Sold – Before the Storm – United States Antebellum Leaders in 1848

An autograph album with signatures of Daniel Webster, John C. Calhoun, Henry Clay, James K. Polk, Winfield Scott, James Buchanan, and Sam Houston, Abraham Lincoln, William Seward, plus many others .

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This is the only item we have ever seen signed by both Lincoln and Buchanan, the two men who terms in office encompassed the prelude to war and the Civil War itself.

New Yorker William R. Thomas kept an autograph album engraved with his name, and in both New York...

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Sold – Before the Storm – United States Antebellum Leaders in 1848

An autograph album with signatures of Daniel Webster, John C. Calhoun, Henry Clay, James K. Polk, Winfield Scott, James Buchanan, and Sam Houston, Abraham Lincoln, William Seward, plus many others .

This is the only item we have ever seen signed by both Lincoln and Buchanan, the two men who terms in office encompassed the prelude to war and the Civil War itself.

New Yorker William R. Thomas kept an autograph album engraved with his name, and in both New York and Washington obtained signatures of notable political leaders of the day. A substantial majority of the signatures were secured in 1848 or within a few years of that date, and were written right in the book; a few were obtained separately and affixed to the album’s pages. The book contains the ownership signature of department store executive G.C. Driver, into whose hands it later passed.

Thomas arrived in Washington during the 30th Congress, which met from March 4, 1847 to March 3, 1849, during the last two years of the administration of President James K. Polk. Polk’s signature is affixed to a page. The signature of his Secretary of State, James Buchanan, is written on a page along with Postmaster General Cave Johnson. Winfield Scott, general-in-chief of the United States Army, has also signed.

From the U.S. Senate appear the great triumvirate of Daniel Webster (MA), John C. Calhoun (SC) and Henry Clay (KY)?(the latter dated 1848 and tipped in). Sam Houston (TX) writes a huge, 5 inch long signature, and Thomas Hart Benton (MO) and Albert Gallatin Brown (MS) are also included. Former Vice President and Senate member Richard Mentor Johnson, noted as the man who killed Tecumseh, is here also.

The House of Representatives is well represented. There is Robert Winthrop, Speaker of the House, who dates his entry “Washington, 17 March 1848”; plus Thomas Campbell and R.E. Hornor, Clerks of the House; N. Sargent, its Sergeant at Arms; and R.R. Gurley, its chaplain. Notable members include David Wilmot of PA, whose famous Proviso would have banned slavery in any territory to be acquired from Mexico in the Mexican War, and noted abolitionist Joshua R. Giddings of OH. Young Congressman Abraham Lincoln of IL signs on a page in the book, along with Robert B. Cranston (RI), William T. Haskell (TN) and Julius Rockwell (MA). Lincoln was then serving a two year term in the House, his only national post prior to his elevation to the presidency 13 years later. Other members signing include: Lin Boyd and Charles S. Morehead of KY; William McDowell of IA; Ausburn Birdsall, Frederick A. Tallmadge, Joseph Mullin, Daniel Gott, Timothy Jenkins, Nathan K. Hall, and Ambrose Spencer of NY; Charles J. Ingersoll, Joseph R. Ingersoll, and Moses Hampton of PA; Samuel F. Vinton and John H. Tayor of OH; James McKay of NC; Emile LaSere and Isaac E. Morse of LA; William A. Newell of NJ; James McDowell of VA; John Gayle of AL; Charles Hudson of MA; James B. Bowlin of MO; Amos Tuck of NH; Thomas J. Henly of IN, and Edward C. Cabell of FL.

There are many signatures from New York State government, the foremost among them being  William Seward, former Governor and later Lincoln’s rival and then his Secretary of State, who dates his signature February 25, 1848. There is John Young, former Congressman and sitting Governor; his second in command, Hamilton Fish, sitting Lieutenant Governor, later Governor, U.S. Senator and U.S. Secretary of State; A.L. Jordan, state Attorney General, along with Abraham Van Vechten, who had served twice in that office; Hiram Denio, Chief Judge of the New York Court of Appeals, with Greene Bronson, Justice on that court and later its Chief Judge; Samuel Beardsley, former Congressman and Chief Justice of the New York Supreme Court. Frederick Whittlesey and Amasa Parker, both former Congressmen and current Justices of the state Supreme Court, along with their colleague Henry Hogeboom; Ira Harris, who was also a Justice and later U.S. Senator; William Parmelee, mayor of Albany; and affixed in, William Duer, one of the first eight State Circuit Courts judges appointed in 1823, later President of Columbia University, and Morgan Lewis, Governor of New York from 1804 to 1807, defeating Vice President Aaron Burr in that race.

Other interesting signatories include pathfinder John C. Fremont, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Joseph Story, and Union General John Wool (these three affixed in); Confederate General Braxton Bragg; Thomas Ritchie, leading journalist and publisher of the Richmond Enquirer; J.A. Spencer, author and historian; John Cooney, pioneer settler in California; British Ministers to the U.S. Lord Napier and John Crampton; William O. Butler, general in the Mexican War and unsuccessful vice presidential candidate; and Manuel Dominguez, Governor of the Southern District of California (Los Angeles and Orange Counties) when it still belonged to Mexico.

Within four years of their inclusion in this book, the ruling generation of leaders (men like Webster, Calhoun, Clay, Houston and Polk) would fade and the attempts to conciliate the differences between North and South would fade with them. The rising men (such as Buchanan, Lincoln, Seward and Bragg) would find themselves embroiled in the Civil War, the storm that would follow. This is the only item we have ever seen signed by both Lincoln and Buchanan, the two men who terms in office encompassed the prelude to war and the Civil War itself.        

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