President Andrew Johnson Appoints the Last Territorial Governor of Nebraska

In the 1850s, Senator Stephen A. Douglas has his eyes set on organizing the vast Nebraska Territory to build a transcontinental railroad.  Both the Southern and Northern states competed for the terminus, which Douglas wanted to run through the North.  To placate the South and get Southern Senators to vote his way, he stepped right into the quagmire of the North-South dispute over slavery, and guided through Congress the Kansas-Nebraska Act. This split the territory into two – Kansas and Nebraska, repealed the Missouri Compromise, and opened the new territories to the possibility of slavery using Douglas' doctrine of Popular Sovereignty (which held that local residents would decide on whether they wanted slavery or not).  In Kansas, this led to a series of violent confrontations between pro-slavery and anti-slavery forces, in fact a war of sorts. Many consider it the proving ground for the Civil War. In Nebraska, the first territorial governor took his seat in 1854, in what ended up being a line of interim governors and short-serving officials until 1861.

After Lincoln was inaugurated, he thought it important to put into the position of Governor of Nebraska a political ally.  Alvin Saunders was a staunch Republican who had attended the convention where Lincoln was nominated, and campaigned for Lincoln's election, helping to deliver his native Iowa.  Previously a state senator who had helped draft the Iowa Constitution, Saunders was a logical man for Lincoln to trust for this important position. So he was Lincoln's appointee, and he was Lincoln's man. In 1866, when it came time for a new President to put into place his men to govern the expanding territories of the nation, President Andrew Johnson followed Lincoln's lead and renamed Saunders.

Document signed, Washington, January 19, 1866, signed by Johnson as President and William Hunter as Acting Secretary of State, in that position because William Seward was still recovering from the attack on him as part of the assassination conspiracy, appointing Saunders Governor of the Territory of Nebraska.  "I have nominated, and, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, do appoint [Alvin Saunders] to be Governor of the Territory of Nebraska."  Since state governor is an elected position, the only presidential appointments to such a high office relate to U.S. territories, making this an extremely uncommon document. 

Saunders was influential in guiding Nebraska to statehood, and was the last Territorial Governor of Nebraska.  The road to statehood was not an easy one. The first state Constitution gave suffrage to white people only; Johnson vetoed the statehood application as a result.  This irked Saunders, who did not like Johnson's intervention in the matter.  Throughout the summer of 1866, Johnson men hurled insults at Saunders, who trust that in Johnson's unpopularity would bring him through.  When a new statehood bill was introduced, stripped of the offending language, Johnson still vetoed it.  But Congress overrode that veto.

Saunders was chosen in 1862 to serve as Commissioner for the Union Pacific Railroad, which began construction of the transcontinental railroad in 1863 (much to Lincoln's liking). The project united the east and west in a way hitherto considered impossible. He later served as a representative from Nebraska and then its U.S. Senator. He was also the founder and President of the State Bank of Nebraska.

Saunders daughter married the son of future President Benjamin Harrison. This document was acquired from their direct descendants and has never before been offered for sale.