154

Henry Clay

Currency:USD Category:Collectibles / Autographs Start Price:NA Estimated At:600.00 - 800.00 USD
Henry Clay

Bidding Over

The auction is over for this lot.
The auctioneer wasn't accepting online bids for this lot.

Contact the auctioneer for information on the auction results.

Search for other lots to bid on...
Auction Date:2018 Aug 08 @ 18:00 (UTC-5 : EST/CDT)
Location:236 Commercial St., Suite 100, Boston, Massachusetts, 02109, United States
ALS - Autograph Letter Signed
ANS - Autograph Note Signed
AQS - Autograph Quotation Signed
AMQS - Autograph Musical Quotation Signed
DS - Document Signed
FDC - First Day Cover
Inscribed - “Personalized”
ISP - Inscribed Signed Photograph
LS - Letter Signed
SP - Signed Photograph
TLS - Typed Letter Signed
ALS signed “H. Clay,” one page, 8 x 9.75, February 7, 1836. Letter to Elijah Haywood in Zanesville, Ohio. In part: "I am obliged by your letter, and am happy to find that my opinions against the Preemption system are strengthened by yours', whose ample opportunity to judge of the operations was so far superior to any that I have had. I availed myself of some of your reports, but that of 1830 had escaped my recollection. The bill having passed to the other House, I will give to some its members a reference to that report. There was no withstanding the aggregate number of the Senators from the new States and the administration party combined." Addressed on the integral leaf in Clay's hand, and franked in the upper right, "Free, H. Clay." In very good to fine condition, with creasing, slight soiling, and seal-related paper loss to the integral address leaf.

Henry Clay was violently opposed to preemption or Squatter's Rights laws and fought against them in Congress for years. These laws were designed to allow American citizens who had built upon or were otherwise occupying federally-owned land to which they held no title to purchase the land, and were written to facilitate the population of the "new states" Clay mentions in his letter. Feeling that the laws rewarded illegal acts, Clay repeatedly railed against them, to no avail. The Preemption Act of 1841 is credited with the settling of the Kansas and Nebraska Territories and the fulfillment of Manifest Destiny in North America.