"Present Presidential Position"

This lithographic cartoon criticizes President James Polk as stubborn as his head is shown on the body of a donkey studying the proposed 54'40 boundary of the Oregon Territory. Two boys are shown in foreground coaxing Polk with cabbage labeled "re-election." The boy holding the cabbage says, "Come here Jem, here's a animal as sees something and wont move no how you can fix it!" His friend encourages him by saying: "Coax along with a cabbage Bill, if that wont move him put a locofoco match under his nose!" "Loco Foco" was a type of match as well as a nickname for a radical faction of Democrats. Polk states, "Here I am by the order or masters of the Baltimore Convention, with my nose down to this line and here I shall stick, though I fall a martyr to my devotion to the great Democratic party!" This refers to the Democratic national convention of 1844 in Baltimore which nominated Polk for the presidency and decided upon the 54'40 parallel on the Oregon boundary question as part of the party platform. Three groups of men surround Polk. On the left are the Whigs, one of whom says to the Democrats behind Polk in the center, "Take your own course, gentlemen, with your own animal! He is a sorry one at best, and won't be worth a copper after you've got him out of that fit. Its nothing more nor less than the blind staggers!" Lewis Cass and Ohio senators William Allen and Edward Hannegan stand behind Polk. Cass, in military uniform, says, "It's my opinion, Hannegan, that he's going to back out! His nose is not so near the line by three inches as it was a week ago!" Allen says to Cass, "Oh don't let him flinch General. It's our only hope!" Hannegan says, "By heaven! it cannot be General! If he does he's worse than a second Arnold. We must be ready to cut him down at once! Let me have your sword?" The third group includes more conservative Democrats (left to right) John Clayton, John Calhoun, Thomas Hart Benton, and William Henry Haywood, Jr., and stands at the forty-ninth parallel. Clayton inquires, "How shall we get him off? He has not budged or brayed for the last month!" John Calhoun remarks, "I see how it is gentlemen! He has got it into his head that to be great is to be silent and obstinate! Coaxing will be of no use! You might as well use force at once!" Benton adds, "In my opinion it's a very miserable imitation of old Hickory's firmness and independence." Haywood assures everyone, "I, gentlemen, am the only man in the field that knows when that jackass is going to move."

Date:
1846
Original Format:
Cartoon
Item#:
11.065
Height:
2184px
Width:
2775px
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