PROSPECTUS OF THE FREE CITIZEN, A PAPER FOR THE PEOPLE by Gangewer, A[llen] M[atter] - 1854

[Harrisburg, 1854. Broadside, 8" x 5". At head of title, "Eternal Vigilance is the Price of Liberty". Signed in type at the end by A.W. Gangewer, and 'A.M.G.' Small space at bottom for subscriber names and their post offices. Docketed in ink on verso, "A.W. Gangewer | Harrisburg | Circular | July, 1854." Light bleedthrough, contemporary ink correction on recto. Very Good.

Gangewer will "publish at the seat of government of Pennsylvania an Independent Democratic weekly newspaper under the above title." The Independent Democrats, whose leader was Salmon P. Chase of Ohio, broke with the National Democratic Party when the Pierce Administration and Senator Stephen A. Douglas sought passage of the Kansas - Nebraska Act, which opened those territories to Slavery. Situated north of the 1820 Missouri Compromise Line, those territories had previously prohibited slavery.
'The Free Citizen' would be devoted to "free thought, free speech, free conscience, free labor, and free men... We have been told that such a paper as we propose to print cannot live in the atmosphere of Harrisburg, that the politicians of Pennsylvania have so debauched her public sentiment as to crush out all regard for Justice, Humanity and the Rights of Man as proclaimed in the Declaration of Independence; but we do not believe this."
Gangewer may have been forced to revise his optimistic opinion: we have located no record that 'The Free Citizen' got off the ground, although its Prospectus is a significant indicator of the exodus of Northern Democrats to the new Republican Party. We have not found any other record of this Prospectus.
Not located on OCLC or the online sites of AAS, Boston Athenaeum, NYPL, Harvard, Yale, Library of Congress, or John Carter Brown Library. Not in LCP or Sabin.