The Last Appointments, Made by President Abraham Lincoln on the Day of His Assassination, Enacted by President Andrew Johnson

This was one of the final decisions Lincoln made on April 14, 1865, prior to going to Fords Theater

 

It comes with a request from the Papers of Andrew Johnson for a copy of the letter, noting its significance

Abraham Lincoln’s assassination changed the face of American history and more specifically of reconstruction. Nowhere did the complications of the moving political scene show itself more clearly than in border state Maryland.

Congressman John Cresswell’s selection as the opening speaker in the pivotal debate over the Thirteenth Amendment abolishing slavery placed him in the national spotlight. His speech was also a demonstration of both his long-held beliefs and his evolution as an abolitionist and “Freedom National” Republican. The Senate had approved the measure in April 1864 by a vote of 38 to 6. In June, however, the House had not produced the needed super majority, having fallen eleven votes short of the required two-thirds majority for a constitutional amendment. Now, however, after a national landslide for the Republican (or National Unionist) party in November 1864, the tide had turned. Thus, in January 1865, the House leadership was ready to try again, during the last session of the Thirty-eighth Congress, and began their effort with Cresswell. Cresswell’s selection had much to do with Maryland’s status as the first southern slave state to abolish slavery, which it had done two months before. Cresswell’s oration on the floor may well have contributed to the amendment’s narrow and historic victory a little more than three weeks later. Certainly, it set the tone of the debate, and the speech itself was immediately printed and widely distributed. It also cemented Cresswell’s reputation, despite his lame-duck status, as a leading member of the radical wing of the Republican Party. Pass it did, on January 31, 1865, to unprecedented scenes of celebration in the House.

Despite Cresswell’s national moment, Republican hopes of maintaining power in Maryland were fading. With the Union saved, politicians such as Montgomery Blair and the Unionist governor, Thomas Swann, were soon to desert the Republican cause and join or rejoin the Democrats. There was still enough of a Republican power base in early 1865, though, to send Creswell back to the Thirty-ninth Congress. In March, Creswell was chosen to fill a vacancy due to the death in the MD Senate delegation. This was a victory for the Radical Republicans over the more conservative faction controlled by Montgomery Blair, who had wanted the seat. This bitter border-state rivalry was a thorn in the side of Lincoln.

Addressing the serious patronage issue in the state, the President asked Cresswell to meet with Maryland governor Thomas Swann, a Blair supporter, and come up with a list of candidates for federal positions in the state that would please both sides of the divide, from the more radical republicans to those with stronger Democrat sympathies. Lincoln accepted the compromise list that Swann and Cresswell submitted. Cresswell was on increasingly good terms with Lincoln, who was sincerely grateful for his efforts in the troublesome Border State. On the morning of April 14, 1865, Lincoln greeted Cresswell warmly in the White House. Lincoln told him that he had signed off on his list, which consisted of ten names. He did this by endorsing the list, which appears in Basler’s “Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln.” Basler also indicates that Lincoln approved of two other appointments that day, which was to be his last. Lincoln had no other meetings about appointments that day. So LIncoln approved the appointments of twelve men on his last day, all but two on this Maryland list.

That night, John Wilkes Booth’s bullet changed everything. Lincoln was dead, and the new president was Andrew Johnson from Tennessee. Almost immediately, the Radical Republicans saw their freedom agenda under threat. As Democrats returned to dominance in his home state, Cresswell must have been doubly fearful. And as for the twelve appointees, with President Lincoln being dead, their appointments were incomplete and thus were technically invalid.

Letter signed, as President, Executive Office letterhead, Washington, July 28, 1865, to Senator John AJ Cresswell, saying he would uphold most of Lincoln’s last appointments. “Dear Sir, I have at length concluded to make the appointments named on the enclosed paper [included]. I trust this will prove satisfactory to you.” Five were the very Maryland appointments Lincoln had ordered, making them in a real sense Lincoln’s last appointments.

Johnson includes the list, dated the same date, naming W.H. Burnwell the Postmaster of Baltimore, E.H. Webster the Collector for the Baltimore, W.J. Reese the Naval officer, Edington Fulton the Surveyor, Washington Bonifant the Marshall, William J. Jones the US Attorney, John L. Meredith the Chief Appraiser, and E.E. Anderson and Thomas Carroll also appraisers. Five of these nine appointees were on Lincoln’s list.

American political history may well have been different if Cresswell had held on to the seat; His successor, Vickers, provided the one vote margin against the removal of President Andrew Johnson at his impeachment trial in 1868. Creswell would almost certainly have voted for the end of Johnson’s presidency.