\"Connecticut Senator\" Lafayette S. Foster Hand Written Letter For Sale
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\"Connecticut Senator\" Lafayette S. Foster Hand Written Letter:
$629.99
Up for sale a VERY RARE! "Connecticut Senator" Lafayette S. Foster 4 Page Hand Written Letter.
ES-8596
Lafayette Sabine Foster (November 22,
1806 – September 19, 1880) was a nineteenth-century American politician and
lawyer from Connecticut. He served in the United States Senate from
1855 to 1867 and was a judge on the Connecticut Supreme Court from
1870 to 1876. Born in Franklin, Connecticut,
Foster attended common schools as a
child and graduated from Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island,
in 1828. He taught school in Providence for some time and studied law back
in Norwich, Connecticut. He
took charge of an academy in Centerville, Maryland,
where he was admitted to the Maryland bar in 1830, then returned to Norwich and was
admitted to the federal bar in 1831. Foster was editor of out
of Connecticut, and served in the Connecticut
House of Representatives from 1839 to 1840, 1846 to 1848 and
1854, serving as Speaker of the House for three years. He was the Whig nominee
for Governor of Connecticut in
1850 and 1851, but lost both elections. He served as mayor of Norwich, Connecticut, from
1851 to 1852 before being elected as an Oppositionist to
the United States Senate in
1854, and reelected in 1860 as a Republican,
serving from 1855 to 1867. There, he served as chairman of the Committee on
Pensions from 1861 to 1867. His wife, Joanna Boylston Lanman,
died on April 11, 1859. Foster was elected President pro tempore of the Senate at the beginning of
the 39th Congress in
1865, and held that title until the end of his term in 1867. Six weeks after he
was elected, President Abraham Lincoln was assassinated by John Wilkes Booth. Two of Booth's accomplices also intended to
assassinate Vice President Andrew Johnson as well as Secretary of State William H. Seward. Seward's assassin, Lewis Powell, struck but
failed to kill, whereas Johnson's assassin, George Atzerodt, never acted. With Johnson's accession to the
presidency, Foster became first in the United
States presidential line of succession. Had Atzerodt followed
through and successfully assassinated Johnson, Foster would have become Acting
President (in accordance with Article II,
section 1 of the United States Constitution).
In 1866 Foster was elected as a Companion of the Third Class (i.e. an honorary
member) of the Pennsylvania Commandery of the Military Order of the Loyal Legion of the United States -
a military society of officers who served in the Union armed forces during
the American Civil War and
their descendants. Foster sought reelection to a third term in 1866,
but was defeated by Orris S. Ferry; his Senate
career ended on March 3, 1867. He became a professor of law at Yale College in 1869 and returned to the Connecticut
House of Representatives in 1870. He was once again elected
Speaker of the House, but resigned to take a seat on the Connecticut Supreme Court.
He was a Democratic candidate
for the United
States House of Representatives in 1874, but was unsuccessful
and resigned from the court in 1876, retiring from public life. Foster died
in Norwich, Connecticut, on
September 19, 1880, and was interred there in Yantic Cemetery.
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