Details
JOHNSON, Andrew (1808-1875), President. Draft copy of an autograph letter signed ("Andrew Johnson") as Congressman, to John H. Keyser, Greeneville, TN, 15 May 1851. 2 pages, 4to, (9¾ x 7¾ in.), integral blank, minor soiling, separation between leaves.
JOHNSON SUPPORTS THE "LABORING MAN": "I AM A DEMOCRAT...AND HAVE DEVOTED THE BEST EFFORTS OF MY LIFE TO AMELIORATE THE CONDITION OF THE WORKING MAN"
Responding to a correspondent who inquired about his political status, Johnson resoundingly voices his committment to the working class. Johnson's life before politics was inconspicuous. As a child he lived in poverty before being placed in the shop of a taylor as an indentured servant. He pursued this trade until he entered local politics in Greenville, Tennessee.
Johnson spent a significant portion of his Congressional and Senate career sponsoring the Homestead Bill, an endeavor to provide cheap land to emigrants to the West. Here, in a letter denying that he is a candidate for Vice-President, he explains his position to Keyser: "Enclosed you will find a copy of a crude speech made some time since in congress which will give you the bones of my views on the 'Homestead.' I am a democrat in the enlarged and spoken sense of the term and have devoted the best efforts of my life to ameliorate the condition of the laboring man. The time has arrived when the toiling thousands in the U.S should be honored with a laboring man for the Presidency. A man who in fact has been a laboring man--one whose sympathies are with the mass. There is too much talk about this thing of labor, and too little practise. If the work was commenced in good earnest the people, the real people I mean, would respond to it in no mistaken terms." Johnson concludes in praise and thanks to Keyser, expressing "the profoundest feeling of my heart for the success of any scheme that will elevate the oppressed condition of my kind."
The Homestead Act was finally passed in the midst of the Civil War. The act, which gave 160 acres to any settler who would farm the land for five years, was compatible with Republican goals supporting the expansion of free labor into the West. After the war was over, it provided the basis for the massive migration of Americans to the frontier.
JOHNSON SUPPORTS THE "LABORING MAN": "I AM A DEMOCRAT...AND HAVE DEVOTED THE BEST EFFORTS OF MY LIFE TO AMELIORATE THE CONDITION OF THE WORKING MAN"
Responding to a correspondent who inquired about his political status, Johnson resoundingly voices his committment to the working class. Johnson's life before politics was inconspicuous. As a child he lived in poverty before being placed in the shop of a taylor as an indentured servant. He pursued this trade until he entered local politics in Greenville, Tennessee.
Johnson spent a significant portion of his Congressional and Senate career sponsoring the Homestead Bill, an endeavor to provide cheap land to emigrants to the West. Here, in a letter denying that he is a candidate for Vice-President, he explains his position to Keyser: "Enclosed you will find a copy of a crude speech made some time since in congress which will give you the bones of my views on the 'Homestead.' I am a democrat in the enlarged and spoken sense of the term and have devoted the best efforts of my life to ameliorate the condition of the laboring man. The time has arrived when the toiling thousands in the U.S should be honored with a laboring man for the Presidency. A man who in fact has been a laboring man--one whose sympathies are with the mass. There is too much talk about this thing of labor, and too little practise. If the work was commenced in good earnest the people, the real people I mean, would respond to it in no mistaken terms." Johnson concludes in praise and thanks to Keyser, expressing "the profoundest feeling of my heart for the success of any scheme that will elevate the oppressed condition of my kind."
The Homestead Act was finally passed in the midst of the Civil War. The act, which gave 160 acres to any settler who would farm the land for five years, was compatible with Republican goals supporting the expansion of free labor into the West. After the war was over, it provided the basis for the massive migration of Americans to the frontier.