As they had done in every election since the birth of the Republican party, northern Democrats exploited the race issue for all they thought it was worth in 1862. The Black Republican “party of fanaticism” intended to free “two or three million semi-savages” to “overrun the North and enter into competition with the white laboring masses” and mix with “their sons and daughters.” “Shall the Working Classes be Equalized with Negroes?”
