Duff Green Papers, 1810-1902.

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Summary

Creator:
Green, Duff, 1791-1875.
Abstract:

Duff Green was a journalist, politician, and industrial promoter.

The collection chiefly consists of correspondence, business records, and writings of Duff Green and of his son, Benjamin Edwards Green (1822-1907), businessman and diplomat. The bulk of the papers relate to far-flung and diverse business enterprises, a lesser but substantial part to politics. Correspondence, contracts, deeds, legal proceedings, legislative memorials, account books, and corporation charters, prospectuses, and directors' proceedings reflect the Greens' activities and plans in finance, canals, railroads, coal and ore mining, manufacturing, insurance, postal contracts, and many other areas of business before and after the Civil War, touching Mexico and most of the United States, particularly Maryland, West Virginia, Georgia, and Tennessee. Material relating to their activities in Confederate industry is less ample than that for the pre- and post-war periods. Duff Green's political papers cover the Jacksonian, Civil War, and Reconstruction eras. Besides business and political correspondence, B. E. Green's papers include items relating to his diplomatic missions in Mexico, 1844, and the West Indies, 1849, and a considerable quantity of writings about Mexico, finance (he was a leader of the Greenback Party), religion, industry, and labor, and the issues of the Civil War and Reconstruction. Additions to the collection include typed copies of letters, 1826-1889, made in the mid-20th century, probably by Fletcher M. Green; Fletcher Green correspondence; original legal documents; typed copies of documents, speeches, essays, and propositions; photographs and prints; research papers, articles, and notes written by Fletcher M. Green; printed essays; articles; speeches; prospectuses; proceedings; records; and newspaper clippings. Correspondence relates chiefly to business enterprises, especially newspaper, railroad, and industrial ventures; there are also personal and political letters. Fletcher Green correspondence relates mainly to his research relating to Duff Green and Benjamin E. Green and to his assistance in securing the original deposit of Duff Green Papers for the the Southern Historical Collection.

Extent:
12,500 items (20.5 linear feet)
Language:
Materials in English

Background

Scope and content:

The collection chiefly consists of correspondence, business records, and writings of journalist, politician, and industrial promoterDuff Green and of his son, Benjamin Edwards Green (1822-1907), businessman and diplomat. The bulk of the papers relate to far-flung and diverse business enterprises, a lesser but substantial part to politics. Correspondence, contracts, deeds, legal proceedings, legislative memorials, account books, and corporation charters, prospectuses, and directors' proceedings reflect the Greens' activities and plans in finance, canals, railroads, coal mining and ore mining, manufacturing, insurance, postal contracts, and many other areas of business before and after the Civil War, touching Mexico and most of the United States, particularly Maryland, West Virginia, Georgia, and Tennessee. Material relating to their activities in Confederate industry is less ample than that for the pre- and post-war periods. Duff Green's political papers cover the Jacksonian, Civil War, and Reconstruction eras. Besides business and political correspondence, B. E. Green's papers include items relating to his diplomatic missions in Mexico, 1844, and the West Indies, 1849, and a considerable quantity of writings about Mexico, finance (he was a leader of the Greenback Party), religion, industry, and labor, and the issues of the Civil War and Reconstruction. Additions to the collection include typed copies of letters, 1826-1889, made in the mid-20th century, probably by Fletcher M. Green; Fletcher Green correspondence; original legal documents; typed copies of documents, speeches, essays, and propositions; photographs and prints; research papers, articles, and notes written by Fletcher M. Green; printed essays; articles; speeches; prospectuses; proceedings; records; and newspaper clippings. Correspondence relates chiefly to business enterprises, especially newspaper, railroad, and industrial ventures; there are also personal and political letters. Fletcher Green correspondence relates mainly to his research relating to Duff Green and Benjamin E. Green and to his assistance in securing the original deposit of Duff Green Papers for the the Southern Historical Collection.

