Beschreibung:

folio, 13.5 x 15", partially printed, appointing James Speed of Kentucky...to be Attorney General of the United States...December 12, 1864.. Boldly signed by Abraham Lincoln as President and William H. Seward as Secretary of State. James Speed (1812-1887), Kentucky lawyer and Attorney General, was the brother of Joshua Fry Speed, one of Lincoln's closest friends and Springfield business partner. Born at the family estate of "Farmington" just outside Louisville, Speed was one of seven brothers. Trained in the law department of Transylvania University, and a member of the law faculty at the University of Louisville, Speed's political career in Kentucky was limited by his early opposition to slavery. At the outbreak of the Civil War he, like many others in Kentucky, took the position of preserving the Union, but at the same time to avoid war. He opposed Lincoln's 1861 call for troops, urging Kentuckians to refuse aid to either the Union or Confederacy. The delicate position of Kentucky was all too familiar to Lincoln from his long, and deep friendship with the Speed family. During the War years Lincoln depended on James for advice on affairs in the Bluegrass state; Speed was ardently pro-Union, but also a conservative southerner whose moderate views on how to deal with the south echoed those of Lincoln's. Lincoln rewarded this friendship in his second administration by appointing Speed Attorney General. Speed, Lincoln said, was "...an honest man and a gentleman, and one of those well-poised men, not too common here, who are not spoiled by a big office. (Charnwood 1916:404) After Lincoln's assassination, Speed early called for a Military Commission trial for the conspirators, and a civil trial for Davis. He opposed Johnson's veto of the Freedman's Bill, and as an advocate of African American suffrage, supported the 14th Amendment. Increasingly out of touch with the Johnson administration, he resigned his post, and returned to Kentucky, where he continued to speak out against Johnson. He led an active political life, and had a robust legal career, and died at his home, "The Poplars." A remarkable document, descended directly in a branch of the Speed family, and sold in a Louisville, Kentucky auction in the 1970s. Provenance: Collection of G. Vernon Diab Condition: Folds, with a near total separation into two halves at the center, with evidence of old taped repair on verso; 1 x 2.5" loss of paper at left, apparently done long ago when a Speed family member attempted to remove a wax seal on the rear of the document, resulting in the loss of about 1/3 of the embossed Presidential seal.