2022-07 Raynors HCA Auction
This lot is closed for bidding. Bidding ended on 7/16/2022
Autograph Letter Signed, “Wm. Lowell.” Three pages, 7 ¾” x 9 ¾”. West Minot [Maine] . January 18, 1867. Lowell writes, in part: “The slight acquaintance we formed in the Legislature of 1854 warrants me in addressing you this letter … I feel, Sir, as the republican party in general must, great mortification in the course of Johnson. He is a base man-false to his oft expressed opinions of treachery & treason & the punishment due such crimes- false to the men who gave him his plan & to whom he owes all that now give him power and influence now binds all that influence to bolster up the Rebels in their defiance of the government. How easy all the sequels of the war could have been settled after the surrender of Lee. The Rebels would have yielded to any terms to serve their needs for indeed they expected punishment & many of them fled & were fleeing the country to rid themselves of acknowledged penalties- but who among them all have been punished or ever will be? It is now with them an horror to have been engaged in their rebellion & the bravest of them pardoned by the accidental Prest. & at home, the none deserving as they were the most conspirious [sic] in the fight- to do what? Why to destroy the very government that had nurtured them & had never oppressed them by any congressional act- always shared largely & few above their fair proportion of the offices in the nations & in laws that in fact were oppressive to the north % unjust in their demands upon us. Yet, we were willing to wait their repeal that we believed “the sober second thought” would produce. They, all the while, exercising threats of disunion not finding us as often before, so flexible & easy to be entreated arraigned themselves in battle array believing still they should bring us to terms & if fight we would one southern man would be able to whip three Yankees & they come off conquerors in the end- But how mistaken! With all their pertinacity and barbarity they were obliged to lay down their arms at the feet of Gen. Grant his host. Now, Sir, until they shall acknowledge the authority of the government and submit to equal rights let them remain outside of the Union. Let us have now the quaranty [sic] of future serenity against another rebellion & not have to fight over again these claims of “Southern rights” that hellish doctrine that a state has higher & prior claims than the nation itself- like the child over the parent if the child should at any time think the parent intolerant. The President Seems of late to take new courage from late decisions of the Supreme Court- well, it may become necessary to reconstruct the court ...” Truly wonderful commentary on President Johnson and the tensions between the North and the South during Reconstruction. Very Fine.
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