Correspondence Relative to the Case of Messrs. Mason and Slidell

Washington, DC: U. S. Department of State. Very Good-. 1861. Hardcover. 15 pages; Printed wrappers. This copy was bound nearly contemporaneously with publication for the Library of Congress, in diced green cloth-backed marbled paper-covered boards. There is an old oval Library of Congress stamp in blue ink on the front wrapper, which also has faint pencil shelf marks on the blank verso; a mid-nineteenth century rectangular Library of Congress bookplate with a decorative border is mounted to the front free endpaper. The green cloth visible along the fore-edge has an old "Library of Congress" stamp lettered in gilt between two gilt ovals, and, at the top, a Federal Eagle clutching three arrows and an olive branch. (I have not seen another Library of Congress pamphlet binding like this one; their twentieth century styles are entirely different). The old bookplate has a modern "Surplus-Duplicate" over-stamped in the familiar purple ink. Someone has pencilled the notation "Trent Affair" at the head of the front wrapper. Correspondence between William Seward and various others about the Trent affair, November, 1861. On November 8, 1861, U.S. Navy Captain Charles Wilkes commanded his crew of the U.S.S. "San Jacinto" to intercept the British mail steamer Trent and arrest Confederate commissioners James M. Mason and John Slidell. En route to Europe to rally support for the Confederate cause, the two men and their secretaries were brought ashore and imprisoned at Fort Warren in Boston Harbor.The seizure of Mason and Slidell sparked an international controversy that brought the United States to the brink of war with Great Britain. To put matters briefly, U.S. Secretary of State Seward made apologies, Ambassador Charles Francis Adams (son and grandson of U.S. Presidents) relayed these messages with great skill and tact, the pair were released, and Great Britain was kept out of the Civil War. Apparently this 15 page pamphlet was also issued as an appendage to Abraham Lincoln's "Message of the President of the United States and accompanying documents from the Department of State" 1861. The Library of Congress provenance is interesting. Both Charles Francis Adams, Jr. and his brother Henry Adams wrote about the Trent Affair; did either historian hold this copy in his hands? It is now a bit shaken in its early Library of Congress pamphlet binding, which has significant erosion to the marbled paper-covered boards at the corners and edges, with irregular wear and tear to the edges of the front wrapper; the rear wrapper has more wear at the edges, and is now loosely inserted before the final binder's blank. OCLC Number: 255374799 (Cornell University copy, in their Samuel J. May Anti-Slavery Collection). .