ALS as president, one page, 7.5 x 12.75, April 29, 1813. Letter to Governor Simon Snyder of Pennsylvania. In full: “I have received your letter of the 14th inst: accompanied by an Act of the Legislature of Pennsylvania which will receive the attention requested.” Also hand-addressed on the reverse of the second integral sheet by Madison to “His Excellency, Governor Snyder, Harrisburg,” and franked in the upper right, “James Madison.” Intersecting folds (one vertical fold passing through a single letter of the signature), scattered toning and soiling, otherwise fine condition.
The act Madison refers to concerned financing the Chesapeake and Delaware Canal Company, which had began constructing a canal between the Delaware River and Chesapeake Bay in 1804 but stopped two years later for lack of funds. Pitched to Madison as a way to ‘establish a perfectly safe, easy and Rapid transportation of our Armies and the munitions of war through the interior of the Country...which would ever tend to operate as a cement to the Union between the States,’ the act required the federal government to purchase 750 shares of the company in order to continue construction. Congress declined to authorize federal subscription to the stock and work on the canal would not resume until 1824, supported by private investment. Pre-certified PSA/DNA.
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