This collection documents the personal, political, and family life of Richard Franklin Simpson. His letters, both written and received, are a rich source of primary information concerning grass-roots politics and issues in Upstate South Carolina and also issues that drove national events and policies at Washington, DC, some of which eventually lead to secession and the Civil War. Simpson was so astute and far-sighted as to mention this possibility in many of his letters to his wife and colleagues. Also contained in the Simpson Papers are letters to and from his sons, Dick and Tally, as they served South Carolina during the Civil War. Although short in duration, Dick being discharged in 1862 for health reasons and Tally being killed in 1863 at Chickamauga, TN, the letters provide not only information of a personal nature but valuable first-hand views of what war meant at ground level to these young men far from home. Most of the correspondence is between Simpson and his wife, Mary Margaret. Ironically, although he served his state and country in Congress for many years, he frequently expressed hsi desire to be home with Margaret and the children. Likewise, she wished he was home with her to manage the farm in person. In any case, his letters to her divulge interesting information about the political and social climate in Washington during the Tyler and Polk Presidential Administrations. Margaret in turn provides him with the detailed information concerning management of the farm and the rearing of their children. The professional life of Simpson, seen through the letters to and from Margaret, provide first-hand prespectives of an absentee farmer-politician from rural South Carolina serving in the cosmopolitan city of Washington, DC. There is also significant mention of, and reference to, in the letters between Richard and Margaret, and also between Richard and Tally, of situations, conditions, and health issues of Negro slaves belonging to to them, mostly concerning Banister, Hester, Kissey, Lucy, Randal and Zion, but including Bob, Daniel, Davy, Eliza, Grace, Isaac, Jesse, Jo, Juda, Martha, Nick, Sall, Tildy, Toney, and William. Of interest, Banister wanted to marry one of Andrew Pickens's female slaves and wished Simpson to purchase her but was declined. Zion accompanied Tally during his Civil War encampments in Virginia, making frequent trips between there and home to bring food and clothing and exchange letters.