[Election of 1864]:

$1,500 · Offered by William Reese Company

THE REAL CHICAGO PLATFORM, AS EXPOUNDED BY THE DEMOCRATIC ORATORS AT CHICAGO [caption title]. A scarce anti-Copperhead broadside printed during the election of 1864, purporting to reveal "the real Chicago Platform" and providing excerpts from speeches given at the Democratic National Convention. The convention met in Chicago on August 29, 1864, where the Copperheads quickly established dominance over the outnumbered War Democrats and established peace with the South (at any cost) as the core of their platform. McClellan accepted the nomination alongside staunch Copperhead George Pendleton despite his open opposition to the peace platform; this seeming hypocrisy was mercilessly lampooned by the opposition, contributing to the abject failure of the joint War and Peace ticket.The present broadside presents statements made at the convention by "a number of distinguished Democratic orators" which they deem "sufficient to show the temper and purpose of all." Some choice excerpts include: "I love our Southern friends; they are a noble, a brave, and a chivalrous people [cheers]" (Representative James S. Rollins of Missouri); "Show me a War Democrat to-day, and I will show you a shoddy Abolitionist in disguise....He is a Judas, and should be cast out as an enemy to humanity and to God....Soon the net is to be drawn that will gather in its half million more to feed the insatiable thirst for blood of the Negro God" (J.A. McMaster, arrested for libel at the start of the war); "If Democra

Found via Rare Books Intel, a search across rare-book dealers, auction houses and marketplaces worldwide.