Henry Dacre
Rats Quitting the Ship
Publisher: H. R. Robinson
Lithograph
1840 |
Amos Kendall, a close advisor to President Martin Van Buren, resigned as Postmaster General on May 16, 1840. He planned to focus on editing the Extra Globe, a special campaign edition of the Democratic Party newspaper, the Globe.
The cartoonist speculates that other cabinet resignations would soon follow. Treasury Secretary Levi Woodbury and Secretary of State John Forsyth discuss their future while Globe editor Francis Preston Blair points out that their political enemies, the Whigs, would benefit if they quit their cabinet posts. No other cabinet members resigned at the time, but President Van Buren subsequently lost the 1840 presidential election. |