Kansas sketches

Kansas sketches

Harper's Weekly

This political cartoon, published by Harper's Weekly, depicts John Calhoun and James Lane. The cartoon depicts the “Popular Northern View” of Calhoun, an avid proslavery activist and leader of forces along the Missouri-Kansas border; he viciously snatches Free State Party members from their beds and consumes them in the night. This might symbolize the peaceful intentions of Freestaters compared to the militancy of proslavery activists like Calhoun. The “Popular Southern View” of James Lane shows him trampling women and children with his horse while skewering the southern men on his sword. The imagery implies that Lane tramples on the rights of helpless free southerners. The third block portrays the popular concept of the results of an actual meeting between Lane and Calhoun. Each antagonist has skewered the other. Calhoun uses a weapon resembling a Bowie knife, a weapon linked to frontiersmen and westward expansion. Lane uses a saber, sits astride a horse, and wears the uniform of a cavalry officer. The two portrayals seem to pit the slaveholding expansionists against the federal government. The fourth block reveals “What They Do When They Meet,” depicting both men dressed genteelly, toasting each other in an amicable setting. While each man attempted to gather forces to their cause, and perpetrated or responded to violence in the Bleeding Kansas period the cartoon demonstrates men of rank and wealth in America behaved in a certain manner towards one another, despite political differences.

"Kansas Sketches," Harper’s Weekly, March 20, 1858, accessed February 5, 2015, http://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/00652803/

pre-civil war America 1858-03-20

Matthew Mosher

The topic deals specifically with the territory of Kansas but addresses the nation's understanding of political tensions and the out break of violence both within Kansas and across the nation over slavery