With Malice Toward None

The Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial Exhibition    

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Wide-Awake Membership Certificate

Wide-Awake Membership Certificate (059.00.00)

About this item        

Wide-Awakes were volunteer marching clubs that banded together throughout the North in support of the Republican Party during the 1860 presidential election. They served as a type of self-appointed “political police,” hence the membership certificate as a form of identification. They escorted visiting speakers to meeting places, guarded the polls, and attempted to keep order at political rallies.

* Currently on Exhibit