Biographical / historical:

Duff Green was born on 15 August 1791 in Woodford County, Ky. At the age of seven, he was sent to a field school attended chiefly by children of his father's tenants. At fourteen, he entered Danville Academy, but returned home a year and a half later and remained until 1811 to educate his brothers and sisters. He was briefly a teacher at Elizabethtown Academy before he enlisted as a private in the War of 1812. Green served at Vincennes and Fort Harrison under General William Henry Harrison and later was made a captain. After the war, he married Lucretia Maria Edwards, sister of Governor Ninian Edwards of Illinois, with whom he had nine children.

In 1816, Green went to Missouri to survey public lands and remained there for almost ten years engaging in profitable land speculation, building up a large mercantile business in and around St. Louis, and securing contracts for the carrying of mails. During this time, he founded the town of Chariton, Mo., near St. Louis. He also studied law, was admitted to the bar, and built up a large and lucrative legal practice. His political affairs included being a member of the state constitutional convention in 1820, serving in both houses of the state legislature, and being appointed by President Monroe a brigadier general in the Missouri state militia.

Green purchased the St. Louis Enquirer in 1823, through which he supported Jackson in the election of 1824. After he purchased the United States Telegraph in 1825, he moved to Washington, D.C. Through the Telegraph, he assailed the Adams administration and advocated Jackson and reform.

Green was a member of Jackson's "Kitchen Cabinet" and acted as printer to Congress, 1829-1833. His political views changed during the Eaton controversy when Green opposed Jackson and Van Buren in favor of John C. Calhoun, whose son had married Green's daughter. Throughout the 1830s, he continued to attack the Jackson and Van Buren faction through the Telegraph, the Reformer (1837-1838), and the Pilot (1840).

Green supported Harrison in 1840 and was largely responsible for Tyler's placement on the Whig ticket. Tyler later rewarded him by sending Green as an unofficial representative of the United States to England and France. Here, through personal contracts and publications, he advocated reduction of duties, direct trade with the South, a modification of England's attitude toward slavery and the United States' interest in Texas, and the settlement of the Oregon boundary dispute.

Green returned to the United States and vocalized his support for the Southern cause in the Republic (1844) and later in the weekly American Statesman (1857), advocating expansion into Texas, Cuba, and Santo Domingo. Tyler appointed him consul at Galveston, Tex., in 1844 and sent him to Mexico with the view of acquiring Texas, New Mexico, and California. Green strongly supported the Mexican War, and, after the war, acted as agent in making payment to Mexico under the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo.

Green's conviction that the South either had to develop to the fullest its natural resources or be crushed by the North motivated at least partially a wide variety of business enterprises. He purchased and mined vast tracts of land in Maryland and Virginia, but the difficulty of obtaining railroad and canal links limited the success of the scheme and turned Green's attention to building these links in the forties and fifties. Green projected plans for a canal from the Sabine River south to the Rio Grande River and north to the Red and Mississippi Rivers; secured a contract for the construction of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad sixty miles beyond Cumberland, Md.; and built the East Tennessee and Georgia Railroad from Knoxville to Dalton, Ga. Green also sought to consolidate the railroads of the South and envisioned a line that would extend from Washington to the Pacific coast of Mexico. To further this mammoth design, he organized the Pennsylvania Fiscal Agency, reorganized by Northern capitalists during the Civil War as the Credit Mobilier of America. This agency was to provide the necessary capital for railroad construction, but the Civil War cut the scheme short.

Although Green was neither a slaveholder nor a secessionist, he supported the Confederacy by sending large amounts of guns, munitions, and other support to Southern troops from his iron works in Georgia and Tennessee. He remained, however, a man respected by both North and South, and, in 1865, he had a private audience with Lincoln at Richmond concerning peace proposals.

During the war Green published Facts and Suggestions on the Subjects of Currency and Direct Trade (1861) and Fact and Suggestions Relative to Finance and Currency (1864). These books were followed by Facts and Suggestions, Biographical, Historical, Financial, and Political (1866), A Memorial and A Bill Relating to Finance, National Currency, Debt, Revenue, etc. (1869), and How to Pay Off the National Debt, Regulate the Value of Money and Maintain Stability in the Values of Property and Labor (1872).

