Drawn On Stone

Dixon Hall Lewis, a congressman from Alabama, weighed over 400 lbs. A special seat had to be constructed for him when he joined the Senate in 1844. He supported Calhoun on the issues of states’ rights and nullification.

In 1840, President Martin Van Buren ran against Whig candidate William Henry Harrison, whom the Democrats mockingly called “Granny Harrison.”

Democrat Francis Preston was the editor of the Globe and an influential advisor to President Van Buren. South Carolina congressman Francis W. Pickens once called Blair a “galvanized corpse.”

Locofoco refers to a radical faction of the Democratic Party that opposed state banks, paper money, and tariffs. The Locofocos were at the height of their power in 1840 when this cartoon was created. They supported Van Buren’s monetary policies.

John Calhoun, a Senator from South Carolina, believed in the concept of “nullification,” which referred to a state’s right to nullify federal laws that it deemed unconstitutional. He had been Andrew Jackson’s Vice President but resigned when Jackson blocked South Carolina from nullifying the Tariff of 1828.

The traitor Cataline conspired to take over Rome in the 1st century BC.

Drawn On Stone [Political Prints from the 1830's and 1840's]

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ABOVE: Unsigned copy of design by J. McGouldrick *Locofoco and Nulification Nuptials* Publisher: H. R. Robinson Hand-colored lithograph 1840 BELOW: J. McGouldrick [pseudonym, attributed to Napoleon Sarony] Locofoco and Nulification Nuptials Lithograph ca. 1840	This version above is an inferior copy of the cartoon below signed by J. McGouldrick, which may have been a pseudonym used by Sarony (see note on attribution). Notice the difference in the quality of the line and texture between the original and the second-rate copy. In particular, the faces of the four figures are awkward and poorly-drawn unlike the original version.