill Reaffirms the Right of a Member of Parliament to Publicly Question the Government, One of the Foundations of Representative Government Churchill’s rise in Parliament was a rapid one, in part because of the fame of his father and in part as a result of his own political and oratorical abilities. First elected in 1900 as a Conservative, he crossed the floor to join the Liberals and in 1905 and was rewarded by them with his first ministerial post, Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies.

Walter F. Faber was a Conservative member of Parliament from 1906 until 1918. In 1907, he asked about a new line of steamships that proposed to run between Germany and Canada in the event of a favorable tariff arrangement. Churchill responds that ‘I have nothing to add to my answers to a similar question on 30th May’, but promised to make further enquiry. Faber was not satisfied with this evasive answer, and notwithstanding receipt of it, wanted to confront the government in Parliament.

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Autograph Letter Signed on House of Commons letterhead, three pages, London, June 10, 1907, to Faber, reaffirming Faber ’s right to question the government that day in the House of Commons. “Let me thank you for the courtesy of your note, which entirely removes from my mind the impression it had sustained. The Prime Minister had asked me to reply to your question, not because he was himself unable to be present, but because it falls properly within the sphere of the Colonial Office. It was because I thought you did not realise this, that I offered you the answer. But your acceptance of the piece of paper on wh[ich] it was written would not have invalidated your right to ask that it should be answered publicly across the floor of the House, if you so desired it, on a future occasion.” This is our first Churchill ALS in quite some time. $4,500

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Franklin D. Roosevelt Courts Republican Progressives in the 1936 Election A rare letter as President with political content concerning one of FDR’s presidential election campaigns Smith W. Brookhart was twice elected as a Republican to represent Iowa in the U.S. Senate. He was a populist and a progressive of the Theodore Roosevelt stripe, and virtually dominated Iowa politics from 1920-1933. He was critical of Presidents Coolidge and Hoover as too controlled by big business and not interested enough in creating markets for farm products, so he was considered an “insurgent” within the Republican Party of the 1930’s. After his last term ended in January 1933, he carried this campaign for farm markets into the New Deal when in 1933 President Franklin D. Roosevelt appointed him foreign trade advisor for the Agricultural Adjustment Administration. But New Deal agricultural policy went in the direction of production controls and Brookhart resigned from the AAA. This was of concern to Roosevelt because he worried that others in the farm belt who were former supporters might jump ship in the 1936 election and cost him the presidency.

Brookhart was out of office in 1936 but still had strong influence in Iowa, which then as now was something of a swing state in presidential elections. In June 1936, Roosevelt was renominated by the Democrats and began campaigning for a second term. Although he would win in a landslide in November, the outcome was not so clear during the campaign. This was in part because polling was not very sophicated; the highly regarded Liberty Digest straw poll predicted a big Landon victory. FDR had great political instincts and intended to leave no stone unturned to achieve reelection. He saw the support of Brookhart as potentially very valuable, not just in Iowa but among other Republican progressives. However, it was not at all clear who Brookhart would favor. Certainly he disliked Hoover ’s policies, but he had quit FDR’s AAA because of disagreements there. Roosevelt determined to court him.

Roosevelt’s Secretary of Agriculture was Henry A. Wallace of Iowa. Wallace and his father owned the extremely influential newspaper, Wallace’s Farmer, and he had long known Brookhart. Richard Murphy was U.S. Senator from Iowa from 1933-July 16, 1936, when he was killed in a car accident.

Autograph Letter Signed as President “FDR”, no date but likely sometime between Roosevelt’s renomination in June (when the armtwisting would move from intra-party to a national scope) and Murphy’s untimely death in July, to his Secretary of Agriculture, urgently ordering that something be done to bring Brookhart into the fold. “Secy. of Agric, Can we take care of Brookhart even as a temporary matter?

Will you talk with Senator Murphy - I think it is really politically important. FDR.” Brookhart was taken care of and his courting was successful. On August 16, 1936, he announced that he would support Roosevelt in his reelection bid, and put forth a plan to unite diverse progressive elements under a new banner with FDR as its standard bearer.

And in November, despite Roosevelt’s nervousness about losing the farm belt, he again carried Iowa handily, as well as other states in the region. $2,500

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Signed Photograph of General Douglas MacArthur Showing Him in Action During World War II He comes on board the USS Cleveland to witness the last major amphibious landing of the war

By June 1945 the war in the Pacific was going well and Allied forces were retaking islands previously held by the Japanese. Borneo was the next goal. The USS Cleveland put out to sea from Subic Bay in the Philippines on June 7, 1945, to act as part of the covering force and provide fire support for the invasion landings set for Brunei Bay on that island on June 10. She returned to Subic Bay June 15, then sailed to Manila to embark. The moment was a fitting one for MacArthur to turn his attention away from the Philippines, as on June 28 his headquarters announced the end of all Japanese resistance there. The ship arrived at her station off Borneo on June 30, and took active part in firing in a pre-landing bombardment the next morning. That morning, July 1, 1945, MacArthur personally observed the last major amphibious landing of the Second World War, when after the naval bombardment was concluded, the 7th Australian Division hit the beach at Balikpapan.

