Johnson, Andrew, seventeenth President

Autograph letter signed ("Andrew Johnson"), 6 1/2 pages (8 x 6 3/8 in.; 204 x 162 mm), Greeneville, Tennessee, 15 August 1859, [to Harvey T. Phillips in Chattanooga]; formerly folded, small dampstain affecting, but not obscuring, a few words on last two pages, tiny fold tears in last leaf. Black half-morocco clamshell box.

Nathaniel E. Stein (his sale, in these rooms, 30 January 1979, lot 102)

L.P. Graf & R.W. Haskins, eds., Papers of Andrew Johnson, eds. L.P. Graf & R.W. Haskins, 3: 289-292

formerly folded, small dampstain affecting, but not obscuring, a few words on last two pages, tiny fold tears in last leaf.
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The only terms on which he would run for the presidency.

Andrew Johnson was serving as a Senator from Tennessee when that state's delegation at the Democratic National Convention of 1860, held in Charleston, South Carolina, nominated him for president but the convention adjourned (after 57 ballots) and he withdrew his name. He was the only senator from a seceded state to continue to participate in Congress.

Marked "strictly confidential," the present letter was written (according to the editors of the Papers), to Harvey T. Phillips, postmaster, and editor of the Chattanooga Advertiser. He writes: "... I cannot do otherwise than be candid and frank with you, and in being so, I am compelled to say that I never was and never expect to be an aspirant to the presidency of the United States. I know however that there are some who consider the presidency the summit of all human greatness and honor and who have pursued it as the leading object of their ambition without regard to the first principles of the Government or measures that were consonant to them, in fact abandoning every thing to policy and more questions of expediency, so as to enable them to accomplish their desired end. If the presidency could be conferred upon one who is not an aspirant, as an incident flowing from the pursuit of correct principle and the support of sound measures, calculated in their bearing to promote our democratic form of Government and to advance the happiness, peace and prosperity of the whole people; it would then be desireable and acceptable, and in no other way ..."

He does not believe he will be nominated at the Charleston convention, and if nominated could not be elected: "The democratic party cannot succeed in the next presidential contest unless there is some reaction in public sentiment to the north on the question of slavery, and that is hardly to be expected to happen during the next presidential canvass involving the subject of the highest importance to the whole South ... I am clear and decided in my own mind as to the propriety and correctness of the South nominating a candidate from a slave owning State ... As parties now stand, a Southern man can get as many votes in the free States as any candidate ... who entertains the same opinions and sentiments .... I am for a Southern man as the standard bearer of the democracy, let the consequences be what they may ... The time has arrived when there should be no evasion, when there should be no deception practiced by either the north or the south, the one upon the other—in regard to the institution of slavery ...

"Notwithstanding the favorable mention of the press ... I have never for one moment permitted myself to entertain the bewildering idea of being an aspirant for presidential honors ... According to my observation most public men, though useful, consistent and faithful before becoming aspirants for the first honors of the nation, have, after fixing their eyes upon the presidency ... ceased longer to be worth any thing to the people as a faithful representative ..."