- 2140
ABRAHAM LINCOLN. DOCUMENT SIGNED, 1 JUNE 1863, BEING A PARDON FOR A WEST VIRGINIA "MOCCASIN RANGER"
估價
12,000 - 18,000 USD
招標截止
描述
- Manuscript document signed ("Abraham Lincoln") as sixteenth President, being an official wartime pardon of Jacob Varner a month before Union victories at Gettysburg and Vicksburg
2 pages on a single sheet of wove paper (16 5/8 x 10 5/8 in.; 423 x 270 mm), written in a clerical hand, Washington, 1 June 1863, countersigned by Acting Secretary of State Frederick W. Seward, large embossed paper seal of the United States fully intact; neatly repaired at two horizontal fold separations, lightly mat toned.
來源
Sotheby's New York, 21 June 2007, lot 54 (undesignated consignor)
出版
R. J. Knotts Jr., "The Moccasin Ranger Raid on Ripley," in West Virginia in the Civil War, ed. Boyd Stutter (Charleston, 1963); cf. Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, ed. Basler, 6:240
Condition
2 pages on a single sheet of wove paper (16 5/8 x 10 5/8 in.; 423 x 270 mm), written in a clerical hand, Washington, 1 June 1863, countersigned by Acting Secretary of State Frederick W. Seward, large embossed paper seal of the United States fully intact; neatly repaired at two horizontal fold separations, lightly mat toned.
In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective qualified opinion.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING CONDITION OF A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD "AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF SALE PRINTED IN THE CATALOGUE.
In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective qualified opinion.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING CONDITION OF A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD "AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF SALE PRINTED IN THE CATALOGUE.
拍品資料及來源
A Lincoln pardon for a West Virginia "Moccasin Ranger" that helped extend legal military protection to partisan guerrilla fighters. Virginia seceded from the Union on 17 April 1861, but about a month later a number of northwestern counties voted to defy the ordinance of secession and established a restored loyal government at Wheeling. Union supporters in West Virginia quickly became a target of maurading Confederate partisans. One of the most active bands of Virginia rangers was a company of Moccasin Rangers led by Daniel Duskey. In December 1861, Duskey led a raid against Ripley, West Virginia, where Federal troops were being raised. Duskey's men captured and looted the town, including the local post office. Early in 1862, Duskey and several of his men were captured by Union troops, and Duskey, his son George, and Jacob Varner—the subject of the present pardon—were indicted in the United States District Court for mail robbery.
Defense lawyers for Duskey and Varner (George Duskey had in the meantime escaped) claimed that the men were war agents of the Virginia Confederate Government and that their raid on the Ripley post office, which was not denied, was a political rather than criminal action. Nonetheless, both defendents were convicted and sentenced to prison, first in Washington, D.C., then in Albany, New York.
In January 1863, Virginia Governor John Letcher demanded that President Lincoln recognize and treat partisan rangers, including Duskey and Varner, as prisoners of war. To underline his point, Letcher put two captured officers from the Federal Eighth (West) Virginia Infantry, Captain William Gramm and Lieutenant Isaac Wade, at hard labor as common felons in the state penitentiary. Letcher's actions led West Virginia Governor Francis Perpont to threaten "to place double the number of rebel Virginia officers of superior and equal rank in a chain gang in Ohio County and set them to breaking stone on the National road until those Virginia officers are released or exchanged." The difficulty was that since Varner and Duskey were being held on criminal charges and not as prisoners of war, they could not be released or exchanged without a presidential pardon. R. J. Knotts Jr., who has written at length about the legal travails of the Moccasin Rangers, noted that "The case in Washington batted around from Secretary of War Stanton, to Attorney General Bates, to Secretary of State Seward, to military authorities, than thence to the White House, without much result."
The tipping point seems to have been reached when Lincoln received a petition for a pardon of Jacob Varner signed by all of the members of the jury that convicted him. The jurors explained that Varner was "an ignorant man … the victim of designing politicians who deluded such as himself into the belief of the priority of State allegiance to that of the Government of the Country." Lincoln sent the jurors' petition to Edward Bates on 1 June 1863 with this endorsement: "As the Judge, Jury, Marshal, District Attorney & Post-Master General, join in asking a pardon in this case, I have concluded to grant it. The Attorney General will please make it out & sent it to me." Bates returned the pardon document (countersigned by Frederick W. Stanton, who frequently acted as Secretary of State in his father's absence) that same day:
"Whereas, at the April Term, 1862 of the District Court of the United States for the Western District of Virginia, one Jacob Varner was convicted of mail robbery, and sentenced to imprisonment in the Washington, D. C. Penitentiary, for the period of three years;—
"And whereas, it appears that the said Jacob Varner has a wife and ten children dependent on his labor; and that in the commission of his said offence, he was the tool of more designing criminals;—
"And whereas, the Judge, U.S. Attorney and U. S. Marshal for the said District, the jurors before whom the said Jacob Varner was tried, and the Postmaster General of the U. States, have all petitioned that he be released from further duress;
"Now, therefore, be it known, that I, Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States of America, in consideration of the premises, divers other good and sufficient reasons me thereunto moving, have granted and do hereby grant unto him, the said Jacob Varner, a full and unconditional pardon."
