2004-09
This lot is closed for bidding. Bidding ended on 8/31/2004
Autograph Letter Signed, “William Jay” 2-1/2p. quarto, Bedford, April 21, 1829, with integral address, to Theodore Sedgwick of Stockbridge, Massachusetts, reads in part: “...I have an excellent little book written by an old divine of your State called ‘Essays to do good’ I have an essay to propose to you which I hope you will approve & which I have no doubt will prove successful if you undertake it. It is to obtain from the Legislature of Massachusetts an expression of its opinion in favor of the abolition of Slavery in the District of Columbia. The existence of Slavery in any form in the capital of our Republic is disgraceful to the national character & in the form in which it actually exists, is revolting to humanity & natural justice. That a law of Congress should authorise the imprisonment of a free man unacused of crime, merely on suspicion of being a slave & that after that suspecion was rebutted by the fact, that on public notice of his detention , no claimant appeared, he should be sold at auction as a slave for life, on pretnece of raising money to pay his jail fees is...without a parallel in the annals of Turkish cruelty & despotism...” More. VG.
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