[Broadside] Let Us Have Peace! To The Polls for Grant & Colfax!

Missouri: The Radical State Committee, 1868. Very Good. [Missouri]: The Radical State Committee, [1868]. Printed broadside (30.5x10cm) with illustrated eagle vignette to top; blue backing. Grant's campaign slogan, "Let Us Have Peace" to top followed by the Radical Republicans ballot choices, from President on down to the County Officers. Creasing and smudging; nicks and short tears to edges; overall Very Good and sound.

The Radical Republicans pushed for the complete and permanent eradication of slavery and supported Grant in '68, and here are supporting Missouri Congressional Candidate G.A. Finkelnburg as well. Noteworthy is also the push (truncated) "For Constitutional Amendment - Yes," presumably referring to the 15th Amendment (the 14th was already ratified and adopted that July), prohibiting states and the federal government from denying a citizen's right to vote based on race, color, or previous condition of servitude. A rare survival of Grant campaign ephemera, and an illuminating record of the Reconstruction era's battling factions and ideals. More broadly, the piece has a certain congruity given the import of the Missouri Compromise of 1820, of which Thomas Jefferson said, "I considered it at once as the knell of the Union. It is hushed indeed for the moment. But this is a reprieve only, not a final sentence." Not separately cataloged in OCLC. (Inventory #: 32549)