1

WE ARE HERE AND WANT THE BALLOT-BOX: AN ADDRESS
DELIVERED IN PHILADELPHIA, PENNSYLVANIA,
ON 4 SEPTEMBER 1866

New York Herald, 5 September 1866 and New York Tribune, 5 September 1866. Other
texts in Philadelphia Inquirer, 5 September 1866; Philadelphia Evening Bulletin, 5 Sep-
tember 1866; Rochester Daily Democrat, 10 September 1866.

In an attempt to rally broad public support for the Johnson administration’s poli-
cies of southern “restoration” and states’ rights, supporters of the president
held a “National Union” convention in Philadelphia in August 1866. Radical
and moderate Republican opponents of those policies responded by calling
their own convention in Philadelphia the following month. Although it was
officially a “Southern Loyalists’ Convention,” prominent northern Re-
publicans attended as honorary delegates to demonstrate that anti-Johnson
sentiment was national in scope. Douglass was among those selected by a
Republican mass meeting to represent Rochester, New York, at the Loyalists’