Tuesday, December 1, 2009

nhd primary source

Title: [Extract from a speech regarding Wade's opposition to President Andrew Johnson's reconstruction policies]

Author: Wade, B. F. (Benjamin Franklin) (1800-1878)

Year: 1866/01/18

Place: Washington, D. C.

Type of document: Manuscript signed

Full Text: [excerpt] ... Now Sir I say to President John[3]son, to the Democratic party, and to the people of the United States, that I will never yield the controversy-untill all men in America shall stand upon an equal footing - equal before the law in every respect. - When they will fix it so that, that can be done. I will give up the controversy in which I have been engaged for so many years, and no man will rejoice more than I that I have been relieved from it. - I was one of those who was an early advocate of bringing those colored people into your army invoking their aid to put down the rebellion. Over and over did I urge it upon the Executive two years before it took effect. Their employment in that capacity enforces upon me a duty. Would I lend my voice and my vote to induce that people to jeopardy their lives in defense of their country and then turn them over to the mercy their enemies & Sir the man that would do it deliberately and [4] knowingly is the meanest of Gods creatures, tempt them into the service let them fight through the war, and then desert them to their enemies to be destroyed 

Annotation: Wade served as a United States Senator from Ohio 1851-1868.







Title: [Endorsement of a runaway slave to return to Tennessee to search for his family]

Author: Johnson, Andrew (1808-1875)

Year: 1865/04/20

Place: Washington, D.C.

Type of document: Autograph endorsement signed

Description: President Johnson, five days after taking office endorses the petition of Jermain Westley Loguen, an escaped slave and Underground Railroad conductor, to return to Tennessee to search for family members. Written on the leaf of a 31 March 1865 autograph letter signed in which Samuel May made the request of Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton. May's letter is also signed by C.B. Sedgewick, Sherman B. Canfield, Reverend George Whipple, and Lewis Tappan. Johnson's endorsement reads: "the within named Rev J. W. Loguen (col'd) of New York is recommended to the favorable consideration of the Civil and Military authorities of the State of Tennessee wither he goes."

Annotation:  Johnson gave permission for an escaped slave permission to return to Tennnessee to search for family members.

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