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At the Institute’s core is the Gilder Lehrman Collection, one of the great archives in American history. More than 85,000 items cover five hundred years of American history, from Columbus’s 1493 letter describing the New World through the end of the twentieth century.

Taney, Roger Brooke (1777-1864) to Nathaniel Williams

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Gilder Lehrman Collection #: GLC03545.01 Author/Creator: Taney, Roger Brooke (1777-1864) Place Written: Washington, D. C. Type: Autograph letter signed Date: 29 March 1825 Pagination: 1 p. ; 25 x 20 cm. Order a Copy

Discusses the case of Solomon Etting vs. the Bank of the United States. Informs that the argument has ended today though he cannot render a guess about what the decision will be. Indicates that the case has generated a lot of excitement and will be carefully decided.

From the archive of Baltimore attorney Nathaniel Williams. Taney was appointed Attorney General of Maryland in 1827, and then became President Andrew Jackson's Attorney General in 1831. He served as Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court 1836-1864. Williams was a Baltimore lawyer, state senator, and United States District Attorney for Maryland, 1824-41. In 1819, James McCulloch, in collusion with other officials of the Bank of the United States, stole or misappropriated $3,497,700. In the settlement with the directors of the Bank of the United States, part of the security offered by McCulloch were endorsements by sixteen merchants of Baltimore, who individually bound themselves for $12,500 each. Among these merchants was Etting. Etting refused to pay his bond on the ground that he had endorsed without knowledge of McCulloch's thefts. Roger B. Taney served as Etting's lawyer. The case was decided against him.

Taney, Roger Brooke, 1777-1864
Williams, Nathaniel, 1782-1864
Etting, Solomon, 1764-1847

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