PO Box 619999
Dallas, TX 75261-6199
Street Address:
2801 W. Airport Freeway
Dallas, Texas 75261-4127
(Northwest corner of W. Airport Freeway [HWY-183] & Valley View Lane)
Important: Use our map link to see location / directions. Typing our address directly into a map search may misdirect you.
877-HERITAGE (437-4824)(214) 528-3500
Fax: (214) 409-1425
Auction Name: 2025 November 8 Historical Manuscripts including Texana Showcase Auction
Lot Number: 67046
Shortcut to Lot: HA.com/30152*67046
Salmon Chase Autograph Letters Signed (2). Two letters dated October 22, 1862 and January 2, 1867, measuring 5 3/4 x 9 1/4 inches and 4 7/8 x 8 inches, respectively. Both are addressed to Edwards Pierrepont, who would go on to become the 33rd Attorney General of the United States. In the first letter, two pages of a bifolium, Chase discusses the public debate between abolitionist James S. Wadsworth and moderate Unionist Horatio Seymour, asking Pierrepont "if it is true that you go for Seymour?" It reads, in part:
"To me the question between Wadsworth and Seymour is not merely a question between the friends of the adm'n & its enemies & not at all a question between Democracy & Republicanism, but a question between War & Territorial Integrity & Peace with Disunion or Worse. Can you tell me how John Van Buren obtained Gen Scotts letter? I hear that the General gave a copy of it to you. Neither the president, nor I nor so far as I know any member of the Cabinet (except Gov J) ever saw it before it was made part of Prince John's Speech." Signed, "S P Chase."
In the second letter, two pages, Chase writes about the President's executive power during the war. It reads in part: "Your advice is good: and I shall be glad if I am able to follow it. There is little to be found on the score of 'Speech' or 'letter' but 'legal opinion'! - I don't know. I must speak according to the 'word' of the Constitution & the Law & the 'testimony' of the Judges & Sages, under the direction of my own conscience. If I should do otherwise there would be 'no soundness' in me. The Opinion of the Minority in the Military Commission Case will not perhaps exactly meet your ideas of Executive Supremacy in War: and yet I feel sure that every patriotic object can be most safely & surely secured under that ruling, and that the extreme doctrine that Executive Power is all in all in War would, in the end, prove fatal to liberty." Signed, "S P Chase."
Condition: Each lightly toned with smoothed folds and minor edgewear; a few very light stains and minor ink blotting, not affecting legibility of either letter; both docketed on the verso.
Include Thumbnail(s)
