Mar 01, 2012 - Sale 2271

Sale 2271 - Lot 73

Price Realized: $ 1,020
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 1,500 - $ 2,500
(SLAVERY AND ABOLITION.) POLITICS. [BUMM, HENRY.] The Modern Democratic Creed! Letter of John Brodhead, Democratic Candidate for City Treasurer. . . Letterpress broadside, 18-7/8 x 11-3/4 inches; paper evenly toned; considerable archival conservation and restoration with archival paper repair. [Philadelphia, 1863]
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Another piece of political "dirty tricks," from Pennsylvania. In this case a Republican one and rather convoluted at that. John Brodhead was running for the office of City Treasurer in Philadelphia during the 1863 election. This broadside purports to be a quote from a letter from Brodhead to Jefferson Davis. The language, thoroughly racist and vile, borders on the surreal in terms of non-sequitor: "Mr. Jefferson Davis. My dear Sir, can you tell me if General Larman is likely to remain much longer in Nicaragua? [then in bold] 'I should like to go to that country and help open it to civilization and niggers.' He goes on about getting a strong recommendation from the President's (Lincoln's) friends in Pennsylvania, saying he would "prove a likely minister" for that country, and adds [again in bold] "I am tired of being a White Slave at the North, and long for a home in the Sunny South." While making no sense, this broadside is a clear example of "you had to be there." Civil War period elections frequently played "the race card," and this was no exception. Henry Bumm, Republican, was running against John Brodhead, Democrat. The Library Company of Philadelphia has a copy of this (#000225120), which was, in fact supposed to be attached to one of two large engraved sheets and hung together, making one enormous poster. One shows a farm in disrepair, with white owners and black slaves, and the other shows men and women boarding an American Mechanics Association excursion train on the Camden & Atlantic Railroad, the engine marked "John Brodhead," with the caption: "Can't ye come down, come down: Oh! Can't ye come down to Atlantic," a reference to Brodhead's poetry.