PRESIDENT ABRAHAM LINCOLN - DOCUMENT UNSIGNED 1864 - HFSID 261547

ABRAHAM LINCOLN AND ANDREW JOHNSON
Miami, Ohio ballot for the Union presidential election of 1864. Both of the men on this ballot would become president of the United States, but under completely different circumstances.
Ballot unsigned. B/w, 3½x7¼. Miami County, Ohio. Imprinted: "(Election November 8, 1864.)" Black ink on thin white paper. The ballot has a bust view of Liberty with her helmet of war and a sword held in her grasp. Stars of the 34 U.S. states (including those that seceded) are above her head. "Union" is imprinted on the sword. Below her is printed: "For President,/Abraham Lincoln/of Illinois./For Vice President,/Andrew Johnson,/of Tennessee." A list of 21 electors is printed below, including Stanley Matthews, who was appointed to the Supreme Court by President Garfield in 1881. This fascinating ballot, for the "Union Presidential Ticket," is from the 1864 election, during the waning days of the American Civil War. An Ohioan who voted for Lincoln and Johnson in Miami County, Ohio on November 8, 1864 could have placed this paper in the ballot box as his vote. In the election, Lincoln-Johnson won Ohio's 21 electoral votes and won the election by 212-21 electoral votes over the Democratic ticket of George B. McClellan and George H. Pendleton. The war would end five months after the election, and John Wilkes Booth would assassinate Lincoln just a few days after that, catapulting Johnson to the presidency. Future American president LINCOLN (1809-1865), on the advice of Whig legislator (and future law partner) John Todd Stuart, became a lawyer in 1836. In 1837, Lincoln moved to Springfield, where he became a partner in Stuart's law firm. From 1834 until he left for Washington, D.C. as President-elect, Lincoln's law offices were located above Seth Tinsley's store in Springfield. Lincoln, who became one of the most respected and successful lawyers in Illinois, handled some 5,100 cases and appeared before the Illinois State Supreme Court over 400 times over his 23-year legal career, which also included a long association (1844-1865) with another partner, William Henry Herndon. Before being elected President, Lincoln also served in the Illinois State Legislature (1834-1841) and one term (1847-1849) as a U.S. Congressman. He's best known, of course, as the 16th president of the United States (1861-1865), and especially as the Union's president during the Civil War (1861-1865) and writer of the Emancipation Proclamation. He was actively involved in military planning, swapping generals to find an aggressive commander of the Union army. Though his involvement cost the Union an early loss at the First Battle of Bull Run, his policies of blockading and overwhelming the Confederate army with superior numbers would eventually win the day. His primary objective was to reunite the United States, not end slavery. However, he signed the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863 in response to rising abolition feelings in the Union. He was shot while sitting in Ford's Theatre in Washington, DC by John Wilkes Booth on April 14, 1965, only a few months after being sworn in for his second term as president and only two days after the Confederate Army's official surrender, and died the next day. He was succeeded by vice-president Andrew Johnson. JOHNSON (1808- 1875) represented Tennessee in the U.S. House (1843-1853) and Senate (1857-1862, 1875) and served twice as that State's Governor (1853-1857, 1862-1865). His second term was as a Military Governor appointed by President Lincoln. A pro-war Democrat fiercely opposed to secession but also opposed to imposition of a stringent Reconstruction regime on the defeated South, Johnson was nominated and elected in 1864 as Lincoln's second Vice President on a National Union ticket. Following Lincoln's assassination, Johnson succeeded to the highest office for a stormyl term (1865-1869) in which he was increasingly at odds with the Republican majority in Congress. He was impeached by the House and acquitted by the Senate (May 26, 1868), although a switch of one vote would have secured the necessary two-thirds vote to remove him from office. The Mid-horizontal fold. Slightly soiled. Pinhead-size hole at blank mid-horizontal fold. Lightly creased. Otherwise in fine condition.