ANDREW JOHNSON, WILLIAM HUNTER and ALGERNON PADDOCK
Civil appointment of Chief Justice of Nebraska William Kellogg signed by acting Secretary of State William Hunter, Secretary of the Territory Algernon Paddock, and President Andrew Johnson. Extremely rare!
Civil Appointment Signed: "Andrew Johnson" as President, "W. Hunter" as Secretary of State and, on verso, "Algernon S. Paddock" as Secretary of the Territory of Nebraska, 1p, 21x16. Washington, 1866 January 15. Appointment of William Kellogg as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the Nebraska Territory. KELLOGG (1814-1872), a former Illinois state legislator and Circuit Court Judge, was a Republican Representative from that state in the U.S. Congress (1857-1863). He served on the Nebraska Court for two years (1865-1867) and later served in the provisional (reconstruction) government of Mississippi, seeking unsuccessfully a Congressional seat from that state in 1869. HUNTER was Acting Secretary of State while Secretary of State William H. Seward and his son, Assistant Secretary of State Frederick W. Seward, were recovering from wounds received by Lincoln conspirator David Herold on April 14, 1865. In 1866, Hunter was appointed second Assistant Secretary of State by a special act of Congress. PADDOCK, appointed to the territorial post by Lincoln (1861), later served two terms as U.S. Senator (1875-1881, 1887-1893) after Nebraska became a state. The month before this document was signed, Republican majorities in the U.S. House and Senate had refused to seat representatives from the hastily reconstituted southern states, supported by President ANDREW JOHNSON (1808-1875), demanding more fundamental reconstruction of the South as a precondition to representation. Therefore, the rift between Johnson and Congress, which would lead to his impeachment trial in 1868, was already apparent. Lightly creased. Folds, vertical fold touches the "r" in Hunter. Ink smudged at 2 letters of Paddock's writing. Separated at mid-vertical fold, tackhead-size hole at mid cross fold, pinhead-size holes at some horizontal folds. Lightly soiled, pinhead-size stains at blank right margin, shaded on verso. 2¼-inch seal affixed at lower margin has cracked, but is intact. Toned. Otherwise, fine condition.