RECONSTRUCTION AND THE RELATIONS OF THE RACES IN THE UNITED STATES. LETTER FROM A COMMITTEE AT OBERLIN TO GEN. J.D. COX, THE UNION CANDIDATE FOR GOVERNOR. GEN. COX'S RESPONSE

[Oberlin Committee]

Published by Ohio State Journal Steam Press, Columbus, 1865

About this Item

13, [1 blanks] pp. Disbound. else Very Good. The people of this Ohio town, an anti-slavery stronghold, seek assurances from Jacob Cox, Union candidate for Governor, that he favors "modifying our Constitution so as to give the elective franchise to colored men;" and that, "in the re-organization of the Southern States the elective franchise [should] be secured to the colored people." The Committee says, "the distinction made. between white and colored people was made in the interest of slavery, and is both wicked and absurd." Responding only three months after Lincoln's assassination, Cox disappoints. Touting his anti-slavery credentials, he says he intends to follow President Johnson's lead; but the races have developed a "rooted antagonism which makes their permanent fusion in one political community an absolute impossibility." His solution is to "organize the freedmen in a dependency of the Union analogous to the Western territories." "This pamphlet documents the exchange between a self-appointed committee of Ohioans and gubernatorial candidate Jacob D. Cox on his views of Reconstruction. Cox's letter established him as a supporter of President Andrew Johnson's anti-black suffrage platform, and further suggested that the races should live separately. Cox partly dismissed the committtee's concerns for black suffrage since they were not empowered by an incorporated organization such as a political party. While Cox had enough supporters to win election to one term of office, Ohio Radical Republicans insured that the governor elected in the 1867 elections was more sympathetic to the extension of civil rights to black Ohioans" [Library Company online article, The Genius of Freedom]. FIRST EDITION. Not in Sabin, Blockson, Bartlett, Thomson, Work, Eberstadt, Decker. OCLC records thirteen locations as of October 2024.

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Bibliographic Details

• Title: RECONSTRUCTION AND THE RELATIONS OF THE RACES IN THE UNITED STATES. LETTER FROM A COMMITTEE AT OBERLIN TO GEN. J.D. COX, THE UNION CANDIDATE FOR GOVERNOR. GEN. COX'S RESPONSE
• Publisher: Ohio State Journal Steam Press, Columbus
• Publication Date: 1865
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