Autograph letter signed James Buchanan
BUCHANAN, James (1791-1868). Autograph letter signed ("James Buchanan"), to Thomas A. Goodman, Wheatland, 21 November 1861.
One page, 208 x 170mm, framed with portrait.
James Buchanan writes on the death of U.S. Marshal Matthew Johnson – a key enforcer of the Fugitive Slave Act and the instigator of the "Oberlin Riot" Buchanan laments the news of Johnson's demise, writing, "This sad event has caused me deep regret. He was an able, energetic & faithful officer, as well as a public spirited & useful citizen; and has left behind him a high & well-deserved reputation. He was my faithful & true friend from our first acquaintance & I shall ever cherish his memory. I desire to express, through you, my earnest sympathy with his widow, his mother & adopted child in deploring his death.” One of Johnson's key areas of enforcement was northern Ohio, a hotbed of abolitionist activity, and a key stop on the Underground Railroad. On 13 September 1858 in Oberlin, Johnson arrested John Price, an escaped slave from Maysville, Kentucky and attempted to return him. In response, a mob forcibly freed Price, hid in in the home of James H. Fairchild (a future president of Oberlin College), and soon afterward facilitated his escape to Canada. 37 persons involved, including twelve free blacks were indicted for obstruction of justice in what became known then as the “Oberlin Riot” and became a cause célèbre in anti-slavery circles. The Portage County Democrat protested: “Our National Government is an engine of oppression – James Buchanan is the head slave-catcher. His subordinate co-workers, the agents of the Fugitive Slave Law, are remarkably active in Ohio, this present season” (William Cox Cochran, The Western Reserve and the Fugitive Slave Law: A Prelude to the Civil War, 1920, p. 119n.) Provenance: Charles Hamilton.