Associate Justice of the Supreme Court (1804-1884) from 1862 to 1881, appointed to the bench by Abraham Lincoln. ALS signed “N. H. Swayne,” three pages on two adjoining sheets, 5 x 8, March 3, 1880. Letter to Mr. Butler, in part: "Your kind note is received. We learned the sad event to which it relates—the day after it occurred. Mrs. Swayne & myself were and painfully impressed. We have never known a lady whom we admired and respected more. Mrs. Swayne was singularly attached to him. The party left for Europe a very few days before we returned. Mrs. Lord is doing wisely. But alas! there is no balm in this life for such a wound. When a young man loses a young beautiful wife—the world around him is full of sympathy and commiseration. But what is his sorrow as compares with that of one who loses the wife he has bred with—and admired and cherished and loved and felt to the better part of his being, from early manhood to old life? The former usually in a few years, repairs his loss by taking another wife…To the old man the loss can never be supplied. His future is full of darkness and gloom and must remain so until he himself takes his departure from life." In fine condition. Accompanied by an engraved portrait bearing a facsimile signature. From the Collection of Dr. Lawrence E. Miller.
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