William Seward, New York Senator and future Secretary of State, echoed Lincoln's thoughts from his famous "House Divided" speech later in 1858 in a Speech...Delivered at Rochester, Monday, October 15, 1858. Says Seward, "...the United States must and will, sooner or later, become either entirely a slave-holding nation, or entirely a free-labor nation." Seward goes on to warn Northerners that the connection between slavery and blacks is "purely accidental." Next time, white laborers could be the slaves. Item 163. $125.

For collectors of the Dakotas, Lesser has a whole series of documents, but we warn you, these titles might not always stir great excitement. These are: Irrigation in South Dakota; Dry-Land Grains for Western North and South Dakota; Winter Wheat in Western South Dakota, Annual Report of the Commissioner of Insurance for the State of South Dakota; Report on the Drainage of the Eastern Parts of Cass, Traill, Grand Forks, Walsh, and Pembina Counties, North Dakota; and Grasses and Forage Plants of the Dakotas. None of these will set you back too much, as they are priced from $15-$35.

Item 140 is the report of the Quartermaster General from 1866: The Martyrs Who, for Our Country, Gave Up Their Lives in the Prison Pens in Andersonville, GA. Describing the post-war condition of Andersonville, the report states, "Nothing has been destroyed; as our exhausted, emaciated, enfeebled soldiers left it, so it stands to-day, as a monument to an inhumanity unparalleled in the annals of war." It includes a listing of the dead, over 200 pages long. $175.

David M. Lesser Fine Antiquarian Books can be reached at 203-389-8111 or dmlesser@lesserbooks.com. Their website is www.lesserbooks.com.