Ca. 1864. Published and "Sold by the American News Co. 121 Nassau St., N.Y. at 75 cents per hundred," no date. Measuring 8.25 x 11.25", mounted in stiff white card folder, 11 x 14.75". Satirical in tone, obviously published to influence public opinion during the 1864 general election, this Unionist broadside opposes Governor Seymour's re-elections and attacks his political stance during the July 1863 New York City draft riots. Widely regarded as a "Copperhead", Seymour was one of the more prominent national "Peace Democrats" of 1864. The broadside, in part, reads as follows:

"When in July 1863, the City of New York was under the reign of a mob, when stores were closed, workshops shut, cars and stages laid, alarm bells ringing, dwellings burning, inoffensive women and children seeking prisons for safety, unoffending men hanging and roasting at lamp posts, the horizon lighted up by burning orphan asylums, at such a time when no man felt safe, when every citizen had to guard his home, when peaceful law-abiding citizens had to patrol the streets for mutual protections, when law and order were at it seemed, dead, when arson, plunder, murder, and all the infernal passions of a brutalized mob were holding high carnival, and civilization went draped in mourning, then HORATIO SEYMOUR the candidate of the McClellan Confederate Peace Democracy for Governor of New York, requested the men doing these bloody deeds, to meet him in front of the City Hall in New York, and then began his coaxing, blarneying address to them, with the words "MY FRIENDS."

His whole speech was in keeping with this introduction. Now let us see where "my friends" reside. From the election returns showing the majorities that the "Governor of my friends" received in certain localities in the City of New York, it will be seen that "Horatio" knew whom he was addressing…….Mackerellville…Five Points, (or Practical Amalgamation District,)….Corlears Hook, (Democratic Misegenation District,)….Water Street Dance Houses, (Or Free Love Dist.)….Thirty-three other districts "of the same sort,"….

These Election districts figure on our Police Books as containing Two Thousand Seven Hundred and Forty-three groggeries, Two Hundred and Seventy-nine notorious brothers, One Hundred and Seventy places where thieves and ruffians habitually resort, One hundred and Five Policy Shops, with Gambling and Dance Houses to match, and also embraces the haunts of the Murderers, Robbers, and Incendiaries, who figured in the "Reign of Terror," in July, 1863."

*By 1864, Seymour's insistence on protecting what he called "the supreme importance of local government" proved a liability rather than an asset to the Democrats. He lost the the '64 New York gubernatorial election due to his refusal to support a bill that would have allowed NY troops to vote by absentee ballot.

Although the broadsides exhibits light creases & wrinkles, the piece displays well and is completely legible. VG overall.

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