2024-01 Raynors Americana Auction
This lot is closed for bidding. Bidding ended on 1/21/2024
CDV, full seated view of Attorney General Edward Bates. The mount has gold printed rules and a back mark by Anthony from Brady negative. One key Bates decision involved the question of Black citizenship. In the summer of 1862, a ship sailing out of New Jersey had been detained by customs because its captain was African American. Ship captains were required to be US citizens, and according to the Dred Scott decision Black Americans were not considered citizens. In an opinion published in mid-December, Bates recognized free African Americans as citizens of the United States, contradicting Dred Scott v. Sandford. When pressed for clarification by Robert Charles Winthrop, Bates confirmed that citizenship rights were the same regardless of race, and that state laws limiting free Black migration and settlement were unconstitutional.
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