Bagging the game. Book illustration from Library of Congress
The artist predicts a decisive Whig victory in the presidential election of 1848, with Whig candidate Zachary Taylor "bagging" all of the states in an electoral sweep. (Taylor actually carried only fifteen of t... More
Whig harmony - Political cartoon, public domain image
A severe split within the Whig ranks, between partisans of Henry Clay and those of Zachary Taylor, preceded the party's convention in June 1848. Here Horace Greeley, one of Clay's most influential northern supp... More
The assassination of the Sage of Ashland
The artist conveys some of the profound disappointment and anger among Henry Clay's many supporters at the nomination of Zachary Taylor at the June 1848 Whig convention in Philadelphia. The convention's act was... More
Smoking him out - Political cartoon, public domain image
A humorous commentary on Barnburner Democrat Martin Van Buren's opposition to regular Democratic party nominee Lewis Cass. Van Buren and his son John were active in the Free Soil effort to prevent the extensio... More
Shooting the Christmas turkey - Political cartoon, public domain image
While Democratic and Whig candidates debate strategies to win the presidency, or "shoot the Christmas turkey," Free Soil candidate Martin Van Buren makes off with the bird. At left Democrat Lewis Cass (facing f... More
The hurly-burly pot - Public domain book illustration, Library of Cong...
The artist attacks abolitionist, Free Soil, and other sectionalist interests of 1850 as dangers to the Union. He singles out for indictment radical abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison, Pennsylvania Free Soil ad... More
Experiments on the tight rope - Political cartoon, public domain image
A figurative portrayal of Whig candidate Winfield Scott's failure in the 1852 presidential contest, attributed by the artist to his alliance with abolitionist interests. Scott is hoisted aloft via a pulley sys... More
Pilgrims of the Rhine-O! - Political cartoon, public domain image
Whig presidential candidate Winfield Scott and his party pursue an abolitionist course leading toward Salt River and political doom. New York senator and antislavery advocate William Seward appears as a poodle ... More
David Wilmot (after a lithograph by M.H. Traubel)
David Wilmot, half-length portrait, facing left, in oval. After lithograph by Traubel published 1887 in Century Magazine, 11:542.