Rare Book Monthly
Book Catalogue Reviews - October - 2004 Issue
American Historical Autographs<br>From Joseph Rubinfine
Gutzon Borglum signed photo of Mount Rushmore.
Item 14 is a letter from Lincoln to one of the officers who helped put down the largest rebellion the nation had known. No, it's not what you think. The writer is General Benjamin Lincoln, and the rebellion, which in 1787 was the largest the nation had ever seen, was Shays' Rebellion. Daniel Shays led a group of farmers in western Massachusetts who were experiencing foreclosures on their land in the depression which followed the Revolution. General Benjamin Lincoln, who had fought in the Revolutionary War, was put in charge of state troops who quickly put down the rebellion. In this letter, General Lincoln praises Joseph Bradley Varnum for his services and releases him from duty. Varnum would go on to be Speaker of the House of Representatives and a senator from Massachusetts. $4,500.
Here is another very interesting American historical document. It was written by then Secretary of State James Madison in 1801. One of the major concerns for the young nation was the impressment of its seamen into the service of other nations, particularly England. Some were forced into such service at ports, others on the high seas. An act was passed in 1796 appointing officials at various ports to keep track of such impressments and issue reports to the Secretary of State. Item 23 is a letter from Madison to one such agent (Rubinfine believes it to be David Lenox) requesting a report on such impressed seamen "as soon as possible." This letter is particularly notable as it would be during Madison's administration a decade later that this issue would come to a boil. It was one of the major factors that would lead now President Madison to war with Great Britain, the War of 1812. $3,500.
Item 27 is a surprising request from William Henry Harrison, he of the shortest presidency in U.S. history. Ten years before his brief presidency, Harrison wrote to recently appointed Secretary of War Lewis Cass recommending a government appointment for Morgan Neville. Neville is the man who wrote about the adventures of Mike Fink. Neville's father, as Harrison points out in his letter, served in the Revolution as aide-de-camp to Lafayette. It is somewhat surprising to see Harrison writing to Cass, as Harrison and Cass' boss, Andrew Jackson, were political opponents. Harrison would go on to defeat Jackson's hand-picked successor, Martin Van Buren, a decade later, and Cass would lose his presidential bid in 1848 to Zachary Taylor, the only Whig besides Harrison to be elected president. $3,000.
Jackson was not above making political recommendations himself when his years as president were over. On April 10, 1840, he wrote his successor, Martin Van Buren, on behalf of one Mr. A. Harris. Jackson had heard that there would soon be an opening in the "pay department," for which he claimed Harris had "as high credentials as any man." Hopefully, the vacancy arose fairly soon, as later that year Van Buren would be unseated by the aforementioned William Henry Harrison. Item 26. $3,500.
