Name/Title
LetterEntry/Object ID
2019.021.0016Scope and Content
This is a letter from the U.S. Attorney General's Office to The Secretary of War, Jefferson Davis, and is dated 08/22,1854. The letter lays out the reasons why it isn't enough to just show that the title to the Arsenal lands by General Vallejo is defective and therefore the lands are part of the Public Domain and therefore the Arsenal claims are valid. It also raises the problems created by the clause in the original Semple, Larkin Phelp's deed to the Government which causes parts of the lands that aren't used in 10 years to revert back to Semple, Larkin and Phelps.
Caleb Cushing (January 17, 1800 – January 2, 1879) was an American Democratic politician and diplomat who served as a Congressman from Massachusetts and Attorney General under President Franklin Pierce.
He became an associate justice of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court in 1852, and during the administration of President Franklin Pierce, from March 7, 1853, until March 3, 1857, was 23rd Attorney General of the United States. Cushing, a "doughface", i.e., a Northerner with Southern sympathies, supported the Dred Scott decision and to such a degree that Chief Justice Roger B. Taney, who wrote the decision, wrote Cushing a letter thanking him for his support.
Despite having favored states' rights and opposed the abolition of slavery, during the Civil War, he supported the Union.Collection
Benicia Historical Museum Collection
