Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 12.djvu/150

 140 Southern Historical Society Papers.

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W. \V. Corcoran, Esq., our Vice-President for tiie District of Columbia, has again shown his appreciation for our work in a way which the following correspondence will explain :

Washington, D. C, February 6, 1884.

Rev. J. William Jones, D. D., Secretary of the

Southern Historical Society, Richmotid, Va:

My Dear Sir, — I have just obtained a very interesting and valuable document — being the original " Constitution for the Provisional Govern- ment of the Confederate States of America," bearing date February 8, 1861, and signed by the representatives of the States of South Carolina, Geor- gia, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisana and Texas, and it affords me pleasure to present it to your Society, which seems to me to be the proper custodian of such a relic.

I forward the document by Adams's Express Company to-day, and re- main. Very truly yours,'

W. W. Corcoran.

Office Southern Historical Society, No. 7, Library Floor State Capitol,

RiCH.MOND, Va., February 7, 1884,

W. W. Corcoran. Esq., Vice-President

Southern Historical Society for District of Columbia :

My Dear Sir, — I have to-day received your esteemed favor of the 6th instant, and the express this afternoon brought the interesting and valuable historic document to which it refers.

Allow me, in behalf of the Society, to return you our warm thanks for this renewed expression of the deep, practical, and liberal interest you have shown in our work ever since our organization.

It is a source of peculiar gratification to us that one whose princely mu- nificence has carried sunshine into so many desolated Southern homes, gladness to so many sorrowing hearts, should manifest so hearty an interest in our efforts to collect, collate, preserve and publish the material for a true history of the Government and people whose original Constitution you now place in our archives, doing us the honor to say that the Southern His- toricnl Society seems to you "to be the proper custodian of such a relic."

We shall sacredly preserve this beautiful memento of the Confederacy, which

" rose 80 white and fair,

And fell so pure of crimes " ;

and we shall not fail to suitably link with it the name of our honored bene- factor, whose wise liberality enabled us first to begin the publication of our