ORIGINAL AUTOGRAPH LETTER SIGNED by HENRY CLAY to JOHN CRITTENDEN - Re: SLAVERY

Description

CLAY, HENRY. Original Autograph Letter Signed by Henry Clay to John J. Crittendon
. New Orleans, LA: Single sheet, 7 7/8” x 9 3/4”, 1843. Original Autograph Letter Signed by Southern statesman, orator, and politician Henry Clay, dated January 15, 1843 from New Orleans, LA to longtime political friend and ally, and Kentuckian, John Jordan Crittenden in Washington D.C.. Crittenden, at this time was a U.S. Senator for Kentucky, having succeeded Clay in that position. Here, Clay asks to obtain a record of an 1841 Supreme Court decision on a case, Groves v. Slaughter. The letter reads in full: “My dear Sir, I would be very much obliged to you, if you would obtain for me, with as little delay as possible, and transmit it to me by mail to this place, a Copy of the opinion of the Judges of the S. Court in the case of Slaughter (the Mississippi Slave case) decided Term before last, certified in the form to be used as evidence in a Court of Justice. Our friend Peters, perhaps could assist you in procuring it, if the opinions are not recorded. Your friend, H. Clay”. Integral attached leaf bears a three-line autograph address and New Orleans and “Free” postal marks. There is minor paper residue from previous framing, well away from text, signature, and address. Groves v. Slaughter dealt with the purchase of slaves in Mississippi. The purchaser argued he did not owe the slave-trader for the transaction because a State law passed in 1832 forbid the importation of slaves for in-state sale after a certain date. The issue dealt with Federal rights to regulate interstate commerce and states’ rights to constitutionally regulate the slave trade. In a split opinion, the court argued, in serpentine fashion, that the individual states held the power of regulation of such commerce. Chief Justice Taney concurred in an opinion that foretold the arguments offered in the notorious Dred Scott decision of 1857. A slave owner himself, Clay opposed the expansion of slavery to the Federal territories and new States that entered the Union. From the Compromise of 1820 to his magnificent speech to the Senate in 1850, he fought the losing fight to keep an impossible situation, slavery, from rending the U.S.