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]
Cartoon during the Bank War satirizing the Whig Party as greedy, anti-democratic, pro-Bank, pro-business infidels who worship in the Temple of Mammon to the false god of riches. Atop the temple, a white man, holding a flag inscribed "No Veto! The Bank! Down with Democracy!" kneels on a pedestal inscribed "Bank Candidate. War, Pestilence, and Famine." Within the temple sit symbolic and political figures including: the Devil representing the "Hartford Convention" of 1815, which debated Northern secession; the "High Church" as a clergyman pleading for donations to preach; the "High Priest" Henry Clay with his "U.S. Bank Book" sitting on his throne the "Chair of State"; the "High Chancellor," Bank of the United States president, Nicholas Biddle pouring out a bag of money to buy newspaper editors; a Northerner ("High Tarrif") discussing slavery, "You Southern Barons have black slaves will you not allow us to make white slaves of our poor population in our Manufacturing Baronies"; and southern pro-nullification senator John C. Calhoun ("No Tariff"), who bemoans his association with Whigs in his personal campaign against political rival Martin Van Buren. In the foreground, worshipers, including monkeys, pray and are chained near a printing press, pro-Bank newspapers, and flags and banners. The flags and banners denigrate "Jefferson," "democracy," and "equal rights" and support "high tariffs," the "merchant class," the "Bank of the United States," and "white slavery.", Title from item., Artist's initial lower left corner: H., Probably published by labor radical Seth Luther., Retrospective conversion record: original entry, edited., Lib. Company. Annual report, 2001, p. 27, 30., 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 the Commonwealth Libraries, and the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, Tom Corbett, Governor, 2013-2014.
Date
[1833?]
Location
Library Company of Philadelphia | Print Department political cartoons - 1833-20 [5760.F.43]
