ALS by Abolitionist Politician Joshua Reed Giddings Concerning a Visit to Dover, New Hampshire
- Single two-page letter measuring 5 x 8 ¼ inches
- Concord, New Hampshire , 1859
Concord, New Hampshire, 1859. Single two-page letter measuring 5 x 8 ¼ inches. Folded, else Fine.. A letter from Joshua Reed Giddings (1795–1864) written from Concord, New Hampshire, to A. H. Barnes, Esq., in Dover. Giddings was a prominent abolitionist, lawyer, and congressman from Ohio. He was famously censured by the House for his support of the mutiny of enslaved people aboard the slave ship Creole. Here, Giddings writes:
“It would give me pleasure to visit Dover and to lecture before your association but I cannot now engage to do so on the day mentioned in your letter. The most that I could now say is I may probably visit you about that time. I must await some other peoples arrangements before I engage for that day. I may be able to say with more certainty during the next week + will write you again in a few days.”
Though it is unclear who Barnes is or what his ‘association’ is, Dover had both an anti-slavery society and an anti-slavery newspaper, both founded in the mid-1830s.
“It would give me pleasure to visit Dover and to lecture before your association but I cannot now engage to do so on the day mentioned in your letter. The most that I could now say is I may probably visit you about that time. I must await some other peoples arrangements before I engage for that day. I may be able to say with more certainty during the next week + will write you again in a few days.”
Though it is unclear who Barnes is or what his ‘association’ is, Dover had both an anti-slavery society and an anti-slavery newspaper, both founded in the mid-1830s.