Autograph Letter Signed, Washington, May 10, 1854, to Charles Anthony Esqr., on Questions of the Legal Standing of Slavery, the Pro-Slavery Bias of the Supreme Court, and a Judicial Appointment in Kansas, as United States Representative from New York

Quarto, two pages, in very good, clean, and legible condition.

Perkins writes a constituent, at first discussing a routine matter of the distribution of Congressional Reports or speeches in the district before turning to the topic of Slavery:

… It is true Badgers amendment modifies the bill some what yet it is far very far from being satisfactory. It leaves an open question viz is slavery a common law matter of state right of property in negroes recognized by the constitution only to be prevented by legislation or is it a municipal local law which under our system can only exist by legal enactment – I have a pretty clear conviction that the Southern Judges who compose the majority of our supreme court will hold the former & the judges of non slaveholding states the latter. Beside it is just as certain as that two & two make four that a Southern judge will be appointed for Kanzas and no man can be appointed & confirmed by the senate as the judge of that territory whose sentiments on that question are unknown nor any unless his views are thoroughly Southern on the question.

I get on here very satisfactorily to myself and find more respect paid to the expression of my opinions than I expected so early in the session Indeed I flatter myself my standing in the house is tolerably respectable.

I presume I shall speak on the Nebraska bill I now intend doing so if I can get the floor in any tolerable season… Bishop Perkins"

Bishop Perkins (September 5, 1787, in Becket, Massachusetts – November 20, 1866 in Ogdensburg, New York) was an American lawyer and politician who served one term as a United States representative from New York from 1853 to 1855.

He graduated from Williams College in 1807. He studied law, and was admitted to the bar in 1812, commencing practice in Lisbon, New York. He subsequently moved to Ogdensburg, New York and continued the practice of law. He was clerk of the board of supervisors of St. Lawrence County from 1820 to 1852 and was appointed district attorney of St. Lawrence County on February 24, 1821, and served until May 21, 1840.

Perkins was a member of the State constitutional convention in 1846 and a member of the New York State Assembly in 1846, 1847, and again in 1849.

He was elected as a Democrat to the Thirty-third Congress, serving from March 4, 1853 – March 3, 1855. He was not a candidate for renomination in 1854.