Letter from Howell Cobb to Eugene Le Hardy about the Southern Direct Trade Movement, 1860 May 10

Item — Box: 6476, Folder: 105

Scope and Contents

In response to northern obstructions on the southern economy throughout the 1850s, Howell Cobb and other southern leaders formed a commission to establish "direct trade" relations with foreign nations. Since Belgium was an important consumer of southern cotton with close commercial ties to the southern states, in April 1860 the commission decided to send an official delegation to Brussels in order to negotiate a direct line of trade between Belgium and the American South. The delegation was under the direction of Cobb, and it included Joseph Barbier, an official commissioner from Tennessee, and the Belgian engineer Eugene Le Hardy, the recipient of this letter.

Dates

1860 May 10

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Biographical / Historical

Georgia representative Howell Cobb (1815-1868) is best known today as one of the founders of the Confederate States of America. In 1860 he was a man of considerable fame and reputation, known by his peers as a shrewd Jacksonian Democrat and a favorite of President Buchanan, with ambitions for the presidency. After resigning as Secretary of Treasury in December 1860, Cobb became president of the convention of the seceded states that drafted a constitution for the new Confederacy, and served as speaker and president of the Confederate Provisional Congress. When war broke out he resigned to join the Confederate Army as colonel of the 16th Georgia Infantry, and later became a major general. After the war Cobb resumed his law practice and refused to participate in public affairs until he received a Presidential pardon, which came in 1868. He died of a heart attack later that year.