Buy this book on-line

John Lindsay Swift : 1860 ORIGINAL MANUSCRIPT ELECTION CAMPAIGN AND ABOLITIONIST SPEECH HANDWRITTEN BY A FUTURE GENERAL AND BIOGRAPHER OF AMERICAN HERO AND FUTURE PRESIDENT: ULYSSES S. GRANT

12mo - over 6¾" - 7¾" tall. On offer is the remarkable, original, 25 page manuscript pre-Civil War abolitionist and election speech handwritten by John Lindsay Swift soon to be a Lieutenant, then General in the Union Army and future author and biographer of Ulysses S. Grant. This appears to be a campaign speech given by Swift in 1860 on behalf of Lincoln as it promotes the importance of the coming national election. [The manuscript was precious enough to Lindsay to have the leather notebook tucked into a rich leather portfolio custom made with his name on the outside cover with the word "Campaign".] With inspiring rhetoric he talks much about the need for Abolition and Emancipation the need for all people to have the same rights and how a country that does not give those rights is denying God. He talks about the need to fight to defend those freedoms, the freedoms that make this country great, saying, "So long as man is held in servitude to his fellow man either through the direct insolence of authority exercised or in the indirect influence of capital poisoned by the few and rich. So long as one human being coming into this world goes out of it without a fair chance to develop the faculties with which nature has endowed him, just so long will the warfare be continued…There will be no peace until there be purity." Here are more snippets from this superb relic of the abolitionist movement on the eve of the Civil War: I have been discussing the questions which immediately concern us, the practical issues which we are to meet now, the present and particular subjects which are involved in this campaign. I have discussed sometimes with the sobriety and ? Which the importance demands and sometimes with a levity which will be pardoned when we consider the frivolity the weakness and ridiculousness of the opposition. But these are higher considerations embraced in a political contest in this republic than the ascendancy of this or that man, the mere triumph of this or that party. The act of any people ?? Decision and conduct of any race cannot be otherwise than impulant. The acts of free and independent people like ours are always of the highest interest…They weigh for or against the great theory of human rights. They speak in thunderous tones for or against the principle of human progress. They manifest or deny the doctrine of the dignity the divine equality of man. That is the highest the grandest the most momentous part of this and every other popular election. I belong to that class of men who believe in the final triumph of good and that every act of individual or collective man promotes that triumph. I believe in the emancipation of the people wherever they are oppressed, in the elevation and ? And dignity of labor as the grand hope of human regeneration in the abolition of poverty that mars and depredates the image of God of that ? That which is the great source of individual crime. I believe in the equal nature of human conditions, the universality of labor and the consequent universality of employment and independence and no dream of the past which has painted the future in gorgeous and individual dropery no utopian fancy, no social reorganization or a new south… And if ever there was a nation which was foreordained of heaven to aid this result….to assist in the great work of the ? Redemption of that people is the one which dwells on this broad garden of the world… Here Lordly rains of old whose majestic flood irrigate confederacy after ? And in whose enslave? An the innumerable number of steamers from every country sweep by your homes…And are you here simply and only to raise great crops, to garner great harvests, no girl and humanity expect of you nobler and momentous. They look to you to produce great men to develop a great people and maintain great principles…And men like Gods shall grapple with the great wrongs of old….They tell us how they broke their bonds and whispers, so may we, One sharp stern struggle and the slaves of centuries are free…Think of our blood red on History's pages…Slaves cry unto God! But be our god revealed, In our lives, in our works in our warfare for man, and bearing or borne upon victory's shield, let us fight battle harnessed and fall in the raw…And if we fall fighting we fall like the glorious… So long as man is held in servitude to his fellow man either through the direct insolence of authority exercised or in the indirect influence of capital poisoned by the few and rich. So long as one human being coming into this world goes out of it without a fair chance to develop the faculties with which nature has endowed him, just so long will the warfare be continued…There will be no peace until there be purity. It is in this light my countrymen I would have you consider your political duties. I would forget for a moment the humors of the hour, banish from my mind the lesser considerations that ? The mind or the interest of the people and look to the deeper meaning of this and every other political contest…That political action which has the approbation of conscience will also have the reward of advancing the national and individual prosperity…A great responsibility rests upon a vote. As sure as there is a God in heaven, so sure it is that every vote given by a Freeman is to be to him a matter of concern of continual gratification and delight or continual regret and pain. You have got to obliterate the idea of God, to discard the Bible, to abandon all the ? And consolations of the Christian religion to deny the immortality of the soul to make the great hereafter a blank and nonentity before you can convince me that the immense trust of ? The election…the highest civil trust which was ever exercised by mortal man can be disposed of without regard to conscientious principles can be trifled with or given for selfish souls and purposes. My vote to me and to you is the greatest ? I can render for the welfare of our society by it I do what I can in the most explicit way either for the advancement or detriment of my fellow men." Overall G.. Book Condition: Good

Bibliophile Bookbase for antiquarian books, maps and prints.