Details
LINCOLN, ABRAHAM, President. Autograph letter signed ("A.Lincoln") as President, to Henry Jarvis Raymond, Editor of the New York Times and Chairman of the National Executive Committee of the Union (Republican) Party, Washington, D.C., 27 September 1864. 1 page, 8vo, integral blank, tipped to a larger sheet; LINCOLN. Autograph free frank ("A. Lincoln") as President, on front panel of envelope addressed in Lincoln's hand to "Hon. Henry J. Raymond New York," an oblong, laid down, with ink endorsement: "Letter of President Lincoln written in the presence of Dexter A. Hawkins, Frank W. Ballard & Mark Hoyt & delivered to D.A. Hawkins on the day of of its date in the cabinet room at 2 P.M. just as the cabinet came in."
[With:] The Address of the Hon[orable] Abraham Lincoln, in Vindication of The Policy of the Framers of the Constitution and the Principles of the Republican Party, Delivered at Cooper Institute, February 27th, 1860...With Notes by Charles C. Nott & Cephas Brainerd, New York: Nesbitt & Co., 1860. 8vo, 32 pages, bound with an unrelated pamphlet in purple straight-grained morocco elaborately gilt, g.e., a bit rubbed, later engraved portrait added. Bookplate of Dexter A. Hawkins. (3)
A MONTH BEFORE THE 1864 ELECTION HE FELT HE WOULD LOSE, LINCOLN TRIES TO MEND A RIFT IN THE NEW YORK REPUBLICAN CAMP
An unpublished letter of intriguing political implications. In what may have been a private letter to Raymond, editor of the New York Times and Chairman of his party's National Committee, President Lincoln praises the New York Young Men's Republican Union, the political club which sponsored Lincoln's February 1860 Cooper Institute Address, and urges Raymond to collaborate with them in his 1864 campaign: "It is scarcely to be presumed that I know now, or so much, of the New York Young Men's Republican Union, as yourself. Yet I have known something of it in, and since, February 1860; and I commend it to the consideration of the National Committee, as being an efficient, and most worthy co-worker in the Union cause, and the cooperation with which will probably be useful..."
Raymond's Times was the Lincoln administration's staunchest press supporter in a city where the Republican party was divided and "copperhead" sentiment rampant. Frank W. Ballard, Corresponding Secretary of the Young Men's Republican Union, telegraphed Lincoln on 24 September, stating that a deputation from the Union "desires a brief interview..." Lincoln replied in the affirmative, by telegram (Basler 8:19). It appears highly probable that they asked Lincoln to intervene on their behalf in their dealings with Raymond, who directed the Republicans party's uphill 1864 campaign. Raymond, "an important agent for Lincoln's renomination," was chairman of the party's national committee (Neely, Abraham Lincoln Encyclopedia, p. 258).
By August, Raymond and other influential Republicans feared the Republicans would lose unless Lincoln sought peace immediately on terms acceptable to the Confederacy, relinquishing its platform goal of abolition. Thurlow Weed told Lincoln in mid-August his "election was an impossibility," and that "unless some prompt and bold step be now taken, all is lost." The people, according to Raymond, "are wild for Peace," and "commissioners should be immediately sent to Richmond, offering to treat for Peace on the basis of Union..." (Basler 7:514-515fn.) Lincoln's extraordinary "blind memorandum" to his cabinet of 23 August, in which he admitted he probably would not be re-elected, but would work with the new President to save the Union, was a direct result of these pessimistic reports (Basler vii:514). A few days later Raymond wrote to Lincoln, elaborating a plan to meet with the Confederacy to discuss peace terms (Basler viii:517fn.), and Lincoln conceded by asking Raymond to arrange "a conference for peace with Hon. Jefferson Davis" to restore the Union, deferring "all remaining questions" (including that of slavery) for "later adjustment." But on 25 August Lincoln convinced Raymond that sending such a commission would be "worse than losing the Presidential contest -- it would be ignominiously surrendering it in advance" (Basler vii:518fn).
On 31 August Democrat George B. McClellan was nominated for President on a platform calling the war "a failure." Paradoxically, as Neely points out, McClellan and the extreme Democratic platform "reunited and invigorated the Republicans, who had denigrated into factional squabbling" (Lincoln Encyclopedia, p. 101). The present letter, commending the group which made possible the Cooper Institute Address, was a step towards uniting the divergent Republican factions in New York, which controlled the largest total of electoral votes of any state. On election day, New York voters narrowly favored Lincoln (368,726 to 361,986) and Lincoln garnered the state's crucial 33 electoral votes.
