Beschreibung:

Abraham Lincoln ALS to Hannibal Hamlin, Springfield, Ill., July 18, 1860. 1p., Lincoln's signature clipped & lacking. There is hardly a more thankless job in the world than Vice President of the U.S., but consider the case of Hannibal Hamlin. With experience as a Congressman, Senator, and Governor of his native state of Maine, and strong antislavery credentials, Hamlin was famously elevated to the Republican ticket in 1860 without ever having met his running mate, Abraham Lincoln. Strategically, Hamlin's eastern base provided balance for Lincoln's western, but in most ways, the match proved a failure. Hamlin never figured into Lincoln’s inner circle. Even by the low standards of the Vice Presidency, he was an irrelevancy, referring to his own position in the administration as a “nullity.” More radical than Lincoln on abolishing slavery and arming freed slaves, Hamlin became something of liability when Lincoln was re-nominated in 1864, and strategically, he was jettisoned to be replaced by a conservative southerner, Andrew Johnson. Hamlin remained in politics, however, serving two terms in the U.S. Senate. This highly important letter dates from a few weeks after the Convention at which Lincoln and Hamlin were thrown together. It reads: My dear Sir, It appears to me that you and I ought to be acquainted; and, accordingly, I write this as a sort of introduction of myself to you. You first entered the Senate during the single term I was a member of the H.R.; but I have no recollection that we were introduced -- I shall be pleased to receive a line from you. -- The prospect of Republican success now appears very flattering so far as I can perceive -- Do you see anything to the contrary? This letter is published in Basler (IV:84), who quoted it from Nicolay and Hay. Basler records Hamlin as responding on July 23 stating that he believed they had been introduced and assuring Lincoln he would do everything possible to carry Maine. A revealing letter about mid-nineteenth century Republican politics, the beginnings of the first Lincoln administration, and the personal relationship of the party's first successful candidates for the Presidency. Good condition, except that Lincoln’s signature has been removed from the letter, which is otherwise in Lincoln's hand. The following lots (110-130) have descended directly in the family of Hannibal Hamlin (1809-1891). Hannibal Hamlin, a Maine native, spent the majority of his life serving the public, though he is best remembered today as Abraham Lincoln's first Vice President. A surveyor and teacher before he was admitted to the Maine bar in 1833, Hamlin, a Democrat, was elected to Maine's House of Representatives in 1836 and served as speaker in 1837, 1839 and 1840. He served two terms in the United States House of Representatives, from 1843–1847, and was elected to fill a U.S. Senate vacancy in 1848, and to a full senatorial term in 1851. An anti-slavery proponent, Hamlin did not approve of the strong pro-slavery wing of the Democratic Party. The passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act determined that the two states (Kansas and Nebraska) could enter the Union with or without slavery, and the legislation opened the territory to organized migrations of pro- and anti-slavery groups. Southerners entered the territory with their slaves while active members of the Anti-Slavery Society also arrived. Hamlin, disgusted with the majority of his party's views on slavery, then switched to the Republican Party. He left the Senate to run for Governor of Maine, and was elected, only to serve one month (January 1856 to February 1856). With little interest in a governorship, Hamlin had made a deal with the newly formed Republican Party: he would run for governor if he could then return to the U.S. Senate. He won the governorship - a major boost for the Republican Party in Maine - assumed office in January 1857, but resigned in February to return to the U.S. Senate. In 1860, the Republican Party nominated Abraham Lin