James R. Doolittle papers, 1831-1932

Author / Creator

Doolittle, James R. (James Rood), 1815-1897

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Summary

Papers of James R. Doolittle, a United States senator from Wisconsin, 1857-1869, a Republican in those years but a Democrat before and after, and a supporter of Presidents Abraham Lincoln and Andre...

Papers of James R. Doolittle, a United States senator from Wisconsin, 1857-1869, a Republican in those years but a Democrat before and after, and a supporter of Presidents Abraham Lincoln and Andrew Johnson. The correspondence before the Civil War touches upon Doolittle's political activities in New York State, family affairs in Racine, Wis., and various aspects of the slavery controversy and the election of 1860. During the war, there are requests for the use of his influence in securing political appointments, letters from his sons in the army, and letters from the Racine postmaster, John Tapley, reporting on Wisconsin affairs. Other letters concern dishonesty in the transport system, political campaigns, colonization plans for former slaves, the bank bill of 1864, and Lincoln's policy towards Jefferson Davis and Reconstruction, on Doolittle's trip through the South in 1866, on the relations between President Johnson and Congress, and on a proposed purchase of the Virgin Islands.

The papers for the years after Doolittle's retirement from the Senate are few, and relate to national Democratic election campaigns, resumption, recollections of the 1865 congressional investigation of conditions among the Cheyenne Indians, Doolittle's interest in a diplomatic appointment by Grover Cleveland, charges against Doolittle in 1885 by the New York Times of dishonest wartime dealing in cotton, the Illinois-Michigan Canal, the estate of son-in-law E.H. Pease, private legal cases, and the money question in 1896. There are speeches on many subjects, diaries containing notes on legal cases, and legal memorandum books and scrapbooks. Transcriptions and lists of Doolittle material in other institutions are also in the collection.

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