Not in Basler, and apparently unpublished.
Provenance:
1. Henry J. Raymond (1820-1869), the recipient, apparently given to
2. Dexter A. Hawkins, Vice President of the Young Man's Republican Union of New York, engraved bookplate in pamphlet (in which the letter was formerly bound)
3. The present owner, by descent.
[With:] The Address of the Hon[orable] Abraham Lincoln, in Vindication of The Policy of the Framers of the Constitution and the Principles of the Republican Party, Delivered at Cooper Institute, February 27th, 1860...With Notes by Charles C. Nott & Cephas Brainerd, New York: Nesbitt & Co., 1860. 8vo, 32 pages, bound with an unrelated pamphlet in purple straight-grained morocco elaborately gilt, g.e., a bit rubbed, later engraved portrait added. Bookplate of Dexter A. Hawkins. (3)
A MONTH BEFORE THE 1864 ELECTION HE FELT HE WOULD LOSE, LINCOLN TRIES TO MEND A RIFT IN THE NEW YORK REPUBLICAN CAMP
An unpublished letter of intriguing political implications. In what may have been a private letter to Raymond, editor of the New York Times and Chairman of his party's National Committee, President Lincoln praises the New York Young Men's Republican Union, the political club which sponsored Lincoln's February 1860 Cooper Institute Address, and urges Raymond to collaborate with them in his 1864 campaign: "It is scarcely to be presumed that I know now, or so much, of the New York Young Men's Republican Union, as yourself. Yet I have known something of it in, and since, February 1860; and I commend it to the consideration of the National Committee, as being an efficient, and most worthy co-worker in the Union cause, and the cooperation with which will probably be useful..."
Raymond's Times was the Lincoln administration's staunchest press supporter in a city where the Republican party was divided and "copperhead" sentiment rampant. Frank W. Ballard, Corresponding Secretary of the Young Men's Republican Union, telegraphed Lincoln on 24 September, stating that a deputation from the Union "desires a brief interview..." Lincoln replied in the affirmative, by telegram (Basler 8:19). It appears highly probable that they asked Lincoln to intervene on their behalf in their dealings with Raymond, who directed the Republicans party's uphill 1864 campaign. Raymond, "an important agent for Lincoln's renomination," was chairman of the party's national committee (Neely, Abraham Lincoln Encyclopedia, p. 258).
By August, Raymond and other influential Republicans feared the Republicans would lose unless Lincoln sought peace immediately on terms acceptable to the Confederacy, relinquishing its platform goal of abolition. Thurlow Weed told Lincoln in mid-August his "election was an impossibility," and that "unless some prompt and bold step be now taken, all is lost." The people, according to Raymond, "are wild for Peace," and "commissioners should be immediately sent to Richmond, offering to treat for Peace on the basis of Union..." (Basler 7:514-515fn.) Lincoln's extraordinary "blind memorandum" to his cabinet of 23 August, in which he admitted he probably would not be re-elected, but would work with the new President to save the Union, was a direct result of these pessimistic reports (Basler vii:514). A few days later Raymond wrote to Lincoln, elaborating a plan to meet with the Confederacy to discuss peace terms (Basler viii:517fn.), and Lincoln conceded by asking Raymond to arrange "a conference for peace with Hon. Jefferson Davis" to restore the Union, deferring "all remaining questions" (including that of slavery) for "later adjustment." But on 25 August Lincoln convinced Raymond that sending such a commission would be "worse than losing the Presidential contest -- it would be ignominiously surrendering it in advance" (Basler vii:518fn).
On 31 August Democrat George B. McClellan was nominated for President on a platform calling the war "a failure." Paradoxically, as Neely points out, McClellan and the extreme Democratic platform "reunited and invigorated the Republicans, who had denigrated into factional squabbling" (Lincoln Encyclopedia, p. 101). The present letter, commending the group which made possible the Cooper Institute Address, was a step towards uniting the divergent Republican factions in New York, which controlled the largest total of electoral votes of any state. On election day, New York voters narrowly favored Lincoln (368,726 to 361,986) and Lincoln garnered the state's crucial 33 electoral votes.
Not in Basler, and apparently unpublished.
Provenance:
1. Henry J. Raymond (1820-1869), the recipient, apparently given to
2. Dexter A. Hawkins, Vice President of the Young Man's Republican Union of New York, engraved bookplate in pamphlet (in which the letter was formerly bound)
3. The present owner, by descent.