[Reconstruction] Williams, William; Benjamin F. Butler, John A. Logan, and John Covode

[cover title] Relief of the Suffering Poor of the South: Speeches. House of Representatives, March 13, 1867

Washington: Congressional Globe Office, 1867. Unbound. Good+ binding. Item #9265

Octavo. 8 pp. First edition. Folded sheet, never bound, untrimmed. Toning and with some shelfwear, but generally in fairly nice condition.

It's fair to say the general tenor of the speeches and limited debate is one of impatience. Williams sums up his frustration with this question: "now we're asked to draw $1,000,000 more from the pockets of the toiling yeomen of our country to feed the rebels of the South" (p. 2). Along these same lines, Butler suggests that the southern states and communities are not seeing to their own destitute citizens from their own coffers and that while there is means within the south to do so, the Federal Government should not open its treasury. Logan takes a slightly more tempered view, but still wants to know the nature of these suffering poor: "What class of people is it? Is it the poor downtrodden freedmen? Is it the poor white people? or is it the families of the leaders of the rebellion that have caused so much weeping and wailing in our land?" (p. 5). Interesting and considered speeches that that illustrate the continued bad-blood between the North and the South soon after the war. Uncommon in commerce and in institutional holdings according to OCLC.

Price: $125.00