EBENEZER R. HOAR - AUTOGRAPH SENTIMENT SIGNED - HFSID 297881

EBENEZER R. HOAR
Handwritten sentiment of President Grant's first Attorney General
Autograph Sentiment signed: "Very truly yours,/E. R. Hoar", 3x1¼, affixed to an 7x8½ page. (Book photo on verso is not a picture of Hoar.) Ebenezer Rockwood Hoar (1816-1895) distinguished himself as an anti-slavery "Conscience Whig" in the Massachusetts state senate during the 1840's and was important in forming the Free Soil and Republican parties in that State. He was an Associate Justice on the state Supreme Court from 1859 until 1869, when President Ulysses S. Grant appointed him Attorney General. Hoar served as Grant's Attorney General from 1869 to 1870. (Grant, needing a Southerner in his Cabinet, asked for Hoar's resignation, but nominated him for Associate Justice of the Supreme Court in 1869. The Senate, angered by Hoar's merit appointments in the Justice Department and his prior opposition to the impeachment of President Johnson, failed to confirm him. In 1871, Hoar served on the joint high commission that framed the Treaty of Washington between the United States and Great Britain providing for an international tribunal to decide the "Alabama claims" arising from British aid to the Confederacy during the Civil War. Hoar served one term in the US House of Representatives (1873-1875), then resumed private law practice. Toned and creased. Fold through center. Soiled at edges. Otherwise, fine condition.