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At the Institute’s core is the Gilder Lehrman Collection, one of the great archives in American history. More than 85,000 items cover five hundred years of American history, from Columbus’s 1493 letter describing the New World through the end of the twentieth century.

Chase, Salmon P. (Salmon Portland), 1808-1873 to Alexander S. Latty

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Gilder Lehrman Collection #: GLC00018 Author/Creator: Chase, Salmon P. (Salmon Portland), 1808-1873 Place Written: Washington, District of Columbia Type: Autograph letter signed Date: May 30, 1854 Pagination: 1 p. : docket Height: 21 cm, Width: 18 cm Order a Copy

Urges him to sign and circulate a petition concerning slavery he is working on with Senator Benjamin Franklin Wade. Writes "...it is time to have a Democracy of the People against the Oligarchy of the Slaveholder. So sir, I pray you, If our call rally the People nobody will be afraid to join us for every thing will be swept before the Young Democracy...I think it cannot fail to be successful as the question is reduced to a narrow concern are we to be free or not."

Latty, A. Sankey (Alexander Sankey), 1815-1895
Chase, Salmon P. (Salmon Portland), 1808-1873
Wade, B. F. (Benjamin Franklin), 1800-1878

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