Price
$24.00
Condition
used
Product Condition
Very fine, Unused.
Size
5.5" x 3.125"
1860s Civil War Patriotic Cover, "Will Ye Give It Up To Slaves?". Colorful unused cover featuring Lady Liberty with a sword and American flag. "Stand, the ground's your own, my braves. Will ye give it up to Slaves?" In the Civil War context, “slaves” does not refer literally to enslaved people, nor is it meant as a racial reference. Instead, it was a Union insult for Confederate soldiers, suggesting that Southerners were fighting to preserve a “slave power” and were therefore morally inferior. However, some interpreted this as a rallying cry to not give up land to slaves. Original and unused.
From a large collection of civil war covers in very fine condition that we recently acquired.
Union printers frequently repurposed this line on patriotic covers, envelopes, and broadsides to frame the conflict as a moral struggle: the Union defending freedom against a rebellion tied to slavery. It was both a motivational challenge and a propaganda jab at the Confederacy.
$24.00
used
Very fine, Unused.
5.5" x 3.125"