Feb 27, 2007 - Sale 2105

Sale 2105 - Lot 12

Price Realized: $ 9,000
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 12,000 - $ 18,000
THE ONLY KNOWN PRESIDENTIAL PARDON UNDER THE FUGITIVE SLAVE ACT PIERCE, FRANKLIN. Document Signed as President, pardoning Noah C. Hanson for harboring runaway slaves; co-signed by William L. Marcy, as Secretary of State with the Great Seal of the United States of America. Single large folio leaf, written on both sides in a neat hand, 16 1/2x10 3/4 inches; professionally conserved with some archival paper repairs. Washington, 19 July 1854

Additional Details

". . . Noah C. Hanson was convicted of harboring slaves; and sentenced to pay a fine of one thousand and eighty dollars, one half to the use of the owner of said slaves, and to stand committed until said fine and costs be paid. . . therefore, be it known that I, Franklin Pierce, President of the United States of America, . . . do hereby grant unto him the said Noah C. Hanson, a pardon and release from so much of said judgement, and sentence as declares that he shall be committed in imprisonment until said fine and costs be paid; and he is hereby released from imprisonment, but not from his obligation to pay said fine and costs out of any property he may now or hereafter possess."