National news (legal issues)

Questions over the issue of slavery, being debated at the national level. Newspapers capture the build up to the Civil War with titles like "political history of slavery," "the slavery question," union or disunion," abolition agitation,"slaveholder's rebellion," "the law of treason," "suppression of newspapers [with seccessionist interests]," and "An Important Proclamation [Lincoln to Congress, 1861." The final clipping is an "Oration: Delivered by R.Z. Johnson, Esq. at Silver City, Idaho July 4, 1874."