“Sweep Republicanism out of your county and State!”, A Handbill to Encourage Virginians to Vote Democrat in the 1905 Election

Virginia, 1905. Single 3 ½ x 6 inch sheet. Some wrinkling and marginal damage, overall very good.. A handbill urging Virginians to vote for the Democratic candidates for governor, General Assembly, and clerk. The one other copy we find on OCLC, housed at the University of Virginia, dates the handbill to 1905. This election pitted Representative Claude A. Swanson against US Attorney Lunsford L. Lewis, whom the handbill describes as a “Reconstruction Republican” who wants to use Civil War pensions and white people’s tax money to buy books, “which will go to the negroes.” Swanson, the Democrat, won by a wide margin. This election followed the passage of the 1902 Virginia Constitution; its poll tax and “understanding clause” reduced the overall number of voters—primarily African-Americans—by eighty-eight thousand compared to the 1091 election.[1] The handbill encourages Democratic voters to “see that his vote and that of his neighbor are cast for the full Democratic ticket on that day.”

[1] Susan Breitzer, “Constitutional Convention, Virginia (1901–1902)”, Encyclopedia Virginia, Virginia Humanities, December 7, 2020, https://encyclopediavirginia.org/entries/constitutional-convention-virginia-1901-1902/.