An 8 by 10 inch black and white photograph depicting MacArthur receiving salutes as he comes on board the Cleveland, signed in fountain pen, quite likely on the Cleveland that very day: “Douglas MacArthur, Borneo, 1945”. The photo also has “Official photograph USS Cleveland” stamped on the reverse. This is our first war date signed photograph of MacArthur showing him in action, as he generally just signed portrait photographs. It comes to us from Australia, whose troops made the landing.

In a few weeks, bombing of the Japanese homeland would commence, and a month later the atomic bombs were dropped. September would see the end of the war. $2,000

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The Official White House Portrait of Harry S. Truman, Signed A 9 by 12 inch color picture of Truman’s White House portrait by Greta Kempton, inscribed and signed “Kind regards to Mrs. Terry Kuper Kirker, Independence, September 29, 1955, Harry Truman.”

$1,200

Harry Truman Thanks California Governor Pat Brown For Birthday Wishes Typed Letter Signed on his letterhead, May 19, 1964, to California Governor Pat Brown. “Thank you very much for your good letter of the 5th. It was certainly thoughtful of you to write me as you did, and I am happy you feel the way you do.” May 8 was Truman’s birthday. $300

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President Kennedy Says That America’s World Leadership and Standard of Living Rest on Protecting Its Natural Resources Not since Theodore Roosevelt had an administration been more devoted to preserving the environment than Kennedy’s. In May 1962, at a White House Conference on Conservation, the President firmly allied himself with the environmental movement. “We want this administration, this Government, to be identified with this cause,” he said. “I can think of no more suitable effort for an administration which is concerned with progress than to be identified in a sense with past efforts and future efforts to preserve this land and maintain its beauty.” Here he declares, in even more exalted language, the necessity of conservation: Typed Letter Signed as President, on green White House letterhead, Washington, June 8, 1962 to California Governor Pat Brown. “Thank you for your telegram concerning the White House Conference on Conservation. I am grateful for your expression of interest in and support for the Conference. Both our position of world leadership and our standard of living rest upon the wealth of natural resources which we have inherited. Widespread public understanding of sound natural resource policies is therefore essential...I am especially pleased that the emphasis on recreation at the Conference has been of service to you in your efforts to initiate a greatly expanded park and recreation program for the people of California...” $5,500

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President Lyndon B. Johnson Orders the Appointment of Pat Brown, Former Governor of California, As Chairman of the National Commission on Reform of Federal Criminal Laws In 1966 Congress established the National Commission on Reform of Federal Criminal Laws to examine the state of the federal penal law and to propose a reformulation.

The action was in part taken to appease an anxious public which was insisting that Congress do something about dramatically escalating crime rates, but it was motivated as well by an authentic desire to reform and improve the law. Congress left no doubt that it wished to see a thorough rethinking of the federal law of crimes, and its mandate was heeded. In due course the commission produced a thorough revision of the federal substantive law of crimes, and several bills were passed for the enactment of portions of it into law. The centerpiece of the new laws was the RICO antiracketeering act aimed at organized crime.

Pat Brown lost the 1966 California gubernatorial election to Ronald Reagan and left office in January 1967. President Johnson decided to utilize Brown’s talents to head the new criminal law commission and appointed Brown to the post.

Document Signed as President, March 16, 1967, designating “Edmund G. Brown Chairman of the National Commission on Reform of Federal Criminal Laws.” This is the first Johnson document we can recall issued in the form of a presidential Order. $2,000

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Ronald Reagan Says That Efficiency and Cost Control Will “help achieve a turning point in the road to better government” One of Reagan’s prime programs as new Governor of California was to reduce the cost of government by making it more efficient. In 1967, he appointed a task force to assess the cost versus value of state government management and administrative practices, and the next year the group submitted a 149-page summary report. Helping sponsor the survey were 187 California firms. Many business and professional people volunteered; business and industry furnished the executives and management specialists on a full-time basis.

“We believe that their findings can, when implemented, help achieve a turning point in the road to better government.”

Reagan was pleased with the report and dissiminated copies for review and suggestions. Typed Letter Signed on his Office of the Governor letterhead, Sacramento, February 28, 1968, to Frank Turnbull, Sergeant at Arms of the Republican State Central Committee of California, praising what the report would mean to California government and informing him that he would receive a copy. “Under separate cover I am sending you a copy of the Summary Report prepared by the Governor’s Task Force on Efficiency and Cost Control. This summary report represents the findings of the Task Force’s survey which was conducted throughout most of our state departments in an effort to achieve a better, more efficient and responsible government. The Task Force was composed of over 250 outstanding business and professional men who donated their time and expenses to this effort. We believe that their findings can, when implemented. help achieve a turning point in the road to better government. I am sure you will find this report of great interest...”

