(PRESIDENTS 1860 CAMPAIGN) Small scrapbook of 1860 campaign

Sale 2432 - Lot 278

Unsold

Estimate: $ 500 - $ 750

(PRESIDENTS--1860 CAMPAIGN.) Small scrapbook of 1860 campaign clippings with copy of a 1854 Missouri Compromise petition. Approximately 35 leaves used. 16mo, original cloth, worn; several pages torn out, many pages covered with newspaper clippings, additional clippings tucked into rear pocket. Marion, IA, 1854-60

Set Alert for Similar Items

Additional Details

This volume began its life as a memorandum book for merchants Parkhurst & Belden in Marion, Iowa in the 1850s. The rear pages are used to haphazardly record transactions for musical instruments, liquor, personal vacations, and more, all undated. The owner then used it as a scrapbook for more than 20 newspaper clippings relating to the 1860 presidential election, including the Republican Party platform, and an article showing Stephen Douglas's hypocrisy on the Missouri Compromise. "A. Lincoln" is inscribed on the final page.
Found tucked into the volume is a worn 6 x 7 3/4 inch transcript of a 3 March 1854 petition in protest of the recent Kansas-Nebraska Act, which threatened to extend slavery: "The citizens of Linn County who are opposed to the violation of the Missouri Compromise and the extension of slavery are invited to meet at the courthouse in Marion on Saturday next . . . to utter their stern protest against the threatened breach of faith and their determined hostility to any encroachment by the slave power on the rights of free laborers in the territory secured by that compact." Certainly, a man opposed to the Kansas-Nebraska Act would also have been inclined to be a strong Lincoln supporter six years later.