Autograph Letter Discussing Financial Panic, Agricultural Conditions, and the Coming Necessity of Emancipation: “The President possesses the war power to abolish slavery […] and the time will come when they will have to do it.”
Lafayette, Ohio: July 11, 1861. Autograph letter signed, 2 pp. Addressed to D. T. Chapin of Enfield, Connecticut. A concise but revealing early Civil War letter combining financial anxiety, agricultural reporting, and clear-eyed political commentary on slavery and the future course of the conflict. Writing amid the first months of.....