Political
Jugate JOHN A. LOGAN Presidential Campaign Hanger Badge
c. 1884 Unusual Inverted Blaine & "Black Jack" Logan Jugate Campaign Hanger Photo Badge, Very Fine
Brass colored metal Jugate Campaign Ferrotype Portraits photo badge with a photo of Civil War General and U.S. Senator from Illinois, John A. "Black Jack" Logan featured at left. Shield and wreath design at bottom, and the photos appear to be inserted upside down. The image of Logan is the same one used for his 1884 campaign for Vice President with James G. Blaine, but the other man on this badge is not Blaine. Measures approx. 1-1/4" x 1-1/8", as shown.
Logan (nicknamed "Black Jack" for his swarthy complexion and jet-black hair and mustache) won election to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1858 and again in 1860 as a Jacksonian Democrat from Illinois's 9th congressional district, a region with partisan and divided loyalties at the beginning of the Civil War. Originally an avid racist, and author of Illinois Black Laws, he later became an advocate for African American Civil Rights and education
In 1852, Logan won a seat in Illinois' 18th General Assembly. Here his most noteworthy/notorious accomplishment was the passage of a bill to prevent free blacks from entering Illinois. Logan made no secret of his racist views and in a speech against a bill to allow blacks to testify in court he stated, "It was never intended that whites and blacks should stand in equal relation." A resident of "Egypt" as Southern Illinois was then known, Logan reflected the view of most of his constituents and, it seems, the majority of Illinoisan's as a state-wide vote to allow the passage of the exclusionary law won by a two to one margin. The passage of "Logan's Black Law," however, did not endear him to many of the inhabitants of central and northern Illinois.
To Logan's dismay Abraham Lincoln, whom he detested as he did all abolitionists, won the Presidency. When Southern states began to secede he wrote an open letter to his constituents blaming "the President elect ... drunken with victory" of pursing policies that would destroy the nation. His desire for compromise brought accusations of treason.
Although he did not return to Washington, Logan retained his Congressional seat until his promotion to general on March 21, 1862. His resignation, required by law, did not seem to bother him. Logan declined Grant's offer of a brigadier generalship in the postwar U.S. army and returned to politics, this time as a Republican and an advocate of African American civil rights. He won three more U.S. House elections (1866, 1868, 1870) and served as the chair of the Ways and Means and Military Affairs committees. He was also one of the seven impeachment managers in the trial of Pres. Andrew Johnson in 1868.
Logan would avoid partisan politics until the Civil War's end. Logan was the Republican Vice-presidential candidate in 1884 and was looking forward to being that party's Presidential candidate in 1888.
However, Logan, died in 1886 and did not get a chance to attain his final goal. Among those who mourned Logan's death was Frederick Douglass, the leading African American leader at the time. Douglass called him "a brave man [who] spread around the Negro the network of the law."