EPITAPH. HERE LIE THE MUTILATED AND DISJOINTED REMAINS OF THE NOBLEST FORM OF GOVERNMENT EVER CONTRIVED BY THE WISDOM OF MAN, OR BLESSED BY THE SMILES OF HEAVEN...
[Boston: Thayer & Co., 18 Tremont Street, 1861]. Folio broadsheet, 9" x 20". Black mourning border. Two columns of text, printed in several typefaces, with a variety of briefly-stated sentiments lamenting the destruction of the government and the perfidy of Northerners. Some old folds and crimps but text intact. Good+.
This rare 'Epitaph' broadside issued originally from Charleston [Parrish & Willingham 5372], celebrating South Carolina's withdrawal from the Union. The verso of our document prints a paragraph from Thayer & Co., headed 'A SOUTH-SIDE VIEW OF THE REBELLION,' explaining that the document printed on the recto "came into our hands." Thayer reprints it to educate "those who desire to know what reasons our erring brethren in the disaffected States can assign for taking up arms against the government."
Lincoln's election "finally DISSOLVED THE BANDS OF THE CONFEDERACY, And left these honored Remains upon the bank and shoal of Time, the sport of the Whirlwind and the storm." The tragedy is the result of the "Long, Dark Catalogue of Wrongs On the part of the Northern, or non-slaveholding States, against their gallant high-spirited, but unoffending brethren of the South who so largely helped to found the Republic, and contributed so largely to its renown..." The North sought "first to abolish, with piratical and fratricidal hand, the DOMESTIC INSTITUTIONS OF THE SOUTH, and then to ELEVATE THE NEGRO RACE to an equality with the FREE WHITE INHABITANTS OF THE COUNTRY."
OCLC 191231344 [3- AAS, Boston Athenaeum, U VA], 32243719 [2- Boston Public, Brown] as of September 2023. Item #35884
Price: $2,500.00