Forcing Slavery Down the Throat of a Freesoiler

Forcing Slavery Down the Throat of a Freesoiler

John L. Magee

Harper’s Weekly was a famous periodical in the time of the Antebellum era up to the early 20th century, based in New York. In this famous Harper’s Weekly cartoon, “Forcing Slavery Down the Throat of a Freesoiler,” illustrated by John L. Magee, it depicts a giant being wrestled down to a platform that reads “Central America, Cuba, and Kansas,” and being force-fed a black slave by leading Democrats of the time: President Franklin Pierce, Senator Stephen Douglas, Senator Lewis Cass, and presidential nominee James Buchanan. This is all a metaphor for what was occurring at the time. The giant represents the Freesoilers, a political party that thought all the new land accepted in the union should be non-slave, while the politicians depicted in the cartoon are forcing the expansion of slavery into the new territories, like Kansas, and the possibility of expansion into Cuba and Central America.

“American Political Prints 1766-1876.” Harp Week.com, accessed February 2, 2015. http://loc.harpweek.com/LCPoliticalCartoons/DisplayCartoonLarge.asp?Ma xID=&UniqueID=9&Year=1856&YearMark=1856

1856

William McCollister

Freesoil giant: "Murder!!! Help-neighbors help, O my poor wife and children."