Abraham Lincoln Autograph Letter Signed.

LINCOLN, Abraham.

Item Number: 130655

Springfield, IL:, 1849.

Rare autograph letter signed by and entirely in the hand of the 16th President of the United States, Abraham Lincoln. One page, the letter reads in full, “Springfield May 7, 1849 Hon G. W. Rives Dear Sir, You overrate my capacity to serve you. Not one man recommended by me has yet been appointed to any thing, little or big, except a few who had no opposition. Besides this, at the very inauguration I commenced trying to get a Min[n]esota appointment for Dr. Henry, and have not yet succeeded; and I would not now, lessen his chance, by recommending any living man for any thing in that Territory. It is my recollection that you sent me an application to be P.M. at Paris. Am I mistaken? Very truly yours A. Lincoln.” Over a decade prior to his election as the 16th President of the United States in 1861, Lincoln served a single term in the House of Representatives between 1847 and 1849. A self-professed ‘old line Whig’, he was assigned to the Committee on Post Office and Post Roads and the Committee on Expenditures in the War Department. It was in this position that he first presented a bill to abolish slavery (in the District of Columbia with compensation for the owners), but it was dropped when it eluded Whig support. Lincoln had pledged in 1846 to serve only one term in the House. Realizing Henry Clay was unlikely to win the presidency, he supported General Zachary Taylor for the Whig nomination in the 1848 presidential election. Taylor won and Lincoln hoped in vain to be appointed Commissioner of the General Land Office. The administration offered to appoint him secretary or governor of the Oregon Territory as consolation. This distant territory was a Democratic stronghold, and acceptance of the post would have disrupted his legal and political career in Illinois, so he declined and resumed his law practice. In the present letter to fellow Whig George Washington Rives, Lincoln refers to his lack of influence in the dispensation of offices in the Taylor administration, he had, in fact, been out of office for two months and had just returned to Springfield, Illinois, to resume his law practice. In very good condition. Triple matted and framed. The entire piece measures 17.5 inches by 15.5 inches. A unique and desirable lengthy letter from Lincoln, offering insight into his frustration with his early political career.

Abraham Lincoln served as the 16th President of the United States from March 1861 until his assassination in April 1865. He led the United States through the American Civil War, the country's greatest moral, cultural, constitutional, and political crisis, and in doing so preserved the Union of the United States of America, abolished slavery, and strengthened the federal government. Lincoln ran for President in 1860, sweeping the North in victory. The South was outraged by Lincoln's election, and in response secessionists implemented plans to leave the Union before he took office in March 1861. War began in April 1861 when secessionist forces attacked Fort Sumter in South Carolina, just over a month after Lincoln's inauguration and, after years of deadly military conflict, officially ended on April 9, 1865, when Confederate General Robert E. Lee surrendered to Union General Ulysses S. Grant at the Battle of Appomattox Court House. On April 14, 1865, just days after the war's end at Appomattox, Lincoln was attending a play at Ford's Theatre with his wife Mary when he was assassinated by Confederate sympathizer John Wilkes Booth. Lincoln is remembered as the martyr hero of the United States and is consistently ranked as one of the greatest presidents in American history.