1510

Lawyer for the Defense in Dred Scott and Mary Surratt Cases.

Currency:USD Category:Collectibles Start Price:45.00 USD Estimated At:90.00 - 120.00 USD
Lawyer for the Defense in Dred Scott and Mary Surratt Cases.
A.L.S. of celebrated lawyer and politician Reverdy Johnson, Astor House (N.Y.), Oct. 2, (18)58, 7 3/4 x 10, 2 full pp. To a correspondent in Troy (N.Y.). In a sprawling, hieroglyphic hand, rivaled only by Horace Greeley's: "...Yours of yesterday...puts me to no inconvenience...I thank you for the argument in the '?] case...Say to Mr. Pickett & his son that it could have given me a true pleasure to have spent a day with them, & our friends in Troy, & would have done so...." Light toning of cream sheet, evidently of some importance as removed from contemporary letterbook, else very good. Admitted to the bar at age 19, Johnson was a legal colleague of future Chief Justice Roger Taney. Owner of the Baltimore townhouse built for James Buchanan, Johnson served as Pres. Taylor's Attorney Gen., soon after representing the slave-owning defendant Sandford, in the Dred Scott case, though personally anti-slavery. Defending Maj. Gen. Fitz John Porter in his complex court-martial for cowardice, as Senator his committee drafted the 14th Amendment, though he voted against it. In 1867 and 1868, he became the only Democrat to vote for a Reconstruction measure. Johnson defended Lincoln assassination conspirator Mary Surratt; he was portrayed in the recent movie, The Conspirator.