American Historical Ephemera & Photography, including African Americana

The New "Democratic" Doctrine: Slavery not to be confined to the Negro race, but to be made the universal condition of the laboring classes of society. Cincinnati, OH: Longley Brothe[r]s, [1856]. 2pp (front and back), 5 7/8 x 9 1/4 in. (light soil, some creasing, small tear at bottom right edge line). A handbill that argues against James Buchanan's candidacy for President and champions Republican candidate John C. Fremont and Free Labor.

"The people of the Free States have so long yielded to the arrogant demands of the Slave Oligarchy of the South, that the latter has come to think it can carry any measure it seems fit, no matter how degrading it may be to the character of the free white men of the North."

"JAMES BUCHANAN, the Presidential candidate of the men and of the party who hold these odious views, advocated the doctrine in the U. S. Senate, of reducing the WAGES OF AMERICAN OPERATIVES and LABORERS to the European Standard, which is known to be about TEN CENTS A DAY. Mr. Buchanan is a fit candidate for those who would make WHITE MEN, Slaves! / JOHN C. FREMONT, the true Republican and true Democrat, who has worked his own way from poverty to greatness, pays the following high tribute to the dignity of FREE LABOR, and yet his enemies have the meanness to assert that he is a slaveholder. Col. Fremont never owned a dollar in human flesh… / The man who votes for James Buchanan in the coming election, votes for Slavery in Kansas, and in a Territory sufficient to make TWENTY STATES the size of Ohio; votes his own land away - votes to degrade labor, and fasten a despotism upon the free North more oppressive than Austrian and Russian tyranny - and he votes to sustain the robbers, murderers, and pirates who are now driving northern men from Kansas. Awake, working men of the North, before it is too late, and vindicate your rights at the Ballot Box!"

Handbills with the same title were published in various places in the country.

[With:] 3 1/2 x 6 1/2 in. silver gelatin print on larger cardstock mount (creasing and surface imperfections to print; mount with pinholes, losses, and overall wear). Subject identified in ink on mount recto: "Thomas Wentworth Higginson."

Thomas Wentworth Higginson (1823-1911) was an abolitionist, minister, politician, and soldier. Higginson was a member of the Secret Six who supported John Brown, and during the Civil War served as colonel of the 1st South Carolina Volunteers, the first federally authorized black regiment. A staunch supporter of women's suffrage, Higginson was an organizer of the New England Women's Suffrage Association. In his later years he devoted much of his time to literature and social causes.