“You will have a civic battle of Magenta on your soil this fall. Your two members may save the next House— indeed may save a President if that election should be thrown into the House. The Dem’y will move heaven & earth, & the regions beneath to carry it. God grant that they may be foiled.”

Autograph Letter Signed “Schuyler Colfax”, 1 page, 197 x 129 mm. (7 3/4 x 5 in.), South Bend, Ind., 27 June 1857. A good political-content letter written in the early years of the Republican Party concerning his intention to travel to Minnesota that autumn to stump for the Republican state ticket there.

“I have just written Senator D[elano] T. Smith^* that I shall be in your State on business the last part of Aug. & first weeks of Sept. & have promised several friends there to speak a week or two for the good cause. But the State Central Com. can tell me, better than any others, where it is best to speak. I am going up the River as far as Morrison Co[.] probably. You will have a civic battle of Magenta on your soil this fall. Your two members may save the next House— indeed may save a President if that election should be thrown into the House. The Dem’y will move heaven & earth, & the regions beneath to carry it. God grant that they may be foiled.”, with a post script in the left margin: “Frank Blair told me last month in S.L. he would come also.” Other prominent Republicans canvassed Minnesota on behalf of the fledgling party that fall including Carl Schurz.^† A good political content letter documenting the early years of the Republican Party.

Schuyler COLFAX (1823-1885) was the 17th Vice President of the United States under President Ulysses S. Grant from 1869 to 1873, a United States Congressman from Indiana from 1855 to 1869, during which time he also served as the 29th Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, from 1863 to 1869. He has the distinction of being one of only two Americans (the other being John Nance Garner) to serve as both Speaker of the House and Vice President.

Slight creasing, light edge wear, usual folds, else very good.

(EXA 5219) $375

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^* Smith was a member of the Minnesota State Senate from Hennepin County from 1857 to 1858. (Political Graveyard)
^† “Political Campaign in Minnesota”, Cleveland Leader, 1 October 1859, 2: “Distinguished speakers from abroad are canvassing the State on both sides. Messrs. Hale, Grow, Colfax, Bingham and Schurz on the Republican, and Willard, Larabee, Rothe and others on the Democratic… The indications are that the Republican State Ticket will be elected by a majority of from three to five thousand, that the Legislature will be Republican, and that there will be a Republican U.S. Senator form Minnesota in Washington next winter.”