Description:

Lincoln Abraham

Lincoln's famous Bixby letter discussed by Supreme Court Associate Justice Harlan Stone

1p TLS on watermarked paper with "Supreme Court of the United States, Washington, D.C." letterhead, signed by then Supreme Court Associate Justice Harlan Stone (1872-1946) as "Harlan F. Stone." at center. In near fine condition. Expected paper folds and a few minor wrinkles, including one horizontal fold about .5" from the bottom. Page measures 8" x 10.5."

Harlan Stone wrote this TLS on May 16, 1941 from his chambers in Washington, DC, thanking Harold Roland Shapiro for sending him a copy of Sherman Day Wakefield's article on Lincoln's Bixby letter. "I am obliged to you for sending me, some time since, the copy of the interesting article by Mr. Wakefield on Lincoln's letter to Mrs. Bixby. I am placing it with the Bixby letter in my bound volumes of Lincoln's writings."

Lincoln's Bixby letter referred to a November 21, 1864 sympathy note written to Mrs. Bixby of Boston, Massachusetts. The Widow Bixby claimed that her five sons had been killed in the Civil War, and, moved by her sacrifice, Lincoln purportedly penned an eloquent condolence note that was ranked by some historians to be as eloquent as the Gettysburg Address. 

Yet in the 1920s, the authorship of the Bixby letter was put into question by rumors that Lincoln's private secretary John Hay (1838-1905) had really written the letter that Lincoln then signed. The original 1864 manuscript had been destroyed, so historians were left with circumstantial evidence, such as its literary style, to determine if Lincoln was the letter's author. They also collected anecdotal evidence that Hay had admitted to writing the letter before his death.

Sherman Day Wakefield (1894-1971), a researcher, genealogist, historian, and encyclopedia editor, entered the Bixby letter debate with a series of books and articles published between 1939-1948. Wakefield first explored the topic in "Did Lincoln Write the Bixby Letter?" in the February 1939 issue of Hobbies Magazine, followed by "Who Wrote Lincoln's Letter to Mrs. Bixby?" in the February 1941 issue of the same publication. It was this second article by Wakefield that Shapiro probably sent to Stone. Wakefield maintained that Hay really wrote the Bixby letter.

Stone continued: "I have not answered sooner your inquiry about my conversation with Miss Nicolay for the reason that I had hoped to meet her some time and ask her if she had any objection to the publication of what she said to me."

"Miss Nicolay" referred to Helen Nicolay (1866-1954), the daughter of John George Nicolay (1832-1901), another of Lincoln's private secretaries. After the president's death, Nicolay and Hay published a 10-volume biography called Abraham Lincoln: A History and also coedited Lincoln's Complete Works. Helen Nicolay had collaborated with her father in completing A Short Life of Abraham Lincoln. In many ways, "Abraham Lincoln's Secretary's Secretary" continued her father's legacy of commemorating the assassinated president.

Harold Roland Shapiro (active 1930-1970) was admitted to the New York bar in 1927. Shapiro served for many years as a New York City Assistant District Attorney dealing mainly with criminal cases. He was also a writer. Shapiro's scholarly interests were diverse: he published monographs on topics ranging from labor law to Lincoln biography. Shapiro also contributed to the New York Times and wrote book reviews.

Harlan Stone was first appointed to the U.S. Supreme Court by 30th U.S. President Calvin Coolidge. Stone served on the bench from 1925 to 1941 as an Associate Justice, and from 1941 to 1946 as its 12th Chief Justice. (He was appointed Chief Justice just two months after this correspondence.) Like his colleague Felix Frankfurter, Stone taught at a prestigious law school (in this case Columbia) and privately practiced before his Supreme Court appointments. Stone formed one third of the left-leaning Supreme Court's “Three Musketeers”. Throughout his twenty-year-long Supreme Court career, Stone adjudicated  issues ranging from World War I conscientious objectors to World War II German saboteurs, and from anti-trust laws to personal jurisdiction.

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