I am of [the] opinion, that there will be a secession of the Slave States from the Free States": A Savannah Cotton Merchant Predicts Disunion Amid the Furor over the "Boston N-r Stealers

Savannah, Georgia, 1850. Autograph letter signed, E. Crane, to Fisher & Co. 2pp, 7 ½ x 9 ¾ inches. Folded, with some later manuscript markings on letter; excellent.. A revealing cotton market letter written from Savannah in the immediate aftermath of the Compromise of 1850 and the passage of the Fugitive Slave Act. Addressed to a Northern commercial house, the letter begins as a routine discussion of freight rates, cotton prices, and shipping conditions before turning to the increasingly bitter sectional tensions dividing North and South. Referring to abolitionists and those assisting enslaved people seeking freedom, he describes a South increasingly convinced that sectional compromise may be impossible:

"We have all sorts of times here in regard to the Boston [N-r] Stealers, as they are called, and I am of opinion, that there will be a secession of the Slave States from the Free States. We have the most gloomy times that I have ever seen."

Besides this remark, Crane comments on the "forlorn situation of your cotton market", the closures of ports due to weather, and a sample of "Sweet Carolina Potatoes" to be sent in return for a "superfine" box of "Dun Fish".

A combination of sectional politics and everyday commercial correspondence, written at a moment when many Americans were beginning to wonder whether the compromises holding the Union together could endure.