Apr 16, 2013 - Sale 2310

Sale 2310 - Lot 92

Price Realized: $ 660
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 1,000 - $ 1,500
"THE GULF STATES . . . INSISTED UPON BREAKING UP THE CONVENTION " (CIVIL WAR--1860 CONVENTION.) Johnson, Bradley T. Pair of letters from a secessionist delegate to the 1860 Democratic convention. Autograph Letters, signed only as "yr devoted husband," to wife Jane Claudia Saunders Johnson, with accompanying stamped and cancelled envelopes addressed to "Mrs. Bradley T. Johnson" in Philadelphia. 3 pages on one 4to sheet, and 4 pages on one 8vo sheet; minimal wear. Charleston, SC 23 April 1860 and Frederick, MD, 26 May [1860]
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"we shall carry our point, which is to place maryland fully by the side of the south." Bradley Tyler Johnson (1829-1903) was a Maryland delegate to the 1860 Democratic National Convention, which split the party into warring Union and Secessionist camps. Johnson was a leading advocate of secession, and once war began, helped form the 1st Maryland Infantry, CSA, reaching the rank of Brigadier General in the Confederacy.
The first letter is dated Charleston, SC on the first day of the convention, 23 April 1860. Johnson already saw trouble brewing: "The Gulf states are raising the d---l. They called a meeting of the south on Saturday night & insisted upon breaking up the convention unless their demands were gratified. . . . If they withdraw, Douglas will be nominated at once. The south will concentrate on our man [Robert M.T.] Hunter, then try Breckenridge, then some other southern man."
The second letter was written in Maryland, three weeks after the first convention adjourned in failure, and three weeks before it was scheduled to reconvene in Baltimore. Johnson seems resigned that his faction's strategy will break up the party: "We are having a big fuss, or preparing for one. . . . I find my course meets general approval all over the state & I shall be fully sustained. . . . We think we shall carry our point, which is to place Maryland fully by the side of the south. . . . I think Douglas will be nominated or break up the party, & his nomination will break it up, so either way there are great difficulties ahead, almost sure distruction."