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The Cincinnati Commercial. Speeches of the Campaign of 1866 in the States of Ohio, Indiana, and Kentucky. The Most Remarkable Speeches on Both Sides. Reported for the “Cincinnati Commercial” and Printed from the Stereotype Plates of that Journal.
Cincinnati, Ohio: M. Halstead & Co., 1866. Hardcover. Folio (15” x 20”), recent marbled paper and brown cloth over boards. 52 pp. CONDITION: Good, loss to upper corners of several initial leaves, with loss to page numbers; expert repair to lower-right corner of title page, slightly affecting text; loss to lower-left corner of p. 48, affecting 7 lines of text. A scarce and unusual volume compiling fifty speeches and letters by both Republicans and Democrats, published during the election of 1866 and covering a wide range of Reconstruction-era political topics. Among the more prominent figures featured here are Gen. Benjamin Franklin Butler, future president James Garfield, Governor Oliver P. Morton, future president Gen. Benjamin Harrison, Thaddeus Stevens, Henry Ward Beecher, and Gen. George W. Morgan. These speeches and letters were delivered or circulated between June 19th and October 15th, 1866 in states across the East Coast and Midwest: Ohio, Wisconsin, Indiana, Massachusetts, Kentucky, Illinois, Pennsylvania, and New York. Some speeches were given at events such as the Cleveland Convention, the Democratic Convention in Columbus, Ohio, and the Brooklyn Academy, and James E. Murdoch delivered his October 1st speech to U.S. soldiers in Cincinnati. The vast majority of speeches were given in Ohio, and the table of contents identifies the precise dates and locales when and where the speeches or letters were originally delivered or published. Of particular interest are the four speeches by Gen. Benjamin Butler, whose political career after the Civil War was shaped by his reaction to what he saw as President Johnson’s tepid Reconstruction policies and weak support for Civil Rights. The Reconstruction-era subjects covered in these pages include “Negro suffrage”; taxes and tariffs; the Freedman’s Bureau Bill; President Johnson and his recent speeches; the question of the South’s political representation; the national debt; the Philadelphia Convention; Constitutional Amendments; and “The Civil Rights Bills.” Among the headings peppering these pages are “The Democratic Party not Dead”; “Southern Disloyalty as Shown in Non-Political Action”; “The Second Coming of ‘Moses’”; “The Law, Not Congress, Denies Representation to Rebels”; “Where Andrew Stumbled”; “Black and White Debtors”; “The President’s Course Regarding the Freedmen”; “Negro Bounty Bill Passed When Pendleton was in Congress”; “Civil Rights Bill a Dead Letter”; “The Confederate Debt”; “Rebel Cemeteries”; “The Issue—The African”; and “Johnson’s Usurpation and Despotism.” Alongside the speeches and letters are news items, often relating to the aftermath of the war and African American life: “Association of Rebel Prison Survivors” in Pittsburgh; “A Decision Against Greenbacks as a Legal Tender” in Maryland; and Black baseball teams competing against one another in Philadelphia. The Library of Congress notes that “in the election of 1866, a large number of Republicans who opposed Johnson’s Reconstruction program were elected to Congress and proceeded to roll back some of Johnson’s policies, institute military law in the southern states, and implement measures that reined in the power of the President.” An article on the final page discusses the October 1866 election returns for Ohio, Indiana, and Pennsylvania, and includes a table of the returns for Hamilton County, Ohio. On the same page is an article describing the origin of this compendium: The public interest in the discussions of the questions of the day was manifested in the eagerness with which they listened to speeches, the solicitude with which they read all that seemed of consequence, and the unprecedented large vote polled. The proprietors of the Cincinnati Commercial expended several thousand dollars in reporting and publishing speeches, supplying the great public demand for that sort of matter. The Commercial is stereotyped, and the process of stereotyping enables us to make up pages of speeches or other matter, have plates taken and then, at any time, print as large an edition as may be required. During the campaign, we had the more important speeches, reported for us, stereotyped for issue in the form of extras, and printed tens of thousands of them, which were circulated all over the country. We sold extras of four pages…These were far the cheapest documents ever published, and both parties availed themselves of our facilities. This [is] not only valuable for reference, but worthy of preservation as curiosity. We have on hand all the plates from which these speeches are printed, and can readily supply whatever demand may arise for this unique collection of political literature—or we can furnish campaign committees, in States where elections are still to be held, with extras containing speeches selected from this mass of matter, and will do this at the old figure of $12.50 per thousand for four pages of matter. The price of this edition—fifty-two pages of speeches of the campaign, folded, cut and stitched—is, at our counter, forty cents; and it will be furnished by mail, postage paid, for fifty cents. Founded in 1843, the Cincinnati Commercial was one of the most popular midwestern publications of its era. It ran until 1883, when it merged with the Daily Gazette to form the Republican-leaning Commercial Gazette. OCLC records only two copies, at Ohio History Connection and State Library of Ohio. An ample volume comprising speeches and letters from the 1866 election campaign by some of the preeminent political figures of the Reconstruction era. REFERENCES: Knowledge: A Weekly Magazine, Vol. I, June to December, 1890 (New York: John B. Alden, 1891), pp. 305–306; “The Travails of Reconstruction” at Library of Congress online.
Item #8950
Price: $1,800.00
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