July 14th, 2011
This lot is closed for bidding. Bidding ended on 7/14/2011
Autograph Letter Signed by W.N. Cowan, 4pp. octavo, pencil, Turkey Town, Alabama, June 3, 1867, and reads in part: “...The winter was unusually cold - The spring very late & cold. The wheat crop is good...bad stand of both corn & cotton, and very small for the season. Very little political excitement. Negro’s generally doing tolerably well. Our Legislature has made a new county for us its name is Baine. Gadsden the county seat & your humble servt county superintendent of public schools. Salary probably three or four hundred dollars. To comply with the Military Bill we have two white men & one Negro for Registers, to register all the loyal voters in the county. The registration will take place soon. I think likely that I am disfranchised but I think I can control Peter the Freedman’s vote so I will be none the lower in that respect. I feel very little interest in politics. I had quite a time with my radical friends in North Carolina. They treated me very clever, aside from politics. I found them desperately radical; unreasonably so, I think they were fanatical. I hope all things will work for our good eventually...” Near fine condition. The Radical Republicans were a loose faction of American politicians within the Republican Party from about 1854 (before the American Civil War) until the end of Reconstruction in 1877. They called themselves "radicals" and were opposed during the war by moderates led by Abraham Lincoln and after the war by self described "conservatives" (in the South) and "Liberals" (in the North). They strongly opposed slavery during the war and after the war distrusted ex-Confederates, demanding harsh policies for Reconstruction. During the war, Radical Republicans opposed President Abraham Lincoln's policies in terms of selection of generals and his efforts to bring states back into the Union; Lincoln vetoed the Radical plan in 1864 and was putting his own policies in effect when he was assassinated in 1865.[2] Radicals pushed for the uncompensated abolition of slavery, and after the war supported Civil rights for freedmen (the newly freed slaves), such as measures ensuring the right to vote. They initiated the Reconstruction Acts, and reduced rights for ex-Confederate soldiers. The Radicals were vigorously opposed by the Democratic Party and usually by moderate and Liberal Republicans as well.
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