Cartoon mocking 1852 Whig Presidential candidate General Winfield Scott, his abolitionist supporters, and the antithetical party platform. Shows the candidate and his supporters as performers at a horse circus. In the right, Scott, in uniform, struggles to straddle the horse "Slavery Compromise" (i.e., the Fugitive Slave Act) and "Tariff Free Soil" (i.e., prohibition of the extension of slavery) as his exclaims, “If the Southern horse don’t moderate his pace, I shall be down presently and break all my bones! Whoa! Whoa!" Nearby, abolitionist and New York Tribune editor Horace Greeley, fearing he will not "strike on his feet this time" flips head-long into a "Tribune Dung Heap of Abuse and 'isms" next to the "Tribune Building" adorned with signs that promote Scott for president and "No journeyman cut throats." In the background, the "Higher Law Vaulters," advocates of New York Senator William Seward's 1850 quote that a higher law than the Constitution should exist in regard to slavery, jump over the horse "Constitution." Vaulters include Whig political boss Thurlow Weed, Seward, abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison, and abolitionist Wendell Phillips. Also shows in the left foreground, New York Times editor and Scott supporter Henry J. Raymond depicted as a harlequin brandishing a billboard announcing the acts., Title from item., Date inferred from content., Purchase 2006., 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.
Date
[ca. 1852]
Location
Library Company of Philadelphia | Print Department political cartoons - [1852] Whi [P.2006.6.2]
