(SLAVERY AND ABOLITION) LINCOLN ABRAHAM Democratic Catechism

Sale 2271 - Lot 61

Unsold

Estimate: $ 3,000 - $ 4,000

DIRTY TRICKS (SLAVERY AND ABOLITION.) LINCOLN, ABRAHAM. Democratic Catechism of Negro Equality, July 4th, 1863. Broadside, 9-1/2 x 6 inches; some foxing with a couple of small diagonal chips, not affecting text. Broadside tipped to mat, double matted in red white and blue. At the foot of the page: "Send your Democratic friend one of these Valuable Documents, sold wholesale and Retail at Johnsons." Philadelphia: No 7 North Tenth Street, 1863

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a rare piece of pro-lincoln campaign propaganda. This bizarre piece of political "dirty tricks" was produced by the Republican Party during the campaign year of 1863. Lincoln was pessimistic about his chances for re-election, as were the party heads. The Civil War was not going well, and the Emancipation Proclamation and the introduction of black troops did not sit well on either side of the Mason Dixon Line. The broadside is worded in the form of a "Question and Answer" that makes the Democrats appear like the very backbone of racial equality: "Who said that all men are created equal? Thomas Jefferson, the father of Democracy. Who gave negroes the right of suffrage in New York? The Democratic Party. Who married a negro woman and by her had mulatto children? Richard M. Johnson, a good Democrat." In all, there are sixteen such "Q & A's" followed, at the bottom of the page by: "All these things were done by Democrats, and yet they deny being in favor of negro equality, and charge it upon the Republicans---just like the thief who cries 'stop thief' the loudest." Sidney Kaplan wrote extensively about the issue of race and white supremacy in the 1864 campaign in the July, 1949 issue of the Journal of Negro History. ("Miscegenation Issue in the Election of 1864.") Kaplan drew parallels with Truman and the issue of race in the 1950 elections, likening the atmosphere among "Dixiecrats"---and many in the Northeast as well, to the 1864 election and the "Copperheads." The cry of the latter was that what had started out as a war to preserve the Union had become a "nigger crusade." There were parallels. In what many see as the beginnings of the modern civil rights movement, Truman had angered racist whites---North and South--- by integrating the Army.
The only record we could find for this broadside was in the noted Oliver R. Barrett Lincoln sale (Parke-Bernet, 1952, lot 449.) OCLC locates four copies. The cataloguer has observed a variant in a private collection with differing typeface in the bold title of the broadside.