Item Details
1865
Peter Cooper (1791‑1883) was a manufacturer, inventor, and founder of The Cooper Union. His inventions include a musical cradle, methods for making salt, glue and gelatin, and the rotary steam engine, modeled as the "Tom Thumb" locomotive. He was also involved in local and national politics as an abolitionist, advocate for Native American policy reform, and promoter of credit-based currency. In 1876 he ran for president representing the Greenback Party.
In this 1865 letter, Cooper appeals to President Andrew Johnson to support the Reconstruction policies adopted by Congress and demands full rights for formerly enslaved Black Americans.
To my mind, our nation must live in everlasting infamy if we fail to secure a full measure of justice to an unfortunate race of men who were originally hunted down in their own country, and carried off and sold like beasts into an abject slavery, with all their posterity.
The enslaved race has the strongest possible claims for kindness, as well as justice, at the hands of the people and Government of the whole country, and more especially from the people of the South These unfortunate slaves have done a great portion of the labor that has fed and clothed the whites and blacks of the Southern country.
As true as the laborer is worthy of his hire, so true is it that we, as a nation, cannot withhold justice and equal rights from a race of men that has fought and bled, and labored to defend and protect the union of States in the hour of our nation's greatest extremity.
The enemies of our country and Government are now trying to persuade the community to believe that a war of races would result from giving the black man the same measure of justice and rights which the white men claim for themselves. This will be found to be a groundless fear. Our national danger will always result from unequal and partial laws. We cannot make laws which will oppress and keep in ignorance the poor without bringing on ourselves and our country the just judgment of a righteous God, who will reward us as a nation according to our works.
4 pp - 51/2" x 8". Very good condition.
