VOTE THE LAND FREE 上市 Deposited
The E-Sylum: Volume 4, Number 15, April 8, 2001, Article 12
VOTE THE LAND FREE
Dave Bowers has a question about a well-known counterstamp:
"VOTE THE LAND FREE. This counterstamp is found on
large copper cents (in particular) and a few other coins. I have
been collecting these since I was a kid, have a few dozen, and
collect them by date sequence. The latest-dated piece in my
collection is 1844, then I have a quite a few of 1843, and many
down to the mid-1830s, thinning out before then. The question
is this:Conventional wisdom dating back many years, including in the
Duffield study of counterstamps in The Numismatist 1919-1921
and in J. Doyle DeWitt's book on political tokens, as well as
some of my own writing on counterstamps, attributes these to
the Free Soil Party presidential election campaign entry of 1848.
However, although I have been collecting Free Soil Party books,
notices, etc., for a long time (since about 1955) I have never
found this same wording used in any of their slogans.There are a very few scattered listings of cents stamped 1845-
1848, but I have never seen one. Recently, Russ Rulau, busy
at work on a new edition of his book on HARD TIMES
TOKENS (we all know that Russ works 48 hours every DAY),
when queried on post-1844 coins with this stamp, stated that he
had never seen one in the flesh or a picture of one. I suggested
that sometimes well-worn coins are given assumptive dates.Statistical analysis would seem to suggest that these
counterstamps were made early in 1844 (as I have seen just
one with this date and, in fact, own it), using coins currently in
circulation, most being dated from the preceding 10 years.
There is such a "clump" of 1843 cents with this mark that
this would seem to strengthen the idea.Question: Can anyone furnish a VOTE THE LAND FREE
counterstamp on a coin dated after 1844 -- and send it to Russ
Rulau or me (round trip postage and insurance I will pay)? If
one is furnished, then the Free Soil Party rides again. If the
post-1844 items are will-o-the-wisps, then a new theory is
needed. In 1844 there were, indeed, some land disputes in
politics--mainly involving Texas, separately the Northwest
Territory, and still separately, the expansion of slavery (the
slavery question is what the Free Soil Party of 1848 was all
about, but with lots of overtones --- beyond the scope or
interest of the present remarks)."[Editor's note: a web search turned up a handful of references
to "Vote the Land Free", but nothing to assist Mr. Bowers'
quest. This page, about the The Anti-Slavery Movement
1792-1863, pictures, among many other artifacts, a
"VOTE THE LAND FREE" counterstamp on an 1825
cent: http://home.early.com/~amistad/images.htm ]- 2001-04-08
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