Cartoon ridiculing the antislavery convictions of John C. Frémont, the 1856 Republican presidential candidate and former explorer, and his abolitionist supporters during the Kansas-Nebraska crisis. Depicts Frémont's fictional expedition through the hills of "Kansas-Nebraska" atop New York Tribune editor Horace Greeley portrayed as the "Abolition Nag." Frémont states the road is hard astride the "Old Hack," but if he gets to the White House safely he will forgive his friends who put him there. Pulling Greeley by a rope is New York Republican William Seward who heads to the "Salt River" (i.e., political doom) in "Bleeding Kansas." Greeley admits to going the "same road as '52" but will follow Seward's lead. A gun-laden Henry Ward Beecher, the abolitionist minister, pledges to furnish rifles to antislavery Kansas settlers. A white frontiersman comments that the abolition horse's death is more beneficial to the Constitution than is an antislavery Republican president in the White House., Title from item., Date inferred from content., Probably drawn by John Cameron., 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.
Date
[1856]
Location
Library Company of Philadelphia | Print Department Political Cartoons - 1856-20 [5760.F.101]