"It has one simple platform in the ideal of its future—the desire to be free, and fidelity to the power that makes it free."

Andrew Jackson Hamilton. Letter of Gen. A.J. Hamilton, of Texas, to the President of the United States. New York: Loyal Publication Society, 1863. 8vo. Original wrappers and binding. 

An open letter from General Andrew Hamilton responding to President Abraham Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation passed at the beginning of 1863. While Hamilton, as a Union loyalist in Texas, agrees that Black people deserve the equal rights, he also argues the following: "By your just Proclamation you gave the highest earthly sanction to the wise and noble policy of the enfranchisement of the black man, and by his enrollment in your armies for the defence of the country, you have confirmed it to the benefit of the nation. You will be urged to revoke that act." 

Hamilton believes this because, to him, "the people of the white race were much more considered in framing our Constitutions than the people of the black race; but the impression sought to be made is that the blacks are excluded, by their terms, and by inference, from being regarded as a part of the people for whom they were made." He goes on to cite examples from the U.S. Constitution, as well as state constitutions, about how Black citizens aren't necessarily excluded in the language of the documents and it is a matter of slaves, which in this case were typically Black, and freed persons. 

Throughout his political career, Hamilton (1815-1875) served various roles that all featured pro-Union beliefs, by the Civil War. In 1849, he was made acting attorney general, followed by a single term in Texas's House of Representatives as a member from Travis County. During this time, he was a member of the Democratic Party, in which he opposed secession and reopening the slave trade. So much so that Hamilton served on a U.S. House committee in the winter of 1860-1861 to try and solve the secession crisis before it came to fruition.

Obviously, Texas still seceded from the Union and became a part of the Confederate States; however, Hamilton remained steadfast and vocal in his beliefs, delivering speeches in New York and Boston, among other places. He spoke against slavery, disunionists and the "slave power," which he said was trying to subvert democracy and the rights of those who did not enslave individuals. Eventually, Hamilton met with Lincoln in November 1862 and received a commission to become the Military Governor of Texas, albeit ruling from New Orleans. 

After the Civil War, Hamilton was named the provisional civilian Governor of Texas by President Andrew Johnson, a position he held for a little over a year. He was not received well in Texas — he pursued acts such as limiting officeholders to former Unionists, ratifying the Thirteenth Amendment, and granting legal and economic rights to freedman, all of which were refused at the Constitutional Convention held in 1866. When these weren't accepted, Hamilton began to align himself with Radical Republicans, endorsing complete Black suffrage and establishing the Southern Loyalists' Convention in Philadelphia. He eventually resigned from office and reversed some of his more radical ideas, spending the last few years of his life serving in various conventions and practicing law. 

[Civil War, Union, Confederate] [Books, Bibles, Soldiers' Bibles, Prayer Books, Ephemera, Pamphlets, Publications, Booklets, Memoirs] [African Americana, African American History, Black History, Slavery, Enslavement, Abolition, Emancipation] 

Pages slightly separated at top and bottom of spine. Some small rips and discoloration.