Beschreibung:

LINCOLN, Abraham. Autograph letter (unsigned) with AES ("A. Lincoln") on integral blank TO SECRETARY OF WAR EDWIN M. STANTON, Washington, 2 February 1864. Lincoln's signature on a docket that reads: "Submitted to the Sec. of War. Feb. 4, 1864." 2 pages, 8vo, Executive Mansion stationery . LINCOLN AIDS A DEMOCRATIC SENATOR'S IN-LAW Here Lincoln attends to another patronage request: "Today Mrs. Senator McDougal calls and asks that her brother George M. McConnell, at Jacksonville, Ill., be appointed an Assistant Pay Master." Lincoln submitted the request to Stanton two days later on 4 February 1864. McDougall (1817-1867) was born in Bethlehem, N. Y. and was the attorney general in Illinois between 1843 and 1846, while Lincoln was practicing law in the Sangamon County circuit and trying to build a name for himself in the state's Whig Party. More than once they found themselves at opposing counsel tables, as in the case of People v. Joseph Klein and Louisa Hosey in which the firm of Logan & Lincoln appeared on behalf of the defendants on a charge of fornication. McDougall moved to California during the gold rush period and became that state's attorney general in October 1850, but resigned at the end of the following year. He won election to the U. S. House of Representatives as a Democrat in 1852 and served a single term. In 1860 the California legislature sent him to the U. S. Senate, where he also served one term, aggressively advocating on behalf of the state's railroad interests. In March 1862 Lincoln met with McDougall in the White House on the emancipation issue, explaining to the lawmaker that graduated, compensated emancipation in the border states would be cheaper than the cost of 87-days of fighting. Here we see Lincoln extending some patronage largesse to his former legal colleague. There were few enough Democrats left in the Civil War Congress that such generosity could hardly have raised much objections among the President's fellow Republicans.