Description:

Hamlin Hannibal



Lincoln VP H. Hamlin Battles Pro-Slavery Hunkers in Maine to Gain Reelection to the U.S. Senate

HANNIBAL HAMLIN, Autograph Letter Signed, to Charles G. Bellamy, May 26, 1850, Washington, D.C.  2 pp., 7.875" x 9.875" Expected folds; small tear on center fold. Accompanied by a Hand Colored Lithograph, 1860, Currier & Ives, New York, New York. 1 p., 10" x 14". Some edge tears, not affecting image; some browning on edges.

 

 

Excerpt

“You see that the nomination is made in the House & Senate, & old York gave me all of her Reps but two Mitchell & McKusick. That was [gaining?] it strong. In the Senate Hobbs was for me. Dam & Titcomb did not act. Cannot something be done from your place to bring them in? Dam I heard said would support the nomination but of Titcomb I learn nothing. Will it not be well for our friends to write them. Will it not be well to write Hobbs also, & encourage him? He is right yet a little encouragement would make him feel stronger. Dam & Titcomb have so far gone to stove off, & by voting with the whigs & free soilers have done it. Will the democracy of old York sustain such a course.”

 

Historical Background

On December 24, 1847, U.S. Senator John Fairfield of Maine died during surgery while in office. The Maine state legislature selected former Maine Attorney General Wyman B. S. Moor to fill the position until they could choose a successor. In June 1848, despite the opposition of pro-slavery Democrats, the legislature elected Hannibal Hamlin as a Democrat to fill the remainder of Fairfield’s term. In 1850, the legislature elected Hamlin to a full term of six years. He withdrew from the Democratic Party over the extension of slavery in 1856 and won election as governor as a Republican, then six weeks later won reelection to the U.S. Senate.

 

On May 20, 1850, the Democratic caucus nominated Hamlin by a vote of 67 to 1 in the House and 11 to 1 in the Senate. The opposing “Hunker” wing of the Democratic Party did not participate, claiming that Hamlin was an “unsound Democrat.”

 

In this letter to supporter Charles G. Bellamy, a Democratic former representative and senator from York County, Hamlin explains that he has the support of most of the delegation from York, the southernmost county in the state. Hamlin urges Bellamy to get State Senators Daniel Dam and Joseph Titcomb of York County to support Hamlin and to encourage the third, Sheldon Hobbs. Hamlin had the support of all sixteen representatives from York County, except Nathaniel Mitchell of Kennebunkport and Thurston P. McKusick of Cornish.

 

Balloting for the U.S. Senate election began on June 20 in the Maine House. On the first ballot, Hamlin received 67 of 149 votes, eight short of the necessary majority. On the first ballots in the Senate, Hamlin received 13 votes, three short of the majority. Another week of balloting failed to break the impasse. On July 25, the House resumed voting, and Hamlin received 75 of 150 votes cast, or one short of election. His supporters found Representative Lorin D. Hayes, who was sick in bed with typhoid fever, and brought him in his bed to the House chamber. On the next ballot, Hamlin received 77 votes and was elected. In another vote later that day in the Senate, Hamlin received 15 of 29 votes cast, the bare majority to reelect him to the U.S. Senate.

 

 

Hannibal Hamlin (1809-1891) was born in Maine and managed his father’s farm before becoming a newspaper editor. He was admitted to the bar in 1833, and began a practice. Elected as a Democrat to the Maine House of Representatives in 1835, he served from 1836 to 1841. He represented Maine in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1843 to 1847 and in the U.S. Senate from 1848 to 1861 and again from 1869 to 1881. An opponent of slavery, Hamlin opposed the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854 and left the Democratic Party for the newly formed Republican Party. In 1860, he was the Republican nominee for Vice President on a ticket with Presidential candidate Abraham Lincoln. Elected as the first Republican Vice President, Hamlin held that office from 1861 to 1865. Replaced by Andrew Johnson as Vice Presidential nominee in 1864, Hamlin served as Collector of the Port of Boston for a time before resigning in disagreement with Johnson over Reconstruction policies. In addition to serving in the U.S. Senate after the Civil War, Hamlin also served as Minister to Spain from 1881 to 1882.

 

Charles G. Bellamy (1811-1899) represented Kittery, York County, Maine in the Maine House of Representatives in 1842 and 1843, and represented York County in the Maine Senate in 1846 and 1847. In 1842, the Maine governor appointed him to select commissioners to settle the boundary dispute between Maine and Canada under the provisions of the Webster-Ashburton Treaty of that year. From 1852 to 1861, Bellamy was inspector of timber at the U.S. navy yard at Kittery. According to one obituary, he was a life-long friend of Hannibal Hamlin.

 

 

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