ALS signed “Jno. S. Mosby,” four pages on two adjoining sheets, 4.75 x 7.75, Department of Justice letterhead, August 18, 1904. Letter concerning the presidential election of 1904 between Teddy Roosevelt and Alton Parker. In part: “Judge Stratton…has just given the Democrats some ammunition. He assumes that the plank in the Republican platform about reduction of Southern representation…was simply put there to catch the Negro vote in the Northern States…fighting the Whites in the South…the people who put that plank in the platform did not know what they were talking about. The original Constitution based representation on population—not on voters—five Negroes being counted as three white men…Nobody will ever hear of this Republican plank after the election. It was put there for buncombe—if it were an issue in the campaign Roosevelt would have approved it in his speech accepting the nomination…I see the Nat. Dem. Negro League has congratulated Parker & sent him a copy of the Life Of Thomas Jefferson—Jefferson was accused of not only eating but of sleeping with Negroes. I suppose the Negro League is holding up Jefferson as an example for Parker to imitate.” In fine condition, with moderate show-through from writing to opposing sides.
Mosby’s politics following the Civil War differed from many of his southern compatriots—he became a Republican and actively supported his former enemy, U. S. Grant, in the first presidential election after the war’s end, saying that he believed the transition to be the best way to help the South. Writing in 1904, his support of the Republicans continued as they tried to break into the political sphere of the ‘Solid South,’ a term Mosby claimed to have invented in 1876. A superb letter revealing Mosby’s political inclinations as the 19th century turned into the 20th. Pre-certified PSA/DNA.
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