“Be it enacted by the Senate and General Assembly of the State of New Jersey, That no person shall be denied the full and equal enjoyment of the accommodations, advantages, facilities and privileges of all hotels, inns, taverns, restaurants, public conveyances on land or water, theatres and places of public resort or amusement, because of race, creed or color…”

CAUGHT! Thomas Nast’s classic image of Santa Claus being hugged by a little girl graces the front cover of this issue of Harper’s Weekly.

The double-page centerfold is another nice Thomas Nast Christmas print, “Christmas Fancies – ‘Don’t You Wish You Wore Stockings?’,” showing children and their dog in front of a fireplace. Will Carleton’s poem, The Christmas Tree, is illustrated with art by Howard Pyle which fills nearly an entire page. Other prints include the “Electric Railway at Berlin, Prussia,” “The Ring Theatre, Vienna, Recently Destroyed by Fire,” “Hon. Frederick T. Frelinghuysen, Secretary of State,” “The Late John W. Forney,” “Short and Sweet – ‘It’s Too Too Too Funny!’,”  and “The Interrupted Journey.” Thomas Nast is credited with creating the modern version of Santa Claus.

“Yesterday the Hon. S. B Bowman called …  asking the loan of “the sword or sabre I wore” during the famous March to the Sea … I explained to Mr Bowman that the truth was I did not have a sword or sabre during that march, nor at any time after I succeeded General Grant in the command of the Western Armies at Nashville March 1864.” 

While Douglass’s letters are scarce, documents signed during his tenure as recorder of deeds for the District of Columbia can be had very reasonably.

While Douglass’s letters are scarce, documents signed during his tenure as recorder of deeds for the District of Columbia can be had very reasonably.

Sherman clarifies promotions of some of the Union’s most iconic generals, going back to the Civil War, and when U.S. Grant assumed the presidency and Sherman came to command the entire army.

“As you and I have both expressed friendly sentiments towards the citizens of the Flowery Kingdom, we may hope to be in high favor should we live till that time.”

Schuyler Colfax, U.S. representative from Indiana and vice president under Ulysses S. Grant, pens a famous quote from Lincoln’s Cooper Institute speech.

A detailed, despairing letter on campaign politics after the reelection of Ulysses S. Grant. Lawrence observes the humiliating defeat of Democrats and “Liberal Republicans” – who united behind Horace Greeley because of corruption in the Grant administration – in the Election of 1872. Lawrence laments the elevation of personality over merit and virtue in elections, an observation which resonates today. He also expresses concern about how newly enfranchised African Americans tended to vote.  “The negroes are naturally disposed to support those who are in power & whom they invest with superior dignity, on account of the possession of power. …the extraordinary denouement of the Cincinnati Convention has placed in bold relief the mode most unsatisfactory to an intelligent people, by which party conventions are constituted & which are readily made, the instruments of the vilest partisan combinations, carried on by men without character & without principle.”

Best known for his seminal Birds of America, Audubon’s prints are among the world’s most recognized images.

Best known for his seminal Birds of America, Audubon’s prints are among the world’s most recognized images.

Best known for his seminal Birds of America, Audubon’s prints are among the world’s most recognized images.

Best known for his seminal Birds of America, Audubon’s prints are among the world’s most recognized images.

Best known for his seminal Birds of America, Audubon’s prints are among the world’s most recognized images.

Best known for his seminal Birds of America, Audubon’s prints are among the world’s most recognized images.

Best known for his seminal Birds of America, Audubon’s prints are among the world’s most recognized images.

Governor Rufus Bullock, a native New Yorker, informs the governor of his native state that his adopted state has ratified the 15^th Amendment, shortly after New York rescinded its earlier ratification.

“I have the honor to transmit herewith Joint Resolution ratifying the proposed ‘Fourteenth (sic) Constitutional Amendment’ passed by the General Assembly of the State of Georgia, February 2d, A.D. 1870.”

It is ironic that this printed letter incorrectly references the “proposed Fourteenth” amendment. Like all other Confederates states except Tennessee, Georgia had initially rejected the Fourteenth Amendment in 1866, just months after President Johnson sent it to the states for consideration. The recalcitrance of southern states led Congress to impose military governments and to require former Confederate states to ratify the Amendment before they could be represented in Congress. Georgia ratified the Fourteenth Amendment on July 21, 1868, providing the final necessary vote for the amendment to go into effect. This letter clearly refers to the Fifteenth Amendment, under consideration by the states in 1869 and 1870.