After the war Green sought to raise capital for rebuilding the defeated South by organizing the American Industrial Agency, with branches in several states. He also revived his interest in railroad construction and drew plans for the establishment of a model industrial city in Tennessee. These plans failed because of turbulent political and uncertain economic conditions. Green died in Dalton, Ga., on 10 June 1875.

Benjamin Edwards Green, lawyer, diplomat, and industrial promoter, was closely connected with many of his father's business enterprises. He received his education at Georgetown College and the University of Virginia Law School. He served as charge d'affaires in Mexico in 1844 and was sent to the West Indies in 1849 to investigate the possibility of purchasing Cuba and to negotiate with the Dominican Republic and Haiti.

Upon his return to the United States, he settled in Dalton, Ga., and, both before and after the Civil War, devoted himself with his father to the industrial development of Georgia and the South. Among the enterprises in which he was interested were the Dalton and Morganton and the Dalton and Jacksonville railroads, the Central Transit Company, the Cherokee Iron Foundry, the Texas Land Company, and the American Industrial Agency. Green played an important part in Georgia politics after the war, being largely instrumental in the calling of the Georgia state convention of the Greenback Part in 1880. He died in Dalton, Ga., on 12 May 1907.

[Dictionary of American Biography. Fletcher M. Green: "Ben E. Green and Greenbackism in Georgia,"Georgia Historical Quarterly, XXX (March, 1946), 1-13; "Duff Green: Industrial Promoter,"Journal of Southern History, II (February, 1936), 28-42; and "Duff Green, Militant Journalist of the Old School,"American Historical Review, LII (January, 1947), 247-268.]

Acquisition information:
Purchased from Ben A. Green of Tallassee, Ala., in 1945 by Fletcher Green of the University of North Carolina with funds from a gift of Dr. Charles A. Beard as a memorial to his father. Additions received from Mary Frances Green of Chapel Hill, N.C., in June 1979 and Michael D. Goldhaber of Cambridge, Mass., in June 1990. Addition received from Elizabeth Green Fuller of Tarrytown, N.Y., in November 1996 (Acc. 96170) as part of an addition to the Fletcher Melvin Green Papers (#4265). Addition received from Elizabeth Green Fuller in October 2006 (Acc. 100517).
Processing information:

Processed by: Suzanne Ruffing, June 1996; revised by Tim Pyatt, February 1997; revised by Amy Johnson, September 2007

Encoded by: Joseph Nicholson, February 2006, and Amy Johnson, September 2007

This collection was processed with support, in part, from the Randleigh Foundation Trust.

Additions received after November 1996 have not been integrated into the original deposits or microfilmed. Researchers should always check additions to be sure they have identified all files of interest to them.

The Addition of October 2006 is arranged in the same way as, but has not been incorporated into, the original deposit of materials.

Updated January 2021

Sensitive materials statement:

Manuscript collections and archival records may contain materials with sensitive or confidential information that is protected under federal or state right to privacy laws and regulations, the North Carolina Public Records Act (N.C.G.S. § 132 1 et seq.), and Article 7 of the North Carolina State Personnel Act (Privacy of State Employee Personnel Records, N.C.G.S. § 126-22 et seq.). Researchers are advised that the disclosure of certain information pertaining to identifiable living individuals represented in this collection without the consent of those individuals may have legal ramifications (e.g., a cause of action under common law for invasion of privacy may arise if facts concerning an individual's private life are published that would be deemed highly offensive to a reasonable person) for which the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill assumes no responsibility.

Access and use

Restrictions to access:

No restrictions. Open for research.

Restrictions to use:

Copyright is retained by the authors of items in these papers, or their descendants, as stipulated by United States copyright law.

No usage restrictions.

Preferred citation:

[Identification of item], in the Duff Green Papers #993, Southern Historical Collection, Wilson Special Collections Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Location of this collection:
Louis Round Wilson Library
200 South Road
Chapel Hill, NC 27515
Contact:
(919) 962-3765
[email protected]