[CIVIL WAR]. The Cost of Rebel Peace: Plain Words for Working Men. New York: John A. Gray & Green, 1864.

11 x 15 1/2 in. letterpress broadside. Printed for the Union Executive Congressional Committee. Appears to be an election campaign piece.

“It isn’t the Government that causes all this cost of war; it is the enemies of the Government who compel us to pay so dearly for its defence. The aristocrats of the South, who look down upon working-men with contempt, who make their own laborers sales, and call the free laborers of the North, “mudsills,” are trying to break down our Government – the working-men’s Government—so that they can rule in their own way. That’s what’s the matter; and that is why we must fight, and pay the cost of keeping our freedom, or Union, Our Constitution, and our country. It is worth fighting for, and worth paying for; and all the more because we have so long had it free.”

It then goes into major items that are exempt from taxes for working-men, such as a farmer’s land and a personal exemption for everyone.

“But would it not lessen taxes and lower prices if we should have an armistice, and make peace with the rebels upon terms that they would agree to Let us see. An armistice would not stop any of the expenses of the war on our side, to help the cause of the Union in any way. In an armistice we would simply agree to stop fighting for a certain time, until we could see whether we could come to a settlement or must go to fighting again. …And it would cost just as much to keep our armies standing idle, as it would to keep them at work, winning new victories for our cause.”

He then argues that we would have to raise the blockade while we sit idle, and the Confederates would be able to sell their cotton and tobacco to Europe, and buy ironclads and other war materiel so they would be in better shape if war started again – which he argues it would. And, if we had a negotiated peace, the Confederacy would be a foreign nation on our border, and “We must then be always ready for war;…we should still have to pay such taxes as European nations pay for a standing army. It would be cheaper to put down the rebellion, once for all, and to send the soldiers home to help increase the wealth of the country instead of consuming it.”

“Our only hope of better is in putting down the rebellion, and so gaining a Union peace. Reenforce Grant and Sherman – reelect Abraham Lincoln – and soon the rebellion will go down and gold will go down, and prices will go down, and peace and plenty will come again to the home of the working-man." (some tears along central fold with a few letters missing near center. At present in plastic sleeve.)

Property from the Estate of Henry G. Lamont, Racine, Wisconsin

[CIVIL WAR]. The Cost of Rebel Peace: Plain Words for Working Men. New York: John A. Gray & Green, 1864.