A letter by Millard Fillmore in which the former president pondered whether the end of the Civil War might bring on "a war of races" sold for $60,500, 10 times more than the auction house expected.
The letter to U.S. Sen. Reverdy Johnson was written on April 14, 1865, the day President Lincoln was assassinated. Fillmore wrote the end of the Civil War five days earlier left open "the great question" of what would happen to 4 million blacks."And will not this state of things, sooner or later, result in a war of races . . . (and) in the expulsion or extermination of the African race?"
He wrote that he always considered slavery a "great political evil, alike injurious to the white and black races."
Fillmore was elected vice president in 1848 on a ticket with Zachary Taylor. He succeeded to the presidency in 1850 upon Taylor's death and served until 1853.
The letter was sold Tuesday to a New Jersey dealer buying for the Gilder Lehrman collection, which soon will be on display at the Pierpont Morgan Library in New York.