[Abraham Lincoln] Senator Lafayette Foster Autograph Letter Signed. Six pages, 5" x 8", December 19, 1862, "Senate Chamber...

Description

In part: "We are on the eve of important cabinet changes--it is a pity that we could not have a change in the Executive. The incumbent is a good enough Illinois rail splitter, for aught I know, but for a Prest of the United States in these days of peril and danger, oh, my! As the boarding school misses say, He is without dignity, without energy, without the first idea of order or system in business--with little knowledge of human nature, and no knowledge of human history--God save the Republic! . . . Something must be done speedily or there is an end of our national existence. I have faith that we shall survive but we are to be saved as by fire."

Lafayette Foster (1806-1880) served as Republican U.S. Senator from Connecticut from 1855 through 1867. Six weeks after his 1865 election as president pro tempore of the senate, President Lincoln was assassinated. If assassin John Wilkes Booth's plans to assassinated Vice President Andrew Johnson had been successful, Foster would have become president (from 1792-1886, the president pro tempore followed the vice president in the line of succession to the presidency).