A FORMER SOLDIERS OFFERS HIS OPINIONS ON THE STATE OF NATIONAL POLITICS AND PRESIDENT ANDREW JOHNSON

Autograph Letter Signed, “John.” Four pages, 5 1/8” x 8”. Pittsburgh. Sunday 23rd, no month, no year [1868]. The letter reads, in part: “ … The soldiers are all laying aside their suits of blue, and are now becoming citizens again. Many of them are rather wild and want the strong hand of the military power to keep then under, but the great majority are peaceably disposed. They want to obtain situations, and settle down to the work of the elections which take place in the coming fall … as you claim that women should talk and enter [?] upon politics I will give you a slight dissertation upon who I think should be voters … Every soldier who has been honorably discharged from the army … Every other man provided he is a citizens of the United States and able to read and write. As a cardinal point there should be no distinction on account of color. Far rather would I commit this share of deciding upon the destiny of the country to the black man who can read and write than to the ignorant Irishman, or any other foreigner, who comes here and after a short residence is transformed into a copperhead citizen. Then in place of having the government as it now is, I would suppress the states as political power. I would make them only agents of the Republic, and this country and government I would wish to see a little more imperial than it is now. A government in some respects like that of France would please me better. Republican government is an Utopian idea … Our present President if drifting towards the State Rights doctrines, and is playing into the hands of the Democrats (copperheads) … We have labored during four years of war at a heavy cost … and a priceless expenditure of blood and life. And yet with his present course he will undo all that his predecessor Saint Abraham Lincoln did. I cannot give him by earnest support. If any many was ever entitled to the appellation of Saint, it was our late President … ” Fine commentary on Lincoln, Johnson and the American political system from a former Union soldier. Punch at upper left from mounting in an album Separation at folds. Reinforced upper folds makes one line on fourth page difficult to read. Else Very Good.