Broadside Issued In Response to the New York Draft Riots

This lot is closed for bidding. Bidding ended on 8/31/2008

Broadside 12” x 19,” published by the NY Workiongman’s Democratic Republican Association. Bold Headline “Don’t Unchain the Tiger!” Continues with warnings, “When the traitors of South Carolina met in convention in Charleston and passed their ordinance to abolish the American Union, to crush out the democratic principles of free government in America, and when they afterwards fired upon Fort Sunter, and I knew that secession meant a terrible war, I said to myself and to them --- Don’t Unchain the Tiger! ... “ It continues with additional warnings, “But they did and for three years we have seen and suffered the consequences ..... When I hear Workingmen talk about resisting the law, burning houses, killing public officers, and bursting the doors wide open for every kind of crime ...... When I see well-dressed demagogues filling the ears of the people with lies, just as the traitors of the South have done ..... Workingmen! when any man asks you to break the law, and tries to stir up your passions ..... DON’T UNCHAIN THE TIGER!” The New York Draft Riots (July 11 to July 16, 1863; known at the time as Draft Week[2]), were violent disturbances in New York City that were the culmination of discontent with new laws passed by Congress to draft men to fight in the ongoing American Civil War. The riots were the largest civil insurrection in American history apart from the Civil War itself[3]. President Abraham Lincoln sent several regiments of militia and volunteer troops to control the city. The rioters numbered in the thousands.

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