1849-1854

Baxter, Thompson, fl. 1849-1854

Header Record

Title: [California Gold Rush archive][Decimalized .01- .25]

Documents the activities of Thompson Baxter of Quincey, Massachusetts, and his store in Stockton, California. Includes letters to and from his wife, printed cartoon panel ("This is a true Picture of Callifornia I have seen it And experienced it myself T. Baxter"), bank drafts illustrated with Gold Rush scenes, and Baxter's descriptive business ledger, dating from June 1850 through October 1852.

GLC09234

July 1858

Spooner, Lysander, fl. 1865

Broadside

Title: A Plan for the Abolition of Slavery

"A Plan for the Abolition of Slavery," imploring non-slaveholding whites in the South to combine with slaves to overthrow plantation owners. "Your numbers, combined with those of the Slaves, will give you all power. You have but to use it, and the work is done. The following self-evident principles of justice and humanity will serve as guides. … 1. That the Slaves have a natural right to their liberty. 2. That they have a natural right to compensation (so far as the property of the Slaveholders and their abettors can compensate them) for the wrongs they have suffered. 3. That so long as the…

GLC09235

February 1, 1858

Broadside

Title: [Slave sale broadside]

"Administrator's Sale! …at public auction, to the highest and best bidder…a likely young Negro Woman, Named Mary, and her child.…J. M. M'Cutchen, Administrator." Posted in Boonville, Missouri-rare slave sale broadsides from west of the Mississippi.

GLC09236

circa 17 July 1858

Lincoln, Abraham, 1809-1865

Pamphlet

Title: [Abraham Lincoln speech delivered July 17, 1858]

Speech delivered on July 17, 1858 in Springfield, IL, as a prelude to the Lincoln-Douglas debates. Contains Lincoln's stands on key national issues including the Dred Scott decision and the Lecompton Constitution. "My declarations upon...Negro slavery may be misrepresented, but cannot be misunderstood."

GLC09241

May 1853

Jones, William E., 1824-1864

Manuscript document signed

Title: Muster roll of Mounted Rifles at Fort Ewell, Texas

Muster roll of the Mounted Rifles at Fort Ewell, Texas, signed by Lt. "Grumble" Jones, later Confederate general and cavalry commander.

GLC09244

February 21, 1850

Longstreet, James, 1821-1904

Autograph letter signed

Title: to George W. Crawford

To Secretary of War George W. Crawford, asking assistance in obtaining promotion. "I do not hesitate to say that I can furnish ample proof, from every Officer under whom I have served, of as much service as any Officer of my grade could have rendered. I shared a full part in every action (Save one) of the late war against Mexico. Before, and since the war I have constantly served on the Frontier. It is true that I have been breveted twice for services during the late war. But brevets have been given in such promiscuous profusion, that this is an empty requital, which confers neither fame nor…

GLC09254

6 June 1860

Lee, Robert E., 1807-1870

Autograph letter signed

Title: to Anna Fitzhugh

To cousin Anna Fitzhugh, an intimate letter written on the eve of the Civil War, reporting on family news and revealing his personal anxieties and troubles: "A divided heart I have too long had, & a divided life too long led. That may be one cause of the small progress I have made on either hand, my professional & civil career. Success is not always attained by a single undivided effort. It rarely follows a halting vacillating course. My military duties require me here, whereas my affections & urgent domestic claims call me away. And thus I live & am unable to advance either.…

GLC09256

30 June 1848

Lee, Robert E., 1807-1870

Autograph letter signed

Title: to Sidney Smith Lee

Having returned from service in the Mexican War just a day before, Lee writes to his brother Sidney Smith Lee of his homecoming and other family news. "Here I am once again, my dear Smith, perfectly surrounded by this Mama & her precious children, who seem to devote themselves to staring at the furrows in my face and the white hairs in my head. It is not surprising that I am hardly recognizable to the young eyes around me perfectly unknown to the youngest. But some of the older ones gaze with astonishment & wonder & seem at a loss to reconcile what they see , to what was pictured…

GLC09257

1856-1859

Jackson, George E.G., 1856-1859

Header Record

Title: [2 ship's logs]

The HMS Antelope, on anti-slavery duty off the West African coast. Two ship's logs,"From 3rd Dec 1856 till 20th March 1859, Commanded by Lieutenant John Wm. Pike, Kept by Geo. E. G. Jackson, Master's Asst." Text and hand-drawn pencil sketches, diagrams of the ships, and watercolor representations of islands visited in enforcing the British prohibition against slavery. "29th day of June 1857… Anchored off Whyda … 3:45 Stopped & came too…a schooner - under American colors - sent on board to examine Schooner - Found her the late "Montague" of New Orleans but now claiming no nationalty fully…

GLC09275

January 15, 1856

Fenno, Edward, fl. 1856

Autograph letter signed

Title: to Josiah Drummond

About an upcoming lecture tour by Frederick Douglass in Maine: "I have guaranteed him fifty dollars for this city-twenty five dollars in each of the other towns-I shall entertain him while here." To Josiah Drummond.

GLC09279

12 October 1846

Dupont, Samuel F., 1803-1865

Autograph letter signed

Title: to Stevens

Mexican War naval and land operations while in command of the Cyane: "there is no hope whatever of a peace & we will have to conquer the whole country or form lines of occupation of what we already have taken."

GLC09281

15 July 1847

Plummer, Joseph B., fl. 1847-1862

Autograph letter signed

Title: to Mr. Clark

Conditions in Vera Cruz in the Mexican War: "the Guerillas are becoming more and more bold.… They have even sent word to the Col. that they are going to pay him a visit and that they shall hang him.... There is little prospect of peace. Santa Anna is dictator."

