THE FREEDMAN'S BUREAU! AN AGENCY TO KEEP THE NEGRO IN IDLENESS AT THE EXPENSE OF THE WHITE MAN. TWICE VETOED BY THE PRESIDENT, AND MADE A LAW BY CONGRESS. SUPPORT CONGRESS & YOU SUPPORT THE NEGRO. SUSTAIN THE PRESIDENT & YOU PROTECT THE WHITE MAN. . . FOR 1864 AND 1865, THE FREEDMAN'S BUREAU COST THE TAX-PAYERS OF THE NATION, AT LEAST, TWENTY-FIVE MILLIONS OF DOLLARS. FOR 1866, THE SHARE OF THE TAX-PAYERS OF PENNSYLVANIA WILL BE ABOUT ONE MILLION OF DOLLARS. GEARY IS FOR THE FREEDMAN'S BUREAU. CLYMER IS OPPOSED TO IT. [POST THIS UP]

[Philadelphia?, 1866. Elephant folio broadside, 23" x 18-1/2." Old folds. Scattered margin repairs with occasional effect on a word: part of the "S" in "POST THIS UP" at the bottom is lost; slight loss to the "C" in Clymer at the bottom; a small loss to the neck of a horse at the intersection of two fold lines. Occasional light margin tears, light dusting. Pencil docketing on verso. There are very few of these broadsides extant, and the broadsides depicted in Reilly and the Encyclopedia of Virginia are certainly compromised. Ours in in Good plus condition.

A carefree black man lounges in the foreground; a white man chops wood and another white man ploughs his field. Accompanying labels read: "In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread," and "The white man must work to keep his children and pay his taxes."
In contrast, the black man is quoted in stereotypical dialect: "Whar is de use for me to work as long as dey make dese appropriations." The Freedmen's Bureau is pictured in the background as a large, domed building resembling the Capitol, inscribed "Freedom and No Work." At right is a table giving figures for the funds appropriated by Congress to support the Bureau, and information of the inequity of bounties received by black and white veterans of the Civil War.
"The poster takes aim at the expense and perceived wastefulness of the Freedmen's Bureau, which was established to protect the newly freed enslaved population. A fictional image of the Freedmen's Bureau building, modeled to look like the U.S. Capitol, bears the following motto beneath the dome: "Freedom and No Work." The pillars of the building read, left to right: "Candy," "Rum, Gin, Whiskey," "Sugar Plums," "Indolence," "White Women," "Apathy," "White Sugar," "Idleness," "Fish Balls," "Clams," "Stews," and 'Pies'." [Encyclopedia of VA article, with illustration of the broadside, including its defects.]
The broadside supports Democrat Hiester Clymer (1827-1884), running for Governor of Pennsylvania in 1866. His opponent, Republican John W. Geary, won the election. Andrew Johnson had vetoed the Freedman's Bureau Bill and the Civil Rights Act of 1866, but the Republican Congress overrode his veto and the measures-- the historic predecessors of the Fourteenth Constitutional Amendment-- became law.
Reilly 1866-6. LCP 3815. OCLC 299947169 [1- DLC], 84975926 [1- DLC] as of March 2026.