Southern Historical Society Papers, Volume 12.
Reverend J. William Jones, Ed.

My Dear Sir,—I have just obtained a very interesting and valuable document—being the original ‘Constitution for the Provisional Government of the Confederate States of America,’ bearing date February 8, 1861, and signed by the representatives of the States of South Carolina, Georgia, 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 remain,

Very truly yours,

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 munificence 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 Historical 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 so white and fair,
And fell so pure of crimes;

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