TLS, one page, 7.75 x 10.25, The Vice President's Chamber letterhead, June 3, 1901. Letter to F. G. Fincke, in full: "I inclose the letters. If you think that decision made us lose morally in the eyes of Europe, you have a mighty poor conception of European morality!" Roosevelt adds a lengthy handwritten postscript, in full: "Seriously, unless we were to go back to the Dred Scott decision, I fail to see how the Supreme Court could do otherwise than it did; I should have felt another decision to be a real calamity, and am astounded at the narrowness of the margin in the vote." In very good condition, with overall creasing and several horizontal folds. Accompanied by the original mailing envelope, which bears a pre-printed free frank.
Vice President Roosevelt wrote this letter six days after the Supreme Court resolved the issue of whether or not the Constitution covered the Philippines and Puerto Rico. The Court decided that the new possessions belonged to the United States and were therefore under the authority of Congress, but that their inhabitants were not US citizens. In comparison, Roosevelt invokes the infamous Dred Scott case, which declared that no black person of enslaved ancestry could claim United States citizenship.
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