It was programs like these that made Reagan’s reputation and sent him on the road to the White House.

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President George H.W. Bush Reports a Major Breakthrough at the Malta Summit That Ended the Cold War In 1985, Mikhail Gorbachev took over as Communist Party General Secretary of the Soviet Union. He was a reformer who wanted to implement changes to improve the Soviet economy, and this could only be accomplished by cooling down the temperature of the Cold War. As this program moved forward, the subject countries in the Soviet bloc saw an opportunity and grassroots organizations, such as Poland’s Solidarity movement, rapidly gained ground. In 1989, the Communist governments in Poland and Hungary became the first to negotiate the organizing of competitive elections. In Czechoslovakia and East Germany, mass protests unseated entrenched Communist leaders. The Communist regimes in Bulgaria and Romania also crumbled, in the latter case as the result of a violent uprising. The tidal wave of change culminated with the fall of the Berlin Wall in November 1989, which ended the Iron Curtain divide of Europe.

The Malta Summit between Gorbachev and President George H. W. Bush was convened at this precise juncture, and took place December 2-3, 1989. It proved to be the most important summit since 1945, when Churchill, Stalin and Roosevelt agreed on a post-war plan for Europe at Yalta.

Its main purpose was to provide the two superpowers - the United States and the Soviet Union - with an opportunity to discuss the rapid changes taking place in Europe with the lifting of the Iron Curtain. During the summit, the leaders pledged mutual cooperation and stated that their relationship would be characterized by peace, without the threat of war.

The BBC hailed the summit thusly: “The leaders of the two world superpowers, the USA and the USSR, have declared an end to the Cold War after two days of storm-lashed talks at the Malta summit.” At a joint news conference held on board the Soviet cruise ship, Maxim Gorky, the two men announced they had set the stage for big reductions in troops and weapons in Europe. The Soviet leader, Mikhail Gorbachev, also said: “I assured the President of the United States that I will never start a hot war against the USA.” For his part, US President George Bush said: We can realise a lasting peace and transform the East-West relationship to one of enduring co-operation.

That is the future that Chairman Gorbachev and I began right here in Malta.’”

Autograph Letter Signed as President on specially made Malta Summit letterhead, December 1989, to White House staffer Ron Wade.

“This ‘sea sick’ Malta Summit was held in bad weather but it produced a major breakthrough for improved US - USSR relations.” $5,000

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Joint Chiefs Chairman William Crowe’s Presidential Mementos from the Clinton Family, Including an Autograph Note Signed as President by Bill

Admiral William J. Crowe was a U.S. Navy Admiral who served as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff under Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush. He was the first Chairman of the Joint Chiefs to benefit from the Goldwater-Nichols Act of 1986 where he became, by statute, the principal military adviser to the President and the seniormost officer in the entire military establishment. In 1989, he was succeeded by General Colin Powell. Crowe supported Bill Clinton’s candidacy in 1992, and President Clinton named him the Chairman of the President’s Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board in 1993. In 1994, Clinton appointed Crowe U.S. Ambassador to the United Kingdom, and he served in that capacity until 1997.

During his reelection campaign in 1996, Clinton presented Crowe with a copy of his book, “Between Hope and History”, writing a virtual Autograph Note Signed as President, September 7, 1996. “To Bill Crowe, with thanks for helping to bring the events of our administration to life and for playing a major role in our journey.”

Chelsea and a friend traveled to England in 1997 and this trip led to correspondence with Crowe. There is also a Typed Letter Signed as First Lady by Hillary R. Clinton, on White House letterhead, Washington, July 21, 1997, to both Crowe and his wife. “Chelsea and I have just returned from our travels together in Europe. Thanks you for your generous hospitality while she was in London. She had a wonderful time and I appreciate greatly your attention to her and her companion.” Then there is an ANS of Chelsea on her note card to “Ambassador and Mrs. Crowe” saying “Thank you for opening

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your home to us. We had a marvelous time and truly felt welcome. Thank you again.” She adds a P.S. “Hope to see you both ‘state side’ soon.” With this is a typed memo to Ambassador Crowe telling him the name of Chelsea’s traveling companion (Nicole Davidson), and when their flights arrived and departed.

Lastly, there is an 8 by 10 inch color photograph showing Crowe standing with his wife as he takes the oath of office as ambassador, which is being administered by Vice President Al Gore, signed and inscribed “For a great public servant and a great friend, Bill Crowe, with deepest respect, Al Gore.”

This is a most unusual grouping covering the President, First Lady, their daughter Chelsea, and V.P. Al Gore. $2,500

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