[ABOLITION] Sumner Inscribed "Shall the Territories by Africanized?"

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Day 2: Early & Historic Americana

By Fleischer's Auctions

Oct 10, 2025

Set Reminder 2025-10-10 09:00:00 2025-10-10 09:00:00 America/New_York Bidsquare Bidsquare : Day 2: Early & Historic Americana https://www.bidsquare.com/auctions/fleischers-auctions/day-2-early-historic-americana-19250
Day one of Fleischer's 2025 Fall Premier auction includes early American artifacts, documents, signatures, ephemera, and weaponry. Rare material relating to African American history is featured, as well as fine examples of antique photography. Fleischer's Auctions info@fleischersauctions.com

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• Lot Description

  James Harlan. Shall the Territories be Africanized? Speech of Hon. James Harlan, of Iowa. Delivered in the Senate of the United States, January 4, 1860. [Washington, D.C.?]: [Buell and Blanchard?], [1860].

   

  8vo, 8 pages. Caption title. FIRST EDITION. Dumond, p. 64; LCP, Afro-Americana 4579.

   

  INSCRIBED in pencil to right margin: "1864, July 22. Gift of Hon C. Sumner, (Class of 1830,)" with accompanying pencil cancellations in first column. 

   

  James Harlan (1820-1899), a Representative of the State of Iowa, was opposed to slavery, but also opposed to Black expansion into the territories of the West, whether as slaves or as freedmen. In the present address, he expresses the view that the new territories are "only for the white race." This simultaneously anti-slavery and anti-Black sentiment was especially prominent in Iowa. The Iowa Republican Party chose as its campaign slogan for 1860, "We are for land for the landless, not n----rs for the n----rless." A similar slogan was adopted in nearby Kansas.

   

  An interesting item for Sumner to be distributing; he was a leader of the abolitionist movement, even enduring a public near-death beating from South Carolina congressman Preston Brooks. Though he began as something of an "anti-slave and anti-Black" candidate, aligning himself with the white-only policies of the Free Soil Party, Sumner grew more ideologically committed to abolitionism over time. He became a committed abolitionist in principle, was critical of Lincoln's leniency toward the South, and was a fierce advocate for freedmen's suffrage and other progressive policies after the War.  Accordingly, this work would probably not have aligned with his views at the time, and was likely distributed as information to a colleague or to explain the diversity of the coalition of the Republican Party.

   

  The speech was mailed on 22 July 1864. It must have been a busy office day for Sumner, since he is also recorded as having mailed several articles for reading to President Abraham Lincoln on the same day.

   

  Fascinating association copy, evidently gifted by Sumner to a fellow Harvard alumnus, as the notation records that Sumner had been of the class of 1830.

   

  Scarce in the trade. Only 1 copy has sold at auction.  

   

  [African Americana, African American History, Black History, Slavery, Enslavement, Abolition, Emancipation] [Pamphlets, Publications, Ephemera, Books, Rare Books, Tracts]

  Condition

  Request Condition Report

  Marginal chipping, some toning. Outer bifolium split at fold. 

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