May 04, 2017 - Sale 2446

Sale 2446 - Lot 38

Price Realized: $ 1,040
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 1,500 - $ 2,500
"WE ARE IN THE MIDST OF AN INTERESTING DISCUSSION ON THE KANSAS QUESTION" DAVIS, JEFFERSON. Autograph Letter Signed, "Jeff'nDavis," to Franklin Pierce aide and biographer Sidney Webster, explaining that he is indefinitely committed to discussion in the Senate concerning Kansas, promising to keep Franklin Pierce informed by sending him copies of the [Congressional] Globe, and recommending the climate of Madeira [Portugal?] to Mrs. Pierce. 1 page, 4to, with integral blank; faint foxing at folds. Washington, 31 December 1857
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". . . We are in the midst of an interesting discussion on the Kansas question in the Senate & no one can foresee the end of it. I presume I shall have to take part in the debate myself, but to what extent I cannot now say. I am sending General Pierce the Daily Globe so that he may see what we are doing. I feel sure the Climate of Madeira will be serviceable to Mrs. P. . . ."
In 1854, the territories of Kansas and Nebraska were created by the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act, a law which left the question of the legality of slavery within each territory to the popular vote of the territory inhabitants. Violent and political confrontation followed as anti- and pro-slavery supporters flocked to Kansas to become or influence settlers during a period extending to the Civil War known as "Bleeding Kansas." A number of state constitutions were proposed and rejected for Kansas, including the Topeka and Lecompton Constitutions, both of which were sent to Congress for ratification at the end of 1857. When Congress admitted Kansas to the Union in 1861, it did so under yet another constitution: the Wyandotte Constitution.