Printed Books & Early American Photography, including Selections from the Larry Ness Collection

20 x 14 in. (sight) passport accomplished in manuscript, folds, very minor marginal soiling. Framed and matted, overall 26 1/2 x 20 1/2 in. (unexamined out of frame).

William H. Seward began service as Secretary of State in 1861 under President Abraham Lincoln. Seward suffered near-fatal wounds during the attack in his home by Lewis Powell on April 14, 1865, as part of John Wilkes Booth's plot to assassinate Abraham Lincoln and in the process decapitate the Union government by killing its highest-ranking officials. He survived and continued to serve under Lincoln's successor, Andrew Johnson, negotiating the purchase of Alaska from Russia in 1868.

The present passport was issued to New York congressman Samuel Sullivan "Sunset" Cox, who though staunchly opposed to Lincoln's efforts to extend full citizenship to former slaves nonetheless remained on good terms with him and other members of his administration, Seward in particular, throughout the last months of the Lincoln administration. During Andrew Johnson's impeachment trial he was personally summoned to Washington at Seward's request to lobby Senator John B. Henderson of Missouri to acquit. Henderson ultimately proved the decisive vote, and Cox was credited by Seward and others with having saved Johnson from the indignity of being the first president to be removed from office.