TO THE SOUTHERN RIGHTS MEN OF THE FIRST CONGRESSIONAL DISTRICT IN ALABAMA

[Shepard, F. B.]

Published by [Mobile, Alabama?, 1858

About this Item

Broadsheet, 8-3/4" x 10-7/8," printed on pale blue paper in two columns per page, each separated by a rule. Two blank corner chips and several short edge chips. Else Very Good. This apparently unrecorded broadsheet aggressively expresses the extreme Southern Rights position. Its advocates would refuse to accept Stephen A. Douglas as the Democratic Party's 1860 presidential candidate. A reading of the broadsheet is persuasive that compromise with the Southern Rights position- - permitting Slavery to exist anywhere in the territories and, as Lincoln feared, perhaps in the North as well- - was impossible. A proud member of the Southern Rights Party, Shepard had abandoned efforts to cooperate with his erstwhile Democratic brethren. His goals are to strengthen the nascent Southern Rights Party, and to expose the Democratic Party's failure to act "in good faith to the South." Southern Democrats continue to work with a corrupt party organization which is "demonstrably dangerous to slavery." Shepard's views, he says, have always been "Calhounish." He speaks highly of General Walker, whose "wise and great purposes established negro slavery in Nicaragua." But, says Shepard, the Democratic Party refused to support him. "Defeated and driven out of Kansas by the President and his army -- abducted and bullied out of Nicaragua by the President and the navy, slavery has shrunk back to its original limits and dimensions, denied the privilege of extension under the laws and constitution, and we present the humiliating spectacle of quarreling among ourselves, while our leading men are dashing firebrands among the people. My idea is to defend slavery at all points, because it has been attacked at all points by the abolitionists." Shepard lost the election to the incumbent, Democrat James Stallworth, by a substantial margin [63% vs. 37%]. Not located in Sabin, Owen, Ellison, LCP, Bartlett, or at online OCLC, AAS, University of Alabama as of September 2025.

Seller Inventory # 41305

Bibliographic Details

• Title: TO THE SOUTHERN RIGHTS MEN OF THE FIRST CONGRESSIONAL DISTRICT IN ALABAMA
• Publisher: [Mobile, Alabama?
• Publication Date: 1858
• Seller catalogs:
  • AFRO-AMERICANA
  • BROADSIDE
  • AMERICANA
  • SLAVERY
  • SOUTHERN