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[Ulysses S. Grant] Grant's Retained Secretarial Copy Concerning the Panama Canal. Two pages, two sided, 4.5" x 7", "Fi...
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Description
[Ulysses S. Grant] Grant's Retained Secretarial Copy Concerning the Panama Canal. Two pages, two sided, 4.5" x 7", "Fifth Ave. Hotel, N.Y., Jan 1st 1881." While president, Ulysses S. Grant sent seven expeditions to study the feasibility of building a canal across the Colombian Isthmus of Panama, but in the end, believed the task impossible. In 1881, the French Compagnie Universelle du Canal Interocéanique began work on such a canal. Ferdinand de Lesseps, builder of the Suez Canal, led the project, which called for a sea-level canal to be dug along the path of the Panama Railroad.Following a failed attempt at a third presidential term in 1880, Grant was contacted by Nathan Appleton, the youngest son of the American merchant congressman of the same name, who encouraged Grant to involve himself in the French project. Appleton's eight page letter is included in this lot, and reads, in part: "I take pleasure in sending you by express one of the relief maps of the Panama Canal I have just received from Paris. . . . I called one morning upon Admiral Baron Roncière Le Noury . . . he told me then that in his opinion an American should have the first position in the Company after Mr. De Lesseps. . . . That same afternoon we met Mr. De Lesseps . . . and he said at once. . . . 'That is an excellent idea of yours, and I am going to offer Gen. Grant at once the first honorary presidency of the company.'"
Grant responded, in part: "I note what you have to say about my taking the American Directorship. The position was tendered to me, and declined on the ground that I do not believe the project feasible in the first place, and I should oppose it at any rate under any European management. My judgment is that every dollar invested in the Panama Canal, under the present scheme of a throughout, or sea level, will be sunk without any return to the investors, and without a canal to promote Commercial interest. If I was to advise the investment of money in the scheme I would feel that I was advocating a swindle equal to the south sea Bubble! . . . I do not believe the proposed plan practicable with any amount of money that can be raised, nor that interest could be paid in it by all the commerce the canal could carry if built, to say nothing of the human lives that would be sacrificed in its construction."
As history would reveal, Grant was right to doubt de Lesseps' canal plan. In 1893, after a great deal of work, the French scheme was abandoned. The high toll from disease was one of the major factors in the failure; as many as 21,900 workers are estimated to have died during the main period of French construction (1881-1889). In 1904, President Theodore Roosevelt bought out the French equipment and excavations and revived the project, placing John Frank Stevens in the Chief Engineer position. One of the largest and most difficult engineering projects ever undertaken, when the canal was completed in 1914 it had an enormous impact on shipping between the two oceans, replacing the long and treacherous route via the Drake Passage and Cape Horn at the southernmost tip of South America. Both letters are lightly age toned and in very fine condition.
Auction Info
2009 March Grand Format Rare Manuscripts Auction #6019 (go to Auction Home page)
Auction Dates
March, 2009
6th-7th
Friday-Saturday
Bids + Registered Phone Bidders: 1
Lot Tracking Activity: N/A
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19.5% of the successful bid per lot.
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