Paying the Southern War Claims [caption title].

Attacking the Democrats for their policy of paying Southern war claims, a broadside swiping against Samuel J. Tiden, 1876 Democratic Presidential candidate

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This rare, anonymous broadside from 1876 attacks Governor Samuel J. Tilden, the Democratic Party’s presidential candidate, by citing excerpts from Southern newspapers in Alabama, Georgia, and Virginia.

Popular argument at the time stated if the Democrats should come into power that they would spend two billion dollars in Southern war claims which would ruin the credit of the United States abroad.

Northern voters would likely be outraged by the broadside’s illustration, which shows a Missouri governor’s scrip for thirty-five dollars payable to one Woodford M. Paris for losses attributed to “the cotton tax, damages to land and property during the war, the emancipation of slaves,” among other claims.

The 1876 presidential election was highly contentious. Although Tilden won the popular vote, he ultimately lost to Rutherford B. Hayes in the electoral college. The Hayes-Tilden Compromise led to the removal of federal troops from the South, diminishing the hopes of African Americans in their struggle for civil rights and equality. The Reconstruction Era came to a close.

Price: $450.00