A very finely preserved publication sheet for an important series of speeches opposing enforcement of black voting rights guaranteed by the 15th Amendment to the United States Constitution. A shameful record really of men who advocated against the enforcement of the Civil Rights promised by the 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments, and who knew that a lack of enforcement all but guaranteed those rights would not be honored.
Though the Fifteenth Amendment, guaranteeing black Americans the right to vote, was ratified in February of 1870, it was anticipated by pro Civil Rights Representatives that enforcement would prove challenging. Bills were introduced to have Federal enforcement present at local voting precincts to ensure black voting rights were honored.
The push-back from the anti-abolitionists was immediate. Our list includes pro-slavery pioneers, fugitive slaves hunters, and supporters of the Klan . . . each a member of Congress! A vigorous debate followed in the House which led to the issuance of a series of pamphlets, including the famed, "Against the Employment of the Bayonet at the Ballot Box" by Kerr, Cox, etc.,
The present subscription sheet for the publication of the anti-enforcement speeches was issued by the Congressional Globe Office. They would print the speeches and the proposed bill. The present is signed by its earliest subscribers, all of whom planned to distribute the speeches against enforcement widely.
Signatories include:
Samuel S. Cox. Cox spoke in ardent opposition to the enforcement of the Amendment. Unsurprisingly he had also opposed the Thirteenth Amendment as well. He clearly thought he got the best of the debate; he signs and orders 2000 copies for distribution.
Michael. C. Kerr. Spoke in opposition as well. He was a Democratic Representative from Indiana who opposed any stipulations on reconstruction and who also opposed any Federal enforcement of the Amendment. He ordered 1000 copies.
John Dodson Stiles. Also spoke in opposition. A Democratic and pro-South representative from Pennsylvania. He ordered 500 copies.
Samuel J. Randall. A Representative from Pennsylvania who also opposed any restrictions or "reconstructive" stipulations on the South after the Civil War.
Willian Henry "Seven Mule" Barnum. Later Chairman of the Democratic National Committee, he was a Representative from Connecticut [cousin of P. T. Barnum], and an ardent opponent of Federal intervention at the State level.
John T. Bird. Democratic Representative of Trenton, New Jersey and anti-Reconstruction, pro Southern rights politician.
George Washington Morgan [Brigadier General in the Civil War]. A pro-slavery, but pro-Union Democrat from Ohio who fought for the Union but was against the abolition of slavery, and against any terms and conditions on Confederate reinstatement, reconstruction, etc.,
James Burnie Beck. Representative from Kentucky who was an open white supremacist and opposed the Thirteenth Amendment and all that followed, and advocated for the legitimacy and rights of the Ku Klux Klan.
James Proctor Knott. Representative [and Governor] of Kentucky, pro-secession, anti-abolitionist, etc.,
Stephen Friel Nuckolls. Founder of Nebraska, and here Representative of the Wyoming Territory. Nuckolls was an ardent anti-abolitionist, is recorded as having himself brought the first slaves into Nebraska. Two escaped and he and a professional fugitive slave hunter tracked them to Chicago to recapture them. While there, he was abducted by a mob of abolitionists, but was aided in his escape from the city, in disguise, by Hiram Joy.
And 15 other Congressional autographs, an official, self-condemnatory record of the men who voted to make non-enforcement of the 15th amendment a silent partner of Jim Crow.
An important piece of Americana.