TO THE DEMOCRATIC VOTERS OF NEW CASTLE COUNTY. . . TO THE WOULD BE DEMOCRATIC WHITE FREEMEN OF THIS COUNTY

[Townsend, Delaware, 1876. Broadside, 7" x 9", printed in three columns and signed and dated in type by Townsend at the end. Light uniform tanning, Very Good.

Townsend, whose papers reside at the University of Delaware, was a prominent Delaware Democrat and a staunch Unionist during the War. However, he opposed Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation. During Reconstruction he helped to found the Delaware White Man's Party, which opposed the Fourteenth Amendment-- rendering Negroes citizens of the United States-- and the Fifteenth Amendment-- assuring their right to vote.
Townsend denounces the "barefaced propositions of tyranny" by which the state Democratic Party would strip "the Poor White Democratic voter" of the power to nominate candidates. "The white Republicans allow the Negroes in their party the full free right to help nominate by an equal vote by ballot, and we, the white Democrats, who claim to be the descendants of Jefferson and Jackson, debar and refuse even-handed political rights and justice to the white Democratic masses."
OCLC 316965116 [2- AAS, U DE] as of July 2024.