The Seward‐Fillmore Feud And The U.S. Patent Office

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size Notes1. Annual Report of the Secretary of the Treasury on Finances [1848], House Exec. Doc. no. 7,30th Cong., 2d sess., 1848‐49, Serial 538,35‐38; Congressional Globe, 30th Cong., 2d sess., 1848‐49, vol. 20,542^4,677‐80.2. David M. Potter, The Impending Crisis, 1848‐1861, ed. Don E. Fehrenbacher, New American Nation Series (New York, 1976), 81‐82; Glyndon G. Van Deusen, Thurlow Weed, Wizard of the Lobby (Boston, 1947), chap. 11.3. Harry J. Carman and Reinhard H. Luthin, 'The Seward‐Fillmore Feud and the Crisis of 1850,' New York History 24 (April 1943): 163‐64; Aida DiPace Donald, “Prelude to Civil War: The Decline of the Whig Party in New York, 1848‐1852” (Ph.D. diss., University of Rochester, 1961), 106; Robert J. Rayback, Millard Fillmore, Biography of a President, Buffalo Historical Society Publication no. 40 (Buffalo, N.Y., 1959), 201‐04.4. Quoted in Frederick W. Seward, Seward at Washington ... A Memoir of His Life ... 1846‐1861 (New York, 1891), 2:101, 103; Glyndon G. Van Deusen, William Henry Seward (New York, 1967), 112; Holman Hamilton, Zachary Taylor: Soldier in the White House (Indianapolis, 1951), 82‐87.5. Madelene Vinton Dahlgren, “Samuel Finley Vinton,” Ohio Archeological and Historical Publications 4 (1895): 245‐47, 257; cf. The Diary of James K. Polk during His Presidency, 1845‐1849, ed. Milo Milton Quaife (Chicago, 1910), 4:371‐72.6. Rayback, Millard Fillmore, 215; Holman Hamilton, Prologue to Conflict: The Crisis and the Compromise of 1850 (Lexington, Ky., 1964), chap. 5; Joel H. Silbey, The Shrine of Party: Congressional Voting Behavior, 1841‐1852 (Pittsburgh, 1967), chap. 8.7. Seward, Seward at Washington, 2:100. For Ewing description, see “Autobiography of Martin Van Buren,” ed. John C Fitzpatrick, in American Historical Association, Annual Report [1918] (1920; reprint, New York, 1973), 745; Hamilton, Zachary Taylor, 96, 163.8. Charles M. Wiltse, John C. Calhoun: Sectionalism 1840‐1850 (Indianapolis, 1951), 395; Hamilton, Zachary Taylor, 166‐67, 203; George Rawlings Poage, Henry Clay and the Wiig Party (Chapel Hill, 1936), 185‐86; Ewing to George Robertson, 29 Mar. 1849, microfilm ed., Interior Dept., Letter, Private, Thomas Ewing Papers in the Ewing Family Collection (Notre Dame, Ind., 1967).9. Robert Toombs to J. J. Crittenden, 23 Apr. 1850, quoted in Carman and Luthin, “Seward‐Fillmore Feud and Crisis,” 170‐71; Daniel D. Barnard to Fillmore, 15 Dec. 1849, quoted in Donald, “Prelude to Civil War,” 155.10. Daniel Walker Howe, The Political Culture of the American Whigs (Chicago, 1979), 146‐47,207,244; Michael F. Holt, The Political Crisis of the 1850s (New York, 1978), chap. 4.11. Hamilton, Zachary Taylor, 164, 207. For letters urging Ewbank's appointment, see Interior Dept., Office of the Secretary, Appointment Div. (Presidential), Commissioner of Patents, file 112, National Archives Record Group 48 (hereafter cited as RG 48).12. Report of the Commissioner of Patents [1849], part 1, Senate Exec. Doc. no. 15,31st Cong., 1st sess., 1849‐50, Serial 555, 6‐13; Clerks–Department of the Interior, House Exec. Doc. no. 79, 31st Cong., 1st sess., 1849‐50, Serial 579; A. Hunter Dupree, Science and the Federal Government: A History of Policies and Activities to 1940 (Cambridge, Mass., 1957), 110‐11.13. Congressional Globe, 31st Cong., 1st sess., 1850, vol. 21, part 1, 85, 197, 220, 278, 550‐53, 557‐61, 570‐76, 766‐67, 782‐91, 798; ibid., part 2,1209‐24, 1913, 1924; Ewing to William A. Richardson, 6 May 1850, RG 48, Letter Book, Misc., no. 1.14. Seward, quoted in The Works of William H. Seward, ed. George E. Baker (New York, 1853), ldxxxvi; Van Deusen, William Henry Seward, 122‐24; Fillmore, quoted in The Papers of Daniel Webster: Correspondence, Vol. 7, 1850‐1852, ed. Charles M. Wiltse and Michael J. Birkner (Hanover, N.H., 1986), 164.15. Holman Hamilton, Prologue to Conflict; cf. Potter, Impending