An Acrostic Poem Written By A Young Poet To Supreme Court Justice John McLean. The Family Was Involved In A Notorious Slave Sale In Virginia

JOHN McLEAN (1785-1861). McLean, a politician from Ohio, served in a number of roles, including Commissioner of the General Land Office and Postmaster General. He was an Associate Justice of the Ohio Supreme Court and was appointed to the United States Supreme Court by President Jackson in 1829 until his death. He was one of the two Justices to vote against the Dred Scott decision. McLean was frequently mentioned as a Presidential candidate. AMS. 2pg. 7 ½” x 12 ½”. December 18, 1846. Washington, D.C. An autograph manuscript signed “Cornelia J. Orme” and a letter signed “Maria W.D. Orme”. It is addressed to Supreme Court Justice John McLean. The first page is an acrostic, written by the young poet Cornelia. The first letters spell out the words “HONJOHNMCLEANOFOHIO” and reads “How shall my simple muse aspire Of him to sing whose graced sublime strain? Noblest of Men for subject for the Lyre. Justly my Harp her humble strings refrain - Oh would some favored votary of the Nine, Her Poets power awhile bestow, No minstrelsy should vie with mine - My verse thy greatness then would show - Could I but half thy goodness tell, Long would its cheerful chords vibrate, E’en with soft music would its strings aye swell - And gladly thy great worth relate. Now when each place with honour you have filled, Of which unsought your virtues have obtained. For thee their Head our own blest Nation’s willed, Our interests to serve, and have our righteous Laws sustained High in the hearts of all from proud to lowly train, In all beloved, while grateful men remain - Oh never will they cease to bless the Noble, good, and true, McLean.” The interior page contains a letter signed “Maria W.D. Orme” and the letter’s body is in the handwriting of Cornelia. Orme wrote to McLean: “I am still spared ‘till the period of your return to Washington, but have no other means of manifesting my pleasure for your health and arrival than by a few lines on paper. None more sincerely can do so than myself, or will be more truly glad to see you when you have leisure to call at the same resident corner of 12 St and Maryland Avenue. Allow me to accompany this ‘expression’ of an Acrostic written by my little daughter, with whom the Muses have been tampering, and whose impression of you, she has thus poetically attempted to portray – and like all other embryo poetry’s wishes it to be presented – which I permit her to do, not for the need of praise, but as a simple fireside offering – which I am sure, you will not reject…Maria W.D. Orme”. Cornelia Orme wrote the popular book of children’s poems, Forget-Me-Nots from Dew Drop Dale under the name Ruth Rustic. Maria Orme and her husband Rezin were involved in an infamous slavery event. In the 1830s, Rezin sold a slave named Dorcas and her four children to a slave trader in Alexandria, Virginia for $700. Dorcas had been promised her freedom by an earlier, deceased owner and Rezin inherited Dorcas and her family through marriage and death. Dorcas killed her two younger children and was prevented from killing the other two because of the screams of her dying children. She was tried and found not guilty by reason of insanity. The abolitionist John Quincy Adams noted the incident in his 1830s diary. The verso of the integral leaf is addressed by Cornelia to “Hon. John McLean / Supreme Court U.S. / Washington D.C.” There is a small portion missing at blank right margin and a hole at blank fold.