Apr 16, 2019 - Sale 2505

Sale 2505 - Lot 193

Price Realized: $ 875
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 800 - $ 1,200
(SLAVERY AND ABOLITION.) Webster, Daniel. Hear the Words of the Prophet. Letterpress broadside, 12 1/4 x 9 inches; folds, mat toning, minor wear including 2 1-inch closed tears in margins. Np, circa 1862
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This broadside appears to present a bald-faced lie in service of a bad cause. It is the 19th-century equivalent of a toxic viral Facebook post. It offers an inflammatory quote by the renowned Massachusetts senator Daniel Webster in opposition to the abolitionist movement: "If the Infernal Fanatics and Abolitionists ever get the power in their hands, they will override the Constitution, set the Supreme Court at defiance, change and make laws to suit themselves, lay violent hands on those who differ with them in their opinions, or dare question their infallibility, and finally bankrupt the country and DELUGE IT WITH BLOOD."
Oddly enough, we can find no versions of this quote attributed to Webster during his lifetime (he died in 1852). However, it did begin to appear in several anti-Lincoln Copperhead periodicals in June and July 1862, and then made its way into pamphlets over the next couple of years. It is often attributed to Webster's famous "Seventh of March" speech, in which he advocated for the Compromise of 1850. That speech, which criticized the abolitionist movement and offered measured support for the Fugitive Slave Act as a means of preserving the Union, cost Webster the support of many anti-slavery radicals. But there is nothing in there about "infernal fanatics" or a deluge of blood. As far as we can tell, this quote was invented to blame the Civil War on abolitionists, and to drag Daniel Webster's good name into the debate on their side. It is still occasionally quoted by revisionist historians. This broadside does not have any printer's imprint or date; none traced in OCLC.