Congressional Address Concerning Copperheads and Negro Troops - July, 1864

Congressional Address. Washington D.C. July, 1864. 32 pgs, entirely uncut and untrimmed, folded elephant folio leaf. Signed in type by C.R. Buckalew and forty-two other members of the Thitry-Eighth Congress.

Border-State Democrats and Midwestern Copperheads join in this attack on the Republican Party's "aggressive" enhancement of power and destruction of civil liberties. The Democratic Party, "which ordinarily has administered the Government of the United States....did not fall into gross abuse or threaten the liberties of the country." But Republicans favor "extreme action by the General Government, favoritism to particular interests, usurpation of State powers," military interference with pending elections, and creation of "bogus States" to further their political designs.

Of "particular notice" is the raising of Negro troops, "both slave and free," who would enjoy equality with white troops "as to compensation and supplies." Buckalew and his colleagues object to the use of "an enormous number of undisciplined and ignorant negroes" The "corruption" caused by "the negro or other inferior race, who may be casually or permanently placed among us" is a major danger of the War. Sabin 15600. Not in Bartlett, LCP, Monaghan, Eberstadt. Light foxing, overall in vg cond.