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(POLITICS.) CALIFORNIA.
Unrecorded California broadside. MYSTERI-
OUS.
“What became of that $500.00 which Samuel B. Bell, the Black Republican
candidate for Senator, says a friend furnished him, to aid in defeating the ‘niger (sic) bill” in
the last Legislature?” Letterpress broadside, 5 x 7
7
⁄
8
inches; lightly and evenly faded.
Np [San Francisco], circa 1853
[1,500/2,500]
Samuel B. Bell (ca 1830-1897) was an ordained Presbyterian minister who came to California from
New York, in 1852. He became active in politics and education, and obtained the charter for the
College of California, now The University of California. He represented his district in the California
Senate and House of Representatives from 1853-1854 and again in 1862-1863, during which time
he was connected with the passing of the Homestead Act and was one of the original Republicans
when the party was formed.
The language of this vile broadside is clear. California was made a free state in 1850, something
clearly not all Californians wanted. As a free state, and one quite distant from the Southern slave
states, one could reasonably expect ex-slaves to begin making their way West. There is a possibility
that this broadside might refer to the Perkins case, specifically to the vote in the California Legislature
that failed to renew the Fugitive Slave Law in that state. OCLC locates no copies anywhere.
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