Illinois Radical Republicanism

(ILLINOIS). (RECONSTRUCTION). [MUNROE, GEO & E.M. BRAY?]. Grand Rally! Reception of Hon. Jesse O. Norton. The repentant prodigal after having fed upon the husks of Abolitionism, and eaten up the same, has returned to the more abundant fodder, of his conservative friends. Let there be a grand rally to welcome home this Faithful Representative (Of bread and butter,) who has disinterestedly turned away from the empty rack (for him), at which he has been so long feeding...Who has repudiated the radical disunion party, and nobly allied himself to the true Democratic Nationa-Union-Bread-and-Butter-Wilkes-Booth-Copper-Johnson-Party...Come one! Come all! Come from your distilleries, your whiskey shops, your saloons...[Caption title & very partial text]. Large folio broadside. Joliet, [Ill.]: Signal Job Print, [1866?]. Three words with ink burn, probably editorial inking. $750.00

A splendid Illinois Radical Republican Reconstruction broadside attack upon Jesse Norton for amending his wartime political views according to personal expediency. A lawyer from Joliet, Norton was a member of the Illinois constitutional convention in 1847, and served in the U.S. Congress 1853-57, 1863-65. In 1866 he was a delegate to the Union National Convention in Philadelphia, an event which doubtless precipitated this "rally" broadside.

More than two dozen speakers and participants are named for the rally, which concludes thusly: "The exercises will close by a grand pyrotechnic display in the evening, and a bonfire, in which a young nigger will be roasted, as a peace offering to our Southern brethern."