Sold – Hannibal Hamlin’s Memorabilia as a Member of the House of Representatives

Hamlin was known for his anti-slavery views, which brought him into contention with the strong pro-slavery wing of the Democratic Party. President Polk said of him, "He professes to be a Democrat, but…is pursuing a mischievous course…on the slavery question." The passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act in 1854 was a watershed for the country, as it allowed slavery in the territory north of the 36° 30´ latitude and effectively repealed the Missouri Compromise. Introduced by Sen. Stephen A. Douglas of Illinois and supported by many Democrats, the act stipulated that the issue of slavery would be decided by the residents of each territory, a concept known as popular sovereignty. After the bill passed on May 30, 1854, violence erupted in Kansas between pro-slavery and anti-slavery settlers, and and pro-slavery Missourians, some bringing their slaves with them, flooded into Kansas in order to affect the vote there. The national Democratic Party accepted these results as lawful. Hamlin, dissatisfied with the majority of his party's views on slavery, then switched to the Republican Party. Though he had little interest in a governorship, Hamlin made a deal with Maine Republicans that 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 – and assumed office in January 1857, but resigned in February to return to the U.S. Senate.

In 1860, the Republican Party nominated Abraham Lincoln for the presidency, and with Lincoln being a Western man and former Whig, the party sought to balance the ticket geographically by nominating for the vice presidency someone who was from the East, and politically by tapping a former Democrat. Moreover, as the U.S. Senate website states, "Lincoln and Hamlin shared an opposition to the expansion of slavery into the western territories, without being abolitionists." That was his public face. Hamlin was the perfect choice and was chosen as Lincoln's running mate. He served through virtually the entirety of Lincoln's administration, leaving office on March 4, 1865. The Republican Party dropped him from the ticket in 1864 in favor of Andrew Johnson of Tennessee, because Johnson was a symbol of national unity, the ideal person it seemed for a time of reconciliation as the war wound down. That judgment proved to be incorrect. 

When Hamlin entered Congress, he kept an autograph album of his fellow House members. He also retained pamphlets that were meaningful to him, on the most serious political issues confronting the Congress in the mid-1840s, with an emphasis on slavery, and the Texas and Mexico questions. Eventually he had this album and those pamphlets bound into a volume he labeled "Autographs," and retained it throughout his lifetime. His descendants likewise kept it all these years; we obtained it after they decided to sell it just a few months ago. Thus, after the Hamlin family, we are the first owners of the volume.

The autographs are organized roughly by state, and include many of the major figures in the House from all sides of the political spectrum.  Hamlin’s autograph is the first, with most of the representatives noting the state or district they represented.  The signatures include everyone from the power brokers to one termers, several of whom (like Hamlin himself) went on to play significant roles during the Civil War. 

The most prominent names are those of two Presidents, John Quincy Adams, the only U.S. President ever to return to Congress after serving in the Presidency, and a leader of the anti-slavery cause; and Andrew Johnson, who would supplant Hamlin as Vice President just on time to enter the Oval Office himself. Other notables among a few hundred signatures are:

Stephen A. Douglas (IL), Lincoln’s great debate and presidential opponent; Robert Barnwell Rhett (SC), a “fire eating” secessionist; future Confederate generals Howell Cobb (GA) and Thomas L. Clingman (NC); Henry A. Wise (VA), later Virginia governor and a Confederate Major General; future Confederate spymaster Jacob Thompson (MS); David Levy (changed soon to Yulee)(FL), first Jewish U.S. Senator; John Slidell (LA), involved in the Trent incident in the Civil War; future Union generals John A. McClernand (IL) and Robert C. Schenck (OH); Lincoln's future Secretary of the Interior, Caleb Smith (IN); noted abolitionist Joshua R. Giddings (OH); Grant's future Secretary of State Hamilton Fish (NY); Henry Dodge, Territorial Governor of WI; and soon-to-be Speaker of the House Robert Winthrop (MA).

These are the pamphlets and tracts Hamlin read and kept, which reflected his political concerns:

• Hamlin's copy of the Constitution of the United States, used by him as a U.S. Representative (1841). He has check-marked Article 2, Section 1, Paragraph 4, concerning elections and electors, quite naturally seeing as how he was chairman of the House Committee on Elections.  

* Hamlin's copy of the "Rules and Orders of the House of Representatives" by Samuel Birche, 1841, used by him as a U.S. Representative.

• Official Register of the Officers and Cadets of the US Military Academy, West Point (1844). This is signed at the conclusion as ordered to be published by academy superintendent Maj. Richard Delafield, the signatory being future Civil War Gen. Irwin McDowell.

• An important collection of scarce Liberty Tracts and other related tracts from the New England Anti-Slavery Association, about 100 pages all told. These are abolitionists writings, heavily illustrated with anti-slavery engravings, some quite famous. A few of the topics and notable authors are: "Poems on Slavery" by Henry W. Longfellow; "The Influence of the Slave Power; "What Can I Do for the Abolition of Slavery?", by R. Hildreth; Essays on the slave power, and its designs on Texas and Mexico, by abolitionists Sarah and Angelina Grimke, Thomas Clarkson, Benjamin Lundy, William Tappan, Daniel Webster, and even John Quincy Adams. The tract section also contains a Moral Map of the United States, showing the divisions of the country, by region, in white and black, based on the existence or nonexistence of slavery in each state. 

* "The Rights of Self-Defense", "Oaths, The Moral Character and Effect," and "An Inquiry into the Accordancy of War with the Principles of Christianity," all by Jonathan Dymond. 

• "The Legion of Liberty: Remonstrance of Some Free Men, States, and Press, to the Texas Rebellion, Against the Laws of Nature and Nations" (1843), "The Legion of Liberty and Force of Truth" (1844), and "The Anti-Texas Legion: Protest of Some Free Men, States, and Press" (1844), with accounts of slavery in the United States by such abolitionists as Theodore Weld and Elijah Lovejoy, and anti-slavery quotations from the Founding Fathers and many other prominent Americans throughout the decades.

These tracts provide us with a fascinating and unexpected window into the true beliefs of Hannibal Hamlin. He was considered a moderate among anti-slavery men, certainly not an abolitionist, and that reputation helped bring him the nomination for vice president in 1860. But these tracts, read in the privacy of his own space and not for public consumption, tell a different tale. One cannot page through these tracts, filled with graphic illustrations, in word and picture, of the horrors of slavery, and filled with attacks on the slave power and institution, and with abolition as the constant goal, and couple this with the fact that Hamlin not only bought these when they were published but bound them to preserve them and kept them his entire life, without seeing a committed abolitionist who, for reasons of career, toned down his views for public consumption.

The volume is bound in quarter leather over marbled boards (one a bit loose), with some wear and scuffing, a few pages loose, but in very good condition overall.