The Fathers and Saviors of Our Country: A Presidential Sale

1) To the Honorable Reverdy Johnson. Washington City, 7 October 1864. 14 1/2 x 7 1/2 in. printed broadside. (Toning, marginal tears, spotting, folds, minor losses.) In part: "I have never, Sir, been partial to Mr Lincoln; but at the same time I cannot but be partial to truth and justice...I would...enquire of myself...how it is you undertake to lampoon an individual...who the world, without one dissenting voice, pronounce a far better man than yourself?"

2) To the People of the United States. Washington City, 3 November 1864. 13 1/4 x 7 3/4 in. printed broadside. (Corner losses at upper portion, toning, minor creases, folds.) In part: "The times DEMAND an iron hand. This grand young Nation is being crushed between two beastly millstones - the Rebels and their friends within our lines - the slaveholders and their upholders!... The coming generations appeal to us... Let us dedicate ourselves to them, and hand down to them a country wholly free..."

Estwick Evans was an American lawyer who gained notoriety in 1818 when he disappeared into the wilderness armed with two pistols and accompanied by two large dogs. He ultimately walked 4,000 miles from Portsmouth, New Hampshire, to the Great Lakes, down the full length of the Mississippi River, and back to Portsmouth. He published an account of his travels in 1819 under the title, A Pedestrious Tour, or Four Thousand Miles Through the Western States and Territories During the Winter and Spring of 1818.

Although little is known of Evans's life following the publication of his book, evidence suggests that he returned to practicing law. Over the following years, he issued many circulars discussing topics of the day, most notably an 1824 address celebrating American independence, an 1844 essay on states' rights, and an 1862 circular addressed directly to President Lincoln calling for the immediate abolition of slavery. The first of the present circulars was addressed to Reverdy Johnson, a politician and lawyer who had served as Attorney General under the Taylor-Fillmore administrations and later defended John Sanford in the Dred Scott v. Sandford case. Though by 1864 Johnson had expressed his opposition to slavery, he nevertheless supported George B. McClellan in the presidential race of that year, a position which Evans found distasteful enough to merit publication of two broadsides, with the first addressed directly to Johnson and the other to the people of the United States expressing in no uncertain terms his opposition to allowing the Confederacy to survive.

RARE: We trace only one copy of the Reverdy Johnson circular sold at auction, and none of the other.