Signed Amnesty Oath for a South Carolina Planter under Andrew Johnson’s Amnesty Proclamation, Completed at Union, South Carolina, September 16, 1865.
Union, South Carolina: September 16, 1865. One folio sheet, accomplished in ink on a printed United States form, signed by the applicant and certified before a Provost Marshal. 7 ¾ x 9 ½ inches. Old folds, light staining, minor wear; very good. Item #Cat350
A scarce and telling Reconstruction-era document, recording the formal reintegration of a South Carolina slaveholder into the United States following the collapse of the Confederacy. Issued pursuant to Johnson’s initial May 29, 1865 amnesty proclamation—under which loyalty oaths of this type were administered throughout the summer and fall of 1865—the form required former Confederates to swear allegiance to the Union and explicitly to “abide by and faithfully support all laws and proclamations […] with reference to the emancipation of slaves.” The present example is completed for Jesse Briggs of Union District, South Carolina, identified as a “planter,” aged 64, with physical description noted below, a standard feature of such oaths carried out under military supervision.
Of particular interest is Briggs’s apparent reference to the “thirteenth” exception in the proclamation. Under Johnson’s terms, this class encompassed individuals whose taxable property exceeded $20,000—effectively the Southern planter elite—and such persons were excluded from general amnesty, instead required to seek individual presidential pardon. Briggs likely fell within this wealthy class, placing him among those whose fortunes had been most directly bound to enslaved labor and whose restoration to political and civil rights became one of the central controversies of Presidential Reconstruction under Andrew Johnson. Within months of such oaths being administered, Southern state governments, often led by men restored under these very provisions, began enacting the so-called Black Codes, which restricted the lives of the newly emancipated African Americans, setting up a battle with Republicans in congress.
Price: $1,200.00