This 1856 Senator Henry Wilson Cut Autograph + Printed Civil War Union Anti-Slavery Civil War Letter to John Parker (Underground Railroad) about Anson Burlingame's Duel with US House Representative Preston Brooks in defense of US Senator Charles Sumner without signature + 8x10 Henry Wilson 1860s Print Etching is the exact item you will receive and has been certified Authentic by REM Fine Collectibles.
Henry Wilson (born Jeremiah Jones Colbath; February 16, 1812 – November 22, 1875) was an American politician who was the 18th vice president of the United States from 1873 until his death in 1875 and a senator from Massachusetts from 1855 to 1873.
Before and during the American Civil War, he was a leading Republican, and a strong opponent of slavery. Wilson devoted his energies to the destruction of "Slave Power", the faction of slave owners and their political allies which anti-slavery Americans saw as dominating the country.
Originally a Whig, Wilson was a founder of the Free Soil Party in 1848. When the Free Soil party dissolved in the mid-1850s, Wilson joined the Republican Party, which he helped found, and which was organized largely in line with the anti-slavery coalition he had nurtured in the 1840s and 1850s.
While a senator during the Civil War, Wilson was considered a "Radical Republican", and his experience as a militia general, organizer, commander of a Union Army regiment, and chairman of the Senate military committees enabled him to assist the Abraham Lincoln administration in the organization and oversight of the Union Army and Union Navy.
Wilson successfully authored bills that outlawed slavery in Washington, D.C., and incorporated African Americans in the Union Civil War effort in 1862. Throughout his career, Wilson was known for championing causes that were at times unpopular, including workers' rights for both blacks and whites and the abolition of slavery. Some believed Wilson to be the most skilled political organizer in the country.
John P. Parker (c. 1827 – January 30, 1900) was an American abolitionist, inventor, iron moulder and industrialist. Parker, who was African American, helped hundreds of slaves to freedom in the Underground Railroad resistance movement based in Ripley, Ohio. He saved and rescued fugitive slaves for nearly fifteen years. He was one of the few black people to patent an invention before 1900. His house in Ripley has been designated a National Historic Landmark and restored.
Parker joined the resistance movement, known as the Underground Railroad, whose members aided slaves escaping across the river from Kentucky to get further North to freedom; some chose to go to Canada. He guided hundreds of slaves along their way, continuing despite a $1,000 bounty placed on his head by slaveholders. The federal Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 increased the penalties for such activism. Parker risked his own freedom every time he went to Kentucky to help slaves to escape. During the Civil War, he recruited a few hundred slaves for the Union Army.
Anson Burlingame (November 14, 1820 – February 23, 1870) was an American lawyer, Republican/American Party legislator, diplomat, and abolitionist. As diplomat, he served as the U.S. minister to China (1862–1867) and then as China's envoy to the U.S., which resulted in the 1868 landmark Burlingame Treaty.
In May 1856, Senator Charles Sumner (R-Massachusetts) delivered a fiery anti-slavery speech. He was subsequently brutally assaulted in the Senate chamber by Representative Preston Brooks (D-South Carolina), who was hailed as a hero by the pro-slavery South.
Shortly afterwards, Burlingame delivered what The New York Times referred to as "the most celebrated speech of his career: a scathing denunciation of Brooks' assault on Sumner, branding him as "the vilest sort of coward" on the House floor. In response, Brooks challenged Burlingame to a duel, stating he would gladly face him "in any Yankee mudsill of his choosing". Burlingame eagerly accepted; as the challenged party, he had his choice of weapons and location.
A well-known marksman, he selected rifles as the weapons and the Navy Yard on the Canadian side of the U.S. border in Niagara Falls as the location (in order to circumvent the U.S. ban on dueling).
Brooks, reportedly dismayed by both Burlingame's unexpectedly enthusiastic acceptance and his reputation as a crack shot, neglected to show up, instead citing unspecified risks to his safety if he were to cross "hostile country" (the northern U.S. states) in order to reach Canada. Burlingame's solid defense of a fellow Bostonian greatly raised his stature throughout the North.
Burlingame, California; Burlingame, Kansas; and Anson, Wisconsin, are all named after Anson Burlingame. The ranch which Burlingame purchased in San Mateo on the San Francisco Bay retained his name and was eventually developed after his death.