1850 US Senator Joseph Rogers Underwood (Kentucky) ALS, U.S. Senate free frank Washington DC trio signed letter to James Taylor Newport

1850 Congressional stampless folded letter from Washington DC to Newport KY. Red curved “FREE” also above Washington cds; free frank of Senator Joseph Rogers Underwood as a member of Congress. Joseph Rogers Underwood (1791-1876) served as a member of the House from Kentucky 1835-1843 and as a US Senator from 1847-1853. Letter also signed by Senator Underwood to James Taylor to negotiate a fee due in the Supreme Court.  James Taylor (James Taylor VI) was the son of the founder of Newport, KY, one of wealthiest men in Kentucky. His wife Susan Lucy Barry was the daughter of Kentucky Senator and the 7th US Postmaster General William Taylor Barry. Letter also docketed that a draft was sent, signed J. Taylor. Condition as pictured.

An opponent of Andrew Jackson and outspoken emancipationist, Underwood was elected as a Whig to the United States House of Representatives, serving Kentucky's District 3 from March 4, 1835 until March 3, 1843. There he was chairman of the U.S. House Committee on the District of Columbia. He declined to be a candidate for renomination in 1843, and resumed the practice of law. He was a presidential elector on the Whig ticket in 1844, and voters again elected him to the State House in 1846, where he served as speaker.

Underwood was elected as a Whig to the United States Senate and served from March 4, 1847 to March 3, 1853, when he did not run for reelection.

As an emancipationist, Underwood manumitted his slaves and sent them to Liberia.  Even though he supported the Compromise of 1850, he also urged others to do likewise. (additonial information in Liberia and the American Colonization Society). 

Before the American Civil War, Underwood campaigned in Kentucky for the Constitutional Union Party. He inherited seven slaves in 1858 when his older cousin died however he immediately manumitted them as well. He wanted slavery to end, but also favored a form of gradual emancipation rather than immediate emancipation. He did not believe the federal government had the authority to impose slavery-related laws on states according to the constitution, but was opposed to secession.

He ran for the state legislature again and was elected, serving two more terms, from 1861 to 1863 and fighting secessionists in the border state legislature. However, two of his sons would support the Confederacy. He attended the Democratic National Convention in 1864 and helped rebuild that party in the state.  During the Civil War he was a "strong Union sympathizer" and was outspoken about his support for the Union.