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Autographs/P: "Franklin Pierce" Appoints the Former Vice President George Dallas as Minister to Gre

Currency:USD Category:Everything Else / Other Start Price:NA Estimated At:6,000.00 - 8,000.00 USD
Autographs/P:  Franklin Pierce  Appoints the Former Vice President George Dallas as Minister to  Gre
FRANKLIN PIERCE. Partly-printed Document Signed, "Franklin Pierce" as President, on parchment, February 4, 1856, Washington, 13.75" x 13.75" x 17.75", Choice Extremely Fine. Appointing "George M. Dallas of Pennsylvania...Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary of the United States of America to Her Britannic Majesty." Countersigned by Secretary of State William L. Marcy. There is a single vertical fold, affecting nothing. The cream wafer seal is intact and Pierce's signature is large and beautifully executed in dark brown ink. An important document and a wonderful display item. George Mifflin Dallas was born in Philadelphia in 1792. A lawyer and Democrat, he served as mayor of Philadelphia in 1819, as U.S. Senator from 1831-1833, as attorney general of Pennsylvania from 1833-35, and as U.S. minister to Russia from 1837-39. In the presidential campaign of 1844, Dallas' championship of Texas annexation was an important factor in his nomination as vice president to James K. Polk; Texas remembered and named Dallas, Texas after him. As Vice President he supported Polk's policies. In 1846, his loyalty to the President overrode his own protectionist views and he cast a tie-breaking vote in the Senate in favor of the Walker Tariff of 1846, an administration-backed measure which curbed import duties. He retired from public service at the end of his term, until President Franklin Pierce appointed him minister to Great Britain in 1856 with the document which we offer here. He proved an able diplomat, concluding the Dallas-Clarendon Convention in 1856, which was the basis of settlement of difficulties in Central America, and convinced the British to drop their long-standing claim to the right to search foreign ships during peacetime.