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Jefferson Davis

Currency:USD Category:Collectibles / Autographs Start Price:NA Estimated At:2,000.00 - 4,000.00 USD
Jefferson Davis

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Auction Date:2018 Dec 05 @ 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 “Jeffer: Davis,” one page both sides, 8 x 10, August 1, 1845. Letter to his "dear Wife," Varina Davis, written from Woodville. In part: "Very many inquiries have been made concerning you by our relations here and great anxiety exhibited for your welfare, as well as much desire for a visit from you, the which I have promised should be made as soon as circumstances would permit. Our friends here are well, and like intelligence has recently arrived from Feliciana, whither Hugh and wife with Ellen Davis had gone before my arrival.

Pray take care of your health and as a means of promoting its entire restoration cultivate sober, rational reflection & a just confidence in those who are entitled to affection. Extravagance of feeling necessarily brings a consequent reaction as a physical result, not unfrequently justifies it as a moral consequence, for the first branch of this view see Hume's Essay on Pleasure and Pain. I am well and my thoughts have been mainly on subjects into which at some future day you may, I hope enter, now they would have no other interest in your eyes than as connected with myself. Speaking of your eyes I thank you for keeping my reflected image in so flattering a mirror.

I gave your Father a memorandum of my movements to which it is still my intention to conform, and from Port Gibson I must go into Warren County when my where my presence seems to be needed…Give my love to all the family & let your ways be such as to smooth down the little asperities that had arisen. Combativeness is not an anger of which a Lady should give manifestation anywhere, and home is not the arena in which a man should exhibit its existence. It has been hard for me to leave you and in my sleep I so certainly return to you that I never wake without believing myself with you. May God shelter you from harm as I know your own pure spirit will protect you from wilful sin." Addressed on the integral leaf in Davis's hand to "Mrs. Varina H. Davis, care of W. B. Howell, Natches, Mi." In fine condition, with light overall wrinkling and a split to one fold in the integral address leaf.

Jefferson Davis had married Varina just six months earlier, on February 26, 1845. At the time of this letter, he was a popular public speaker and had begun to actively campaign for a seat in the House of Representatives, which he would win in Mississippi's forthcoming election. Known for his passionate and charismatic speeches, Davis spoke out in support of the annexation of Texas, and, as a member of the Southern planter class, soon became a chief opponent of abolitionists. A desirable, early letter from Davis as he embarked on his political career.