Crisis; Holt, Political Crisis.16. Rayback, Millard Fillmore, 242‐44; Stuart to bureau heads, 1 Nov. 1850, RG 48, Letter Book, Misc., no. 1; D. C. Goddard to Stuart, 1 Nov. 1850, ibid.; Alexander F. Robertson, Alexander Hugh Holmes Stuart, 1807‐1891: A Biography (Richmond, Va., 1925), 53; Crittenden to Stuart, 7 Dec. 1850, RG 48, Land and Railroads Div., Letters Received, Opinions of Attorney General, box A; Crittenden to Stuart, 19 July 1852, RG 48, Patents and Miscellaneous Div., Letters Received, file 345.17. Harry J. Carman and Reinhard Luthin, “The Seward‐Fillmore Feud and the Disruption of the Whig Party,” New York History 24 (July 1943): 335‐38, 340‐44; Holt, Political Crisis, 117‐18.18. Report of the Commissioner of Patents [1851], part 1, Senate Exec. Doc. no. 118, 32d Cong., 1st sess., 1851‐52, Serial 624, 9‐12; Ewbank to Stuart, 30 Jan. 1852, RG 48, Patents and Miscellaneous Div., Letters Received, file 75.19. E. MERTON COULTER, Daniel Lee, Agriculturalist: His Life North and South (Athens, Ga., 1972), chaps. 3, 9; Lee to Fillmore, 23 Aug. 1850, RG 48, Patents and Miscellaneous Div., Letters Received on Agricultural Matters, file 83.20. David Maldwyn Ellis, Landlords and Farmers in the Hudson‐Mohawk Region, 1790‐1850 (1946; reprint, New York, 1967), 197; Donald, “Prelude to Civil War,” 342,355; Lee to Ewbank, 21 Jan. 1851, RG 48, Patents and Miscellaneous Div., Letters Received, file 75; Ewbank to Lee, 21 Jan. 1851, ibid.; Ewbank to Stuart, 14 Feb. 1851, ibid.21. Lee to Stuart, 22 Apr. 1851, RG 48, Patents and Miscellaneous Div., Letters Received on Agricultural Matters, file 83; Coulter, Daniel Lee, 44‐47.22. Lee to Stuart, 5 Nov. 1852, RG 48, Office of the Secretary, Appointment Div. (Presidential), Commissioner of Patents, file 112; Coulter, Daniel Lee, 49.23. Ewbank to Stuart, 14 May 1851, RG 48, Patents and Miscellaneous Div., Letters Received, file 75; Stuart to Ewbank, 15 May 1851, RG 48, Letter Book, Patents, vol. 1.24. Cooper to Ewbank, 7 Nov. 1851, 2 Feb. 1852, 11 May 1852, RG 48, Patents and Miscellaneous Div., Letters Received, file 75.25. Stuart to Fitch, 26 Aug. 1852, RG 48, Letter Book, Patents, vol. 1; Fitch to Stuart, 31 Aug. 1852, RG 48, Office of the Secretary, Appointment Div. (Presidential), Commissioner of Patents, file 112; Patent Office examining corps to A. M. Schermerhorn, 7 Sept. 1852, ibid.; Watson and Renwick to Fitch, 31 Aug. 1852, ibid.26. Stuart to Examiners of Patents, 7 May 1852, RG 48, Letter Book, Patents, vol. 1; Stuart to Ewbank, 25 June 1852, ibid; Stuart to Mary E. Fitch, 10 Nov. 1852, ibid.; Stuart to Ewbank, 30 Oct. 1852, RG 48, Office of the Secretary, Appointment Div. (Presidential), Commissioner of Patents, file 112.27. Webster to Fillmore, 11 and 15 Apr. 1851, in Wiltse and Birkner, Papers of Daniel Webster, 231‐32,234‐35; Donald, Prelude to Civil War/' 407‐08.28. Allan G. Bogue, “The New Political History in the 1970s,” in The Past Before Us: Contemporary Historical Writing in the United States, ed. Michael Kammen (Ithaca, N.Y., 1980), 231‐57; Sean Wilentz, “On Class and Politics in Jacksonian America,” in “The Promise of American History, Progress and Prospects,” ed. Stanley I. Kutler and Stanley N. Katz, Reviews in American History 10 (Dec. 1982): 45‐64; Ronald P. Formisano, The Birth of Mass Political Parties: Michigan, 1827‐1861 (Princeton, 1971); Paul Kleppner, The Cross of Culture: A Social Analysis of Midwestern Politics, 1850‐1900 (New York, 1970), 369‐70; William E. Gienapp, The Origins of the Republican Party, 1852‐1856 (New York, 1987), 66‐67; Holt, Political Crisis, chap. 5.Additional informationNotes on contributorsNorman O. FornessNorman O. Forness is an associate professor of history at Gettysburg College. He wishes to thank Michael J. Birkner, Gabor S. Boritt, Michael J. McTighe, and Kerry S. Walters for their reading and criticisms of earlier versions of this article

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