MANUSCRIPT LETTER TO "MR. EDITOR," FROM WASHINGTON CITY, 23 APRIL 1868, ON BLUE-LINED PAPER WITH U.S. CONGRESS EMBOSSED SEAL LETTERHEAD, CONCERNING THE ONGOING IMPEACHMENT TRIAL OF PRESIDENT ANDREW JOHNSON.
Washington: 1868. Six stationery leaves, written on rectos only in neat ink script. Leaves attached by a brass fastener at blank top margins. Text lightened but mostly legible. Except as noted, Very Good.
The author is unknown. The letterhead suggests he was a member of Congress. He forcefully expresses his opposition to the Republican majority and to the President's impeachment and trial.
Washington is undergoing "a political revolution, which if permitted to go on, must end in the complete ruin of our Republic. Congress is fast absorbing all the powers of government, and claims not only to be the maker, but the judge and executor, of the law. An honest President stands in the way of its evil designs, he is therefore arraigned, as a criminal, and after a mock trial is to be deposed."
Johnson was charged with violating the Tenure of Office Act, which the author considers a mere pretext for impeaching an honorable man with whose policies Congress disagreed. "A wicked law was passed to hamper and bind him in the performance of his lawful duties, with the clear intent that he should break it, and thereby bring upon himself the condemnation of ambitious and despotic partisans." Item #40164
Price: $475.00