William P. Fessenden
William P. Fessenden - Inventory Number: ALB 308
Scarce wartime albumin in original oval gold frame of the honorable William P. Fessenden.
An original typed label on the reverse of the frame reads: “William Pitt Fessenden, born at Boscawen, N.H. Oct. 16, 1806. Died at Portland, Maine, Sept. 8, 1869. He was a two-term senator from Maine, Representative from 1854 to 1869. He was the second Secretary of the Treasury in Lincoln's Cabinet 1864-1865.
A wonderful tag of provenance typewritten on the back of the frame which reads: "This picture framed, as is, was acquired by me from Ellen Fessenden Dickie, and was in her family as long as she can remember - probably from its original publication. The picture apparently has never been out of the frame. / Note the handmade nails and wooden backing / Louis Epstein.”
Fessenden's Role in U.S. History:
A lawyer, he was a leading antislavery Whig in Maine; in Congress, he fought the Slave Power, plantation owners who controlled Southern states. He built an antislavery coalition in the state legislature that elected him to the U.S. Senate; it became Maine's Republican organization. In the Senate, Fessenden played a central role in the debates on Kansas, denouncing the expansion of slavery. He led Radical Republicans in attacking Democrats Stephen Douglas, Franklin Pierce, and James Buchanan. Fessenden's speeches were read widely, influencing Republicans such as Abraham Lincoln and building support for Lincoln's 1860 Republican presidential nomination. During the war, Senator Fessenden helped shape the Union's taxation and financial policies. He abandoned his earlier radicalism, joining pro-Lincoln Moderate Republicans against the Radicals and becoming Lincoln's Treasury Secretary.
After the war, Fessenden was back in the Senate, as chair of the Joint Committee on Reconstruction, which established terms for resuming congressional representation for the southern states, and which drafted the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. Later, during the 1868 impeachment trial of President Andrew Johnson, Fessenden provided critical support that prevented the Senate conviction of President Johnson, who had been impeached by the House. He was the first Republican senator to ring out "...not guilty" followed by six other Republican senators, ultimately resulting in the acquittal of President Johnson. Fessenden's vote against convicting Johnson was motivated by his support for free trade and fears of a Benjamin Wade presidency.
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