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At the Institute’s core is the Gilder Lehrman Collection, one of the great archives in American history. More than 85,000 items cover five hundred years of American history, from Columbus’s 1493 letter describing the New World through the end of the twentieth century.

The Degrading Compromise that the Northern Copperhead Leaders Would Force Upon the Country

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Gilder Lehrman Collection #: GLC06032 Author/Creator: Place Written: Washington, District of Columbia Type: Broadside Date: 1864 Pagination: 1 p. : Height: 58.1 cm, Width: 41 cm Order a Copy

Illustrated election broadside printed and circulated by the Indiana Union Club in Washington, D.C. The broadside is trying to influence the voters of Indiana to not vote for pro-Southern Copperheads. Top half of the broadside consists of an image reproduced from Harper's Weekly by the artist Thomas Nast (for another version of same image see GLC05986 with same text, but different title and imprint). It shows a ragged Northern soldier with an amputated leg shaking hands with an erect and proud Jefferson Davis in the uniform of a Confederate soldier over the freshly dug grave of "Union-Heroes who fell in a useless war." Davis's right foot is sitting on the grave and has snapped a sword with the words "northern power." The female image of liberty weeps at the foot of the Northern soldier. Bottom half of broadside reproduces Copperhead conditions of peace that were published in the Richmond Enquirer on 16 October 1864. The quotations are displayed to show that the Copperhead demands are tantamount to giving in on the war. Slight paper discoloration around the broadside from a previous framing.

Nast, Thomas, 1840-1902

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