Scope and Content Note
The papers of Caleb Cushing (1800-1879) span the period circa 1785-1906 with the bulk of the material dating from 1820 to 1878. The collection includes diaries; journals; general and special correspondence; subject, legal, and financial files; a speech, article, and book file; and related newspaper clippings and printed matter. There is also an extensive file based on Cushing's land speculation and an additional file with papers that relate to his varied public employments, beginning with the China mission of 1843-1844 and ending with his ministry to Spain, 1873-1877.
The General Correspondence series, constituting approximately one-third of the collection, documents Cushing's life and touches on many of the national and international issues that arose during the middle years of the nineteenth century. The much less voluminous Special Correspondence series includes letters dealing with patronage questions during Cushing's congressional career (1835-1843) and during his service as President Franklin Pierce's attorney general (1853-1857). Social correspondence, autograph requests, bound correspondence, and a small amount of family correspondence complete this series.
Legal and business correspondence is included as part of the extensive Legal File. The Legal File is divided among cases in which Cushing was in some way personally involved and those in which he acted as attorney or consultant. Also in the Legal File, and separately arranged therein, are drafts of Cushing's opinions as attorney general.
Correspondence is also included in the Land Speculation and Related Business Ventures File illustrating Cushing's financial interest in lands located from Maine to Lower California.
The Speech, Article, and Book File has material as disparate as Cushing's fledgling attempts at poetry in 1816 and his philippic against Britain's Sir Alexander Cockburn in The Treaty of Washington (1873). The bulk of this file, however, is made up of drafts and printed copies of Cushing's speeches and addresses and drafts of articles for the North American Review and other publications.
A Subject File incorporates notes, memoranda, and extracts, largely in Cushing's hand and principally dealing with political topics of the day. Personal Miscellany contains biographical material, early notebooks, commissions, and photographs. Numerous lists and inventories reflect Cushing's reading habits and wide-ranging interests. Much of the Financial File is in small, dated bundles as kept by Cushing. The series of newspaper clippings and printed matter complete the collection.
From an early date Cushing was in correspondence with important figures of his day. Names such as George Bancroft, Rufus Choate, Edward Everett, Jared Sparks, and Daniel Webster appear in the General Correspondence series as early as the 1820s, and in some instances frequently reappear for decades thereafter. A number of letters and notes from John Tyler and Franklin Pierce are found during their terms as president but are not confined to those years. Every member of Pierce's cabinet, including James Campbell, Jefferson Davis, James C. Dobbins, James Guthrie, Robert McClelland, and William L. Marcy, is represented in the 1853-1857 period. Included among the many other prominent correspondents are Benjamin F. Butler, Hamilton Fish, Francis Lieber, Hugh McCulloch, Albert Pike, Gideon Johnson Pillow, Sir John Rose, William Henry Seward, Roger Brooke Taney, and John Greenleaf Whittier.
The Addition includes two items of correspondence. The first item is a printed circular letter dated 1841 from Frederick Franks hand-addressed to Cushing requesting the establishment of national banks and a uniform fiscal policy for the United States. The second is a letter dated 1853 from Cushing to attorney Philip B. Key asking his views on William W. Williamson's conviction for forging bank notes.