Apr 08, 2014 - Sale 2344

Sale 2344 - Lot 158

Price Realized: $ 1,500
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 1,500 - $ 2,500
(LINCOLN, ABRAHAM.) Report, Young Men's Republican Union. Printed circular letter, 4 pages, 11 x 8 1/2 inches, on one folded sheet; mailing folds, minor soiling. New York, 5 November 1860
Set Alert for Similar Items

Additional Details

A letter drafted the day before Election Day, reporting on the Young Men's Republican Union's extensive efforts to secure Lincoln's election. It begins: "The time for organized effort to influence men's minds in this Presidential Campaign is past; it only remains for individuals to do what they can. The returns of to-morrow's voting will tell with what success." The letter describes the Union's efforts along various fronts, starting with a series of sponsored political lectures by Sumner and others which it estimates reached over half a million newspaper readers. Next was the appearance of four members at the Chicago nominating convention, where they brought a partially blank banner which thus became "the first in the whole country that had inscribed upon its folds the names of our candidates." Third was the formation of the first New York company of Wide Awakes, or "Rail Splitters, as they were called." Fourth was the production and distribution of almost four million pamphlets, including an edition of Lincoln's Cooper Union speech which was "carefully revised by Mr. Lincoln himself." The circular concludes with a list of officers and board members including William Cullen Bryant, Horace Greeley, and Hamilton Fish.
No other copies of this important Lincoln campaign document have been found in OCLC or in previous auction records. It is quite possibly a unique survival.