| Creator |
Magee, John L., artist. |
| Title |
Liberty, the fair maid of Kansas-in the hands of the "Border Ruffians." [graphic]. |
| Publisher |
[Philadelphia] : [publisher not identified] |
| Publisher |
PA. Philadelphia. 1856 |
| Date |
[1856] |
| Physical Description |
1 print : lithograph ; sheet 30 x 47 cm (11.75 x 18.25 in.) |
| Description |
Cartoon addressing the Democratic administration's responsibility for the violence in Kansas following the passage of the
Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854. Depicts Democratic leaders as violent, proslavery invaders known as "Border Ruffians." In the
center, a drunken President Franklin Pierce, armed with a tomahawk, knife, pistol, and rifle, hovers over "Liberty," depicted
as a white woman, and tramples the American flag draped on her shoulders. Senator Lewis Cass, armed with a tomahawk, sword,
knife, and rifle, looks at Liberty with his tongue sticking out. Liberty stretches her arms out and exclaims, “O Spare Me
Gentlemen, Spare Me!!” They assure her that she will not be harmed. In the right, Senator Stephen Douglas scalps a dead, white
man farmer, who carries a scythe in his left hand. In the left, Secretary of State William Marcy, attired in a “fifty-cent"
trouser patch (a joke used by his political enemies referring to his use of state funds to repair his pants when he served
as an associate justice for the Supreme Court of New York,) empty the pockets of a slain, white man settler. Presidential
candidate James Buchanan, stating "Might makes right," steals the dead man’s watch. In the left background, a white woman
settler, made insane by the violence, mistakes a border ruffian for her husband as they mock her, "Ho! ho! She thinks I'm
her husband, we Scalped the Cus and she like a D--m fool went Crazy on it, and now she wants me to go to heaven with her,
ha! ha! ha!" In the distance are additional scenes of violence and murder.
|
| Is referenced by |
Reilly, 1856-9 |
|
Weitenkampf, p. 115 |
|
Murrell, Graphic humour, vol. 1, p. 190 |
|
Nevins and Weitenkampf, A Century of political cartoons, p. 78 |
| Notes |
Title from item. |
|
Artist and publication information supplied by Reilly. |
|
Originally part of American political caricatures, likely a scrapbook, accessioned 1899. Collection primarily comprised of
gifts from Samuel Breck, John A. McAllister, and James Rush.
|
|
Description revised 2021. |
|
Access points revised 2021. |
|
Part of digital collections catalog through a grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services as administered by the
Pennsylvania Department of Education through the Office of Commonwealth Libraries, and the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, Tom
Corbett, Governor, 2013-2014.
|
| Biographical / historical note |
Magee was a New York cartoonist and lithographer who eventually established his own lithographic firm in Philadelphia in 1850. |
| Subject |
Buchanan, James, 1791-1868 -- Caricatures and cartoons. |
|
Cass, Lewis, 1782-1866 -- Caricatures and cartoons. |
|
Douglas, Stephen Arnold, 1813-1861 -- Caricatures and cartoons. |
|
Marcy, William L. (William Learned), 1786-1857 -- Caricatures and cartoons. |
|
Pierce, Franklin, 1804-1869 -- Caricatures and cartoons. |
|
United States. Kansas-Nebraska Act. |
|
Abolition movement -- Kansas -- 1850-1860. |
|
Allegories. |
|
Destruction & pillage -- Kansas. |
|
Farmers -- Kansas. |
|
Liberty. |
|
Presidential elections -- United States -- 1850-1860. |
|
Scalping -- Kansas. |
|
Slavery -- United States -- Extension to the territories. |
|
Violence -- Kansas. |
| Geographic subject |
Kansas -- Politics and government -- 1854-1861. |
| Genre |
Political cartoons -- 1850-1860. |
| Location |
Library Company of Philadelphia| Print Department| Political Cartoons - 1856-9 [5760.F.90] |
| Accession number |
5760.F.90 |
