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Title: A new way of passing a bad Nebraska bill
Description: Antislavery cartoon criticizing the abuse of political power by President Franklin Pierce, his cabinet, and Stephen Douglas in their attempt to force the ratification of the Kansas-Nebraska Bill of 1854. Depicts antislavery Senator Thomas Hart Benton, holding the Missouri Compromise of 1820, which prohibited the extension of slavery into the Western Territories, arguing against slavery in Nebraska. Pierce, who holds the Nebraska Bill, threatens that any political opposition to the bill shall be severely punished. Douglas, with the President's cabinet, sits at a table behind Pierce and observes that acquiescence to "Southern Institutions" will get him the Presidency next term. Members of the cabinet comment upon Nebraska's suitability for slavery. A white man enslaver reviewing a paper labeled "Auction: sale of slaves" comments that if a man cannot make enough money by "selling young Niggers" than he must be greedy., Title from item., Date inferred from content., 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., Sinclair was a Philadelphia lithographer who received awards from the Franklin Institute for his work.
Creator: Sinclair, Thomas S., approximately 1805-1881, lithographer
Date: [1854]
Location: Library Company of Philadelphia | Print Department Political Cartoons - 1854 - New [5760.F.86]

Title: All on hobbies, gee up, gee ho!
Description: Cartoon depicting the possible candidates for the presidential election of 1840, riding hobby horses symbolizing their issues. President Van Buren leads the pack cheering on his "old hickory nag," "Sub Treasury," named after his financial program, which allowed independent agencies to administer federal funds. Politicians following Van Buren include: bullionist Senator Thomas Hart Benton on "Specie Currency," his "golden poney" which carries "more weight than any of them"; Senators Henry Clay and Daniel Webster, leading opponents to Van Buren's fiscal policy, bickering over their shared horse named after the defunct "United States Bank"; South Carolina Senator John C. Calhoun riding his "consistent" horse "State Rights and Nullification"; 1836 presidential nominee William Henry Harrison, attired in uniform, on his "Anti-Masonic" horse that keeps a "pretty easy pace" but may "lose his wind" if another scandal like the abduction and murder of mason William Morgan does not occur; and Congressman John Quincy Adams steering away from the group on his "Ebony" horse "Abolition.", Title from item., Date from copyright statement: Entd accordd to Act of Congress in the year 1838, by H.R. Robinson, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for the Southern District of New York., Artist's initial lower left corner., Retrospective conversion record: original entry, edited., Described in Nancy Reynolds Davison's E.W. Clay: American political caricaturist of the Jacksonian era (PhD diss., The University of Michigan, 1980), p. 205., Accessioned 1989., 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.
Creator: Clay, Edward Williams, 1799-1857, lithographer
Date: 1838
Location: Library Company of Philadelphia | Print Department political cartoons - 1838-1 [P.9249.8]

Title: The Democratic platform
Description: Cartoon satirizing politicians' support of James Buchanan and the Democratic platform of 1856. Depicts Buchanan as "the platform" of his party prostrate across the backs of the kneeling antislavery advocate Senator Thomas Benton ("Old Bullion"), President Franklin Pierce ("Franklin the last"), and son of Martin Van Buren, John Van Buren ("Prince John"). An enslaved African American man, portrayed in racist caricature, sits atop Buchanan’s legs with his arms crossed. Sitting opposite him atop Buchanan’s chest is a white man enslaver, armed with a whip, knives, and a pistol, who declares, “I don’t care anything about the Supporters of the platform as long as the platform supports me and my Nigger.” Underneath Buchanan, Benton replies to Pierce's question of how he can be against his administration yet for "this platform" by stating that he supports Buchanan because his motto is "Men - not principles." (This is a reversal of the Democratic motto: "Principles, not men.") Simultaneously, Van Buren talks with his father "Martin the first," depicted as a fox in his "Kinderhook" burrow, about the changing policies of the great Democratic Party and the plunder to be had. Standing in the left, "Brother Jonathan" (predecessor of Uncle Sam) notes the unreliability of the "platform supporters.", Title from item., Date supplied by Weitenkampf., Purchase 1971., RVCDC, 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: [1856]
Location: Library Company of Philadelphia | Print Department Political Cartoons - 1856-16W [7996.F]

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