By citing a roster of all of those who had petitioned him to issue the pardon, Lincoln was able to avoid the appearance that he been coerced by Governor Letcher's threat.
Varner was released from prison on 4 June, and on 13 June Daniel Duskey was pardoned as well. On 1 July 1863, Captain Gramm and Lieutenant Wade were paroled and the affair of the Moccasin Ranger Raid on Ripley was finally concluded. Perhaps not coincidentally, West Virginia was officially admitted to the Union just as this issue was being settled, 20 June 1863.
Defense lawyers for Duskey and Varner (George Duskey had in the meantime escaped) claimed that the men were war agents of the Virginia Confederate Government and that their raid on the Ripley post office, which was not denied, was a political rather than criminal action. Nonetheless, both defendents were convicted and sentenced to prison, first in Washington, D.C., then in Albany, New York.
In January 1863, Virginia Governor John Letcher demanded that President Lincoln recognize and treat partisan rangers, including Duskey and Varner, as prisoners of war. To underline his point, Letcher put two captured officers from the Federal Eighth (West) Virginia Infantry, Captain William Gramm and Lieutenant Isaac Wade, at hard labor as common felons in the state penitentiary. Letcher's actions led West Virginia Governor Francis Perpont to threaten "to place double the number of rebel Virginia officers of superior and equal rank in a chain gang in Ohio County and set them to breaking stone on the National road until those Virginia officers are released or exchanged." The difficulty was that since Varner and Duskey were being held on criminal charges and not as prisoners of war, they could not be released or exchanged without a presidential pardon. R. J. Knotts Jr., who has written at length about the legal travails of the Moccasin Rangers, noted that "The case in Washington batted around from Secretary of War Stanton, to Attorney General Bates, to Secretary of State Seward, to military authorities, than thence to the White House, without much result."
The tipping point seems to have been reached when Lincoln received a petition for a pardon of Jacob Varner signed by all of the members of the jury that convicted him. The jurors explained that Varner was "an ignorant man … the victim of designing politicians who deluded such as himself into the belief of the priority of State allegiance to that of the Government of the Country." Lincoln sent the jurors' petition to Edward Bates on 1 June 1863 with this endorsement: "As the Judge, Jury, Marshal, District Attorney & Post-Master General, join in asking a pardon in this case, I have concluded to grant it. The Attorney General will please make it out & sent it to me." Bates returned the pardon document (countersigned by Frederick W. Stanton, who frequently acted as Secretary of State in his father's absence) that same day:
"Whereas, at the April Term, 1862 of the District Court of the United States for the Western District of Virginia, one Jacob Varner was convicted of mail robbery, and sentenced to imprisonment in the Washington, D. C. Penitentiary, for the period of three years;—
"And whereas, it appears that the said Jacob Varner has a wife and ten children dependent on his labor; and that in the commission of his said offence, he was the tool of more designing criminals;—
"And whereas, the Judge, U.S. Attorney and U. S. Marshal for the said District, the jurors before whom the said Jacob Varner was tried, and the Postmaster General of the U. States, have all petitioned that he be released from further duress;
"Now, therefore, be it known, that I, Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States of America, in consideration of the premises, divers other good and sufficient reasons me thereunto moving, have granted and do hereby grant unto him, the said Jacob Varner, a full and unconditional pardon."
By citing a roster of all of those who had petitioned him to issue the pardon, Lincoln was able to avoid the appearance that he been coerced by Governor Letcher's threat.
Varner was released from prison on 4 June, and on 13 June Daniel Duskey was pardoned as well. On 1 July 1863, Captain Gramm and Lieutenant Wade were paroled and the affair of the Moccasin Ranger Raid on Ripley was finally concluded. Perhaps not coincidentally, West Virginia was officially admitted to the Union just as this issue was being settled, 20 June 1863.