1857 JEFFERSON DAVIS ALS AUTOGRAPH LETTER TO US SECRETARY OF WAR TOUCEY PSA/DNA

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1857 JEFFERSON DAVIS ALS AUTOGRAPH LETTER TO US SECRETARY OF WAR TOUCEY PSA/DNA:
$3200.00

Independently authenticated and encapsulated by PSA/DNA. Important association letter. Autograph letter signed by Jefferson Davis. The letter introduces a William Wall to Isaac Toucey, US Secretary of the Navy and asks for consideration of his employment as a personal favor. The letter itself measures approximately 6 1/4” x 8” and is encapsulated in a larger holder. The letter shows folds. Shows age toning but overall good shape with no damage. Also includes additional provenance of a 1940 sales letter from the legendary Thomas F. Madigan Inc and return correspondence from the Washington DC purchaser. Postage is the exact amount calculated by based upon weight and distance. I do not make a profit on shipping. You are buying the material pictured.
This is an important association letter with Jefferson Davis asking consideration as a personal favor from Isaac Toucey, the US Secretary of the Navy in 1857. The political friendship of Davis and Toucey was forged through their shared allegiance to the pro-Southern wing of the Democratic Party and cemented through their time in Washington in the 1850’s. During the Pierce and Buchanan administrations, Davis (representing Mississippi) and Toucey (representing Connecticut) were closely aligned. Toucey backed Southern interests, voting for the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854 which permitted the expansion of slavery. This vote triggered a formal censure against Toucey by his home state but endeared him to southern leaders like Davis. As the Civil War broke out, Toucey as Secretary of the Navy routinely accepted the resignations of Southern Naval officers who left to join the Confederacy rather than dismissing them for disloyalty. Furthermore, Northern critics accused Toucey of treason, alleging that he intentionally dispersed the finest fighting vessels of the US Navy to distant seas specifically to prevent them from being used against Jefferson Davis’s emerging Confederate Navy. This letter only a few years before the Civil War documents that relationship and friendship, “will be acknowledged as a personal favor by yours.”