GLC09282

1848

Pamphlet

Title: The Black Code of the District of Columbia in Force September 1st, 1848

A compendium of the laws for slaves in Washington DC, The Black Code of the District of Columbia in Force September 1st, 1848, printed in New York by the Anti-Slavery Society.

GLC09401

1840-1842

Autograph document signed

Title: A Record of the Proceedings of the Executive Committee of the Hamilton County Anti-Slavery Society

Westfield, IN. Primarily concerned with the founding of the Society's library, with a budget of fifteen dollars for books, entries record a "code of rules for the regulation of the Library," day-to-day logistics, including places and times for meeting, and an amendment to society admission requirements. Specific books mentioned are "two copies of J. D. Paxton's letters on Slavery" and "the A. S. Record." Most entries written and signed J. P. Antrim, secretary. In contemporary stiff wrappers labeled "Executive Committee Record."

GLC09382.01

circa 1840-1842

Manuscript document

Title: [Constitution for the "Westfield Free Produce association of friends"]

The constitution for the "Westfield Free Produce association of friends," to boycott slave- produced goods for three years. Begins: "We believe that slaveholding is diametrically opposite to the whole spirit and tenor of the christian religion; and that while it sustains that traffic in slaves, it is mainly supported by the traffic in & the consumption of the production, of slave labor. In order, therefore, to promote the use and facilitate the acquirement of goods supplied by free labor, we unite in an association…"

GLC09382.02

1845

Walker, Jonathan, fl. 1845

Book

Title: Trial And Imprisonment Of Jonathan Walker, At Pensacola, Florida, for Aiding Slaves to Escape From Bondage.

First ed., Boston: Published at the Anti-Slavery Office. 4 illustrations. [Inspired John Greenleaf Whittier to write The Man With the Branded Hand, included in subsequent editions.]

GLC09387

26 August 1848

Nickless, Samuel, fl. 1848

Autograph letter signed

Title: [Invitation to speak]

Samuel Nickless, treasurer of William Still's Philadelphia Vigilance Committee, part of the Underground Railroad, asks an unnamed lecturer to come and speak: "The members of the 2nd African Presbyterian Church take the liberty of asking you to give us a lecture, showing what we can do toward hastening the emancipation of the slave."

GLC09396

1846-1847

Header Record

Title: The Non-Slaveholder, volumes 1 and 2

The Non-Slaveholder, Volumes I and II. Contains two Frederick Douglass letters describing his treatment on the ship in which he returned to the United States in 1847. "…not one of all of them had paid more for their passage than I had, yet while I was confined like a criminal to a certain part of the ship because of my colour, they enjoyed the privilege of going at large, and in the spacious saloon from which I was excluded." Vol. I 200 pp. Vol. II 288 pp.

GLC09399

1857-1864 ca.

Photograph signed

Title: [Carte de visite of Owen Lovejoy]

Signed carte-de-visite of Radical Republican congressman Owen Lovejoy from Illinois. Lovejoy's Princeton, Ill. homestead was an important Underground Railroad station.

GLC09410

8 April 1848

Wheeler, Frank, fl. 1848

Autograph letter signed

Title: to his mother

Lt. of 2nd Illinois Volunteers, re dining with former Mexican president General Santa Anna in Puebla: "His opinion of the war is this, he said he thought that the Mexican people would send for him again and as to peace there would be none."

GLC09283

2 May 1846

Hunter, Nathaniel Wyche, fl. 1846

Autograph letter signed

Title: to Sarah R. Golding

Capt. of 2nd U.S. Dragoons, Galveston, Texas writes about the opening of the Mexican War: "There will be ten thousand troops on the Rio Grande in two weeks....I shall go directly to Point Isabel and if not in the hands of the enemy shall land and join my company. We can keep to sea until our fuel is exhausted if we cannot get ashore."

GLC09284

December 1860

Jones, William E., 1824-1864

Autograph letter

Title: to newspaper editor

Letter to newspaper editor, intended for publication, calling to prepare for coming Civil War: "With the old and the young, rifle practice should be the order of the day for we may have to meet the enemy abroad and at home.…the devil in the shape of an abolitionist might well be defied."

GLC09285

25 March 1832

Jackson, Andrew, 1767-1845

Autograph letter signed

Title: to L. Jones

Cancelling a purchase of four young slaves on behalf of his adopted son, Andrew (Donelson) Jackson, Jr.: "If the negroes have not been bought and sent on…give yourself no further trouble on the subject.… I wish him now to attend to & manage his own business."

GLC09288

1848-1858

Boomer, Susan B., fl. 1848-1858

Diary

Title: Susan B. Boomer Diary 1848-1858

Diary of a young woman who left Massachusetts to settle in Bristol, Illinois, with opinions on slavery, patriotism, the Compromise of 1850, and the Fugitive Slave Act. "I spent the night at Uncle James's. During the evening a fugitive slave was introduced to the family. He was entertained with more sympathy than is common for strangers. And indeed his situation demanded it. A man bearing the image of his God & equally deserving to enjoy equal freedom.… I never saw a man fleeing for his freedom before.… I am reading Sewards life of J. Q. Adams. It arouses in my soul the spirit of…

GLC09292

25 September 1835

Dow, John M., fl. 1835

Autograph letter signed

Title: to his brother

To his brother in Massachusetts, describing life in Augusta, Georgia:. " there is only one way for us and that is to adopt the David Crockett system & go ahead....The south is a fine place to make money.… The southern born fellows who reside in the back country are not much above the level of natives of the forest, either in regards to dress, manners, or anything else. If any misunderstanding arrives between two individuals, the only way to settle it is, to out pistols or dirks & have a fight.... Augusta contains about 10,000 inhabitants and most of them are from the Yankee Land-so…

GLC09297