Nov 08, 2018 - Sale 2492

Sale 2492 - Lot 101

Price Realized: $ 500
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 400 - $ 600
PHINEAS TAYLOR BARNUM. Autograph Letter Signed, "Phineas T Barnum," to attorney Charles Hawley, engaging him in his defense against a libel suit, and, in a postscript additionally Signed, "P.T.B.": "The court will be held at the court house in Danbury." 1 page, tall 4to; seal tear at center with loss to portion of two letters of text, faint scattered staining, address panel and docketing on verso. Danbury, 8 August 1832
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". . . The case is for publishing a libel in which I am the defendant. I have got it adjourned for counsel until tomorrow at 11 o'clock A.M. at which time I wish you without the least fail to be here and assist me. . . . Betts and Booth are both here employed by the State and are ready for action as soon as you come."

For a short time during the 1830s, Barnum published a newspaper in Bethel, CT: the Herald of Freedom. Barnum used the paper to accuse a number of people of wrongdoing, occasionally incurring libel suits in response. In 1832 he was sued by his uncle and guardian Alanson Taylor--who published a rival newspaper in Danbury. Barnum had accused him of opposing the separation of church and state and publishing in his own paper letters to the editor authored by himself.

The notion that the U.S. Constitution demands "a separation between church and state" was not explicitly established until the Supreme Court first employed the phrase in Reynolds v. United States in 1879.

From the Collection of William Wheeler III.