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Date Created/Published: N.Y. : For sale [by Nathaniel Currier] at no. 2 Spruce St., [1856]
Medium: 1 print on wove paper : lithograph ; image 29 x 40 cm.
Summary: A Republican boast, showing Fillmore (left) and Buchanan crushed by an electoral flood of giant balls inscribed with the names of northern and western states. Strewn on the ground around Fillmore and Buchanan are papers, “Border Ruffianism,” “Kansas Bogus Laws,” “Polygamy & Slavery,” etc.–charges associated with the previous Democratic administration’s handling of Kansas and the Mormon question. Here Buchanan is pressed beneath the “Cincinnati Platform” of the Democratic convention, while Fillmore holds two documents, the “Fugitive Slave Bill” (a measure he supported and stringently enforced while President) and an “Albany Speech.” At the upper right is an eagle holding a banderole with Republican candidates’ names “Fremont” and “Dayton.” He clutches a bundled fasces with the words “Union,” “Liberty,” and “Constitution” on it. In the sky at right appears a rainbow with the party’s motto: “Free Soil, Free Speech, Free Men & Fremont.” At right a view into the distance shows a burning town in Kansas, fled by women and children. In the distance are the Rocky Mountains, a railroad train bound for California, and the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. The giant balls may be intended to recall the giant ball of Locofocoism used to the derision of the Democrats in Whig cartoons of the 1840 presidential campaign. (See, for example, “The Almighty Lever,” no. 1840-8.) Decidedly supportive of Fremont, the cartoon is the exception for Nathaniel Currier, who issued many harshly anti-Republican satires during the 1856 campaign. Currier seems more often to have sided with American party candidate Millard Fillmore. (Library of Congress)
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