297

The Petersburg Platform: Gov. Wells and his Radical Court.

[Virginia], circa early July 1869
Illustrated broadside, 15¼ x 7½ inches; toned, worn at edges, a bit musty, several repaired tears and separations at folds. 

Henry Horatio Wells (1823-1900) was a Union army colonel who was appointed as reconstruction governor of Virginia in April 1868. For the July 1869 election, he campaigned with a Black running mate.

This broadside depicts radical reconstruction in two vignettes.  At the top, we see a courtroom with a Black lawyer interrogating a white woman as a witness: "A life-like picture of a county court, under Gov. Wells' administration. White men! See your fate!" At bottom, we see a desegregated school, with a Black teacher administering discipline to a white boy: "The free mixed school system, as administered by Henry Happy Wells, should he be elected. Matrons of Virginia, what say you to this?"

Due in part to this toxic style of campaigning, a conservative candidate defeated Wells, which effectively ended reconstruction in Virginia earlier than in the other southern states. 

This broadside was described in the 8 July 1869 issue of the Weekly Leader of Bloomington, IL. None in OCLC; only one other found at auction, in 2007. 

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