AUTOGRAPH LETTER, SIGNED AT WASHINGTON BY RHODE ISLAND CONGRESSMAN WILLIAM P. SHEFFIELD, 14 JUNE 1862, TO A. R. COOKE Sheffield, William P. AFRO-AMERICANA,AMERICANA,AUTOGRAPH,CIVIL WAR,PRESIDENCY

Octavo sheet, folded to [4] pp. Folded for mailing, with light spotting and a couple of light ink smudges. Very Good. Sheffield, newly elected to Congress from Rhode Island, was a Republican. But he did not wholeheartedly support the policies of his Party or the Administration. He felt "oppressed by the situation of the country and the weight of the business before Congress. To baffle the efforts to engraft radical measures upon our legislation is an object which requires ceaseless attention." He believed "in my conscience" that proposals for confiscation of slaveholder property and slave emancipation "which have been before Congress to be the most dangerous measures that were ever presented to its attention. I have done all in my power to defeat. . . these obnoxious laws. It is well understood that the President is opposed to both measures, yet he has not nerve enough to come out and flatly avow his opposition, or else he hopes that they may be defeated in Congress and he will thusly escape the odium attendant upon a committal" while appeasing the Abolitionist fanatics in Congress, who are "afraid to trust the President."