Description:

Great Slavery Letter, Robert M.T. Hunter Re: Clay and Compromise Bill

1p of a bifolium, measuring 7.75" x 9.75", Washington, D.C., dated August 10, 1850. Signed "RMT Hunter" and addressed to Hon. Littleton Waller Tazewell, former Governor of Virginia. Hunter seeks advice concerning slavery and the Compromise Bill of 1850. Reading in part:

"The great and habitual respect which I have always cherished for your opinions will excuse I trust my desire to have your views upon the great issues arising out of the slave question and especially upon the remedy proposed by Mr Clay in his so-called Compromise bill. Should it be your pleasure to give me these views and permit me to publish them I am sure that they could do great good at a time like this when the south stands so much in need of such counsels as yours. Should you not desire however any publication of your letter of course your wishes would be most religiously respected, but still the letter would be mighty gratifying and useful to me in enabling me to test my own opinion by such a standard as yours. I have been wishing to address you a letter for some time upon this subject but feared to trouble you until Genl [John] Millson told me that perhaps you would not think it too troublesome to reply to me…" The letter has flattened mail folds and light toning. Mounting residue is present along the left vertical edge on the front. Boldly signed. 

Robert Mercer Taliaferro Hunter (1809-1887) was a Virginian lawyer and plantation owner who served as Speaker of the House from 1839-1841. Throughout the 1850s, Hunter favored the extension of slavery and supported the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850. During the Civil War, he was elected the Confederate States Secretary of State, and his portrait can be found on the Confederate $10 bill. Littleton Waller Tazewell (1774-1860) was a fellow Virginian lawyer and plantation owner who served as Governor of Virginia from 1834 to 1836.

The Compromise of 1850 was introduced by Henry Clay and Stephen Douglas as a measure to defuse tensions surrounding the expansion of slavery into new territories. The final legislation was a combination of five separate bills that divided territories acquired during the Mexican-American War and set the western and northern borders of Texas in relation to the slave trade.

This item comes with a Certificate from John Reznikoff, a premier authenticator for both major 3rd party authentication services, PSA and JSA (James Spence Authentications), as well as numerous auction houses.

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