Autograph letter signed by Senator Jacob M. Howard (1805-1871), to James W. White. Washington, D.C., 11 March 1869. 3 pages, 4to, on Thirty Seventh Congress, Senate Chamber illustrated letterhead.

Provenance: Collection of Emanuel Hertz (1870-1940); Anderson Galleries, New York, November 1927 (The Lincoln Collection of Emanuel Hertz (Sale 2193), 15 November 1927, Lot 128)

UNPUBLISHED LETTER BY SENATOR JACOB HOWARD DEFENDING LINCOLN'S KNOWLEDGE OF SEWARD'S LETTER TO C.F. ADAMS

An important Reconstruction-era letter penned by U.S. Senator from Michigan, Jacob M. Howard (1805-1871). Where he writes at length regarding President Abraham Lincoln and the Emancipation Proclamation, especially in the light of a letter written by Secretary of State William H. Seward (1801-1872) to American Minister to Great Britain, Charles Francis Adams (1807-1886), during the Civil War. 

Howard was a Michigan lawyer who began his political career in the anti-slavery wing of the Whig Party, he became a founding member of the Republican Party as part of the first convention in Jackson, Michigan in 1854, where their initial platform was drafted. He was elected as a Republican to the U.S. Senate in 1861 and served until March 1871. 

Importantly, Howard is credited as being a close collaborator with Abraham Lincoln when drafting and passing the Thirteenth Amendment, abolishing slavery. He also served on the Joint Committee on Reconstruction, which drafted the Fourteenth Amendment. Though he strongly disputed presidential Reconstruction, arguing that it should be the purview of Congress. 

During his tenure as Secretary of State, Seward was at times criticized for transmitting important dispatches to foreign representatives without submitting them to President Lincoln, especially to Minister Adams, a close friend of Seward. The letter of July 5th became a particular point of contention, with content related to the preliminary Emancipation Proclamation, which was publicly printed in the Diplomatic Correspondence. Here, Howard defends Lincoln, who disclaimed any knowledge of it at the time. 

Howard writes: "the contents of Mr. Seward's dispatch to Mr. Adams, of July 5th 1862, are of such a character as to make it incredible that it should have been sanctioned by or even known to the President. It accuses a majority of both houses of Congress of acting "in consent" with the rebels to "preciptate a servile war", at a time when the confiscation + emancipation bill was pending before them, or entirely in the hands of the President for his approval (the journal will show which), which bill was approved by the President. No man who knows Mr. Lincoln can for a moment suppose that the calumnicous + ill natured dispatch was seen by him before it was sent. If the controversy were mine I would ask for no further evidence to overcome the denial of the signs[?]."

He continues in a vehement defense of the late President: "...the president issued his proclamation cermony his purpose to emancipate the slaves of rebels on the first of Jan '63. This carried the emancipation powers much faster than the confiscation act had done, or rather threatened to carry it much further. And with that proclamation in presn't before him, Mr. S at the opening of the last session deliberately presented + laid before the world that strange dispatch. Can any further proof be necessary whether to demonstrate the ignorance of Mr. Lincoln of the contents of the dispatch or the animus of its author toward him + towards a majority of Congress?" 

An important Lincoln-related letter, enhanced by its pedigree from the collection of renowned Lincoln historian and collector Emanuel Hertz (1870-1940). 

[Civil War, Union, Confederate] [Manuscripts, Documents, Letters, Ephemera, Signatures, Autographs] [African Americana, African American History, Black History, Slavery, Enslavement, Abolition, Emancipation] [Abraham Lincoln, Politics, Mary Todd Lincoln, 1860 Election, Election of 1860, 1864 Election, Election of 1864,  Lincoln Assassination, John Wilkes Booth]