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The E-Sylum:  Volume 4, Number 15, April 8, 2001, Article 12

VOTE THE LAND FREE 

   Dave Bowers has a question about a well-known counterstamp: 
   "VOTE THE LAND FREE.  This counterstamp is found on 
   large copper cents (in particular) and a few other coins. I have 
   been collecting these since I was a kid, have a few dozen, and 
   collect them by date sequence.  The latest-dated piece in my 
   collection is 1844, then I have a quite a few of 1843, and many 
   down to the mid-1830s, thinning out before then.  The question 
   is this: 

   Conventional wisdom dating back many years, including in the 
   Duffield study of counterstamps in The Numismatist 1919-1921 
   and in J. Doyle DeWitt's book on political tokens, as well as 
   some of my own writing on counterstamps, attributes these to 
   the Free Soil Party presidential election campaign entry of 1848. 
   However, although I have been collecting Free Soil Party books, 
   notices, etc., for a long time (since about 1955) I have never 
   found this same wording used in any of their slogans. 

   There are a very few scattered listings of cents stamped 1845- 
   1848, but I have never seen one. Recently, Russ Rulau, busy 
   at work on a new edition of his book on HARD TIMES 
   TOKENS (we all know that Russ works 48 hours every DAY), 
   when queried on post-1844 coins with this stamp, stated that he 
   had never seen one in the flesh or a picture of one. I suggested 
   that sometimes well-worn coins are given assumptive dates. 

   Statistical analysis would seem to suggest that these 
   counterstamps were made early in 1844 (as I have seen just 
   one with this date and, in fact, own it), using coins currently in 
   circulation, most being dated from the preceding 10 years. 
   There is such a "clump" of 1843 cents with this mark that 
   this would seem to strengthen the idea. 

   Question: Can anyone furnish a VOTE THE LAND FREE 
   counterstamp on a coin dated after 1844 -- and send it to Russ 
   Rulau or me (round trip postage and insurance I will pay)?  If 
   one is furnished, then the Free Soil Party rides again.  If the 
   post-1844 items are will-o-the-wisps, then a new theory is 
   needed. In 1844 there were, indeed, some land disputes in 
   politics--mainly involving Texas, separately the Northwest 
   Territory, and still separately, the expansion of slavery (the 
   slavery question is what the Free Soil Party of 1848 was all 
   about, but with lots of overtones --- beyond the scope or 
   interest of the present remarks)." 

   [Editor's note:  a web search turned up a handful of references 
   to "Vote the Land Free", but nothing to assist Mr. Bowers' 
   quest.  This page, about the The Anti-Slavery Movement 
   1792-1863, pictures, among many other artifacts, a 
   "VOTE THE LAND FREE" counterstamp on an 1825 
   cent:    http://home.early.com/~amistad/images.htm   ] 

  Wayne Homren, Editor

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