Item #65565 TO THE CITIZENS OF MAINE [Caption title]. Andrew Jackson.

TO THE CITIZENS OF MAINE [Caption title].

[Portland, ME: 1832]. Broadside. 33 x 20.5 cm. printed in two columns, with a few ink and pencil corrections, with four names signed beneath in ink, and pasted below a slip of paper with ten more signatures in ink. Paper browned, shallow chips along right margin. This title not in American Imprints, Sabin or OCLC. Among the signatures, Wm Woodbury, William W. Woodbury (Jr.), and Samuel Porter were involved in maritime business; other names: Philip Greely, Thomas Harris, David Ross, Hiram H. Dorr, Daniel Garland, Wm. B. Nason, Henry Moore, Benjamin Larrabee, Joshua Green, Samuel Libby (sp?), and James Read. [Another version, with a slightly different title "Address to the People of Maine," which begins with the same text, is listed on OCLC at NY Historical Soc., AAS and Harvard].
The text of this broadside takes issue with the re-election of Pres. Andrew Jackson and urges the citizens of Maine not to shirk their duty as voters. It is addressed "to a subject involving, as we conscientiously believe, not only the present welfare of our country, but the perpetuity of our institutions." It reads in part: "Most of us are no politicians. Many have never before meddled with politics; and some have been so regardless of the power they are invested with, of judging for themselves and of governing themselves, as not even to go to the polls on ordinary occasions; believing that HE, who had watched over our Fathers, would continue to watch over us -- even though we slept. But they have been made sensible of their error, and acknowledge it with shame and sorrow; holding now in common with the rest of us, that enquiry and voting are duties as well as privileges, and that no man has a right, in a country governed by the people to withhold his opinion, or in other words, to forbear voting at the appointed seasons. Let the over-scrupulous, the moderate and the sober-minded, continue to withdraw from the polls, as from a place of unworthy contention or vulgar strife, and what will become of their country?"
It goes on to express specific concerns: "We assert first -- That General Andrew Jackson was triumphantly borne to the seat he now occupies by the enthusiastic gratitude of a people, who were too indulgent and too generous to respect the opinion of his adversaries. Secondly. That notwithstanding this, after four years of trial, under every advantage of popularity and predetermined favor, multitudes of his warmest friends have been obliged to abandon him; while others declare that he has not only done all that was foretold of him by his ungenerous adversaries, but more and worse; and that had any thing like the truth been apprehended, he never would have reached the place he now occupies...." The petitioners entreat their fellow citizens to decide for themselves, before they go to the polls, what kind of a future government they want to secure for their country and their children. Item #65565

Price: $750.00

See all items in Americana
See all items by