1792 x 1329 px | 30,3 x 22,5 cm | 11,9 x 8,9 inches | 150dpi
Data acquisizione:
1846
Altre informazioni:
Questa immagine potrebbe avere delle imperfezioni perché è storica o di reportage.
The tree of liberty. The free population of the United States enjoying the refreshing shade of the tree of liberty A somewhat puzzling commentary on two issues: slavery and economic protectionism. The date of the print is uncertain, but it may have appeared as part of the reaction against the Walker Tariff of 1846. A Northern bias is expressed on both issues. The text is abolitionist on the one hand and laments the absence of federal protection for American industry on the other. The author of the piece (which is less a cartoon than an arrangement of didactic tableaux) presents through his characters a number of reasoned arguments on the respective economics of slave and free industry and suggests a parallel between the hardships posed by the lack of protection for American manufacturers and the plight of the slaves. The irony of the piece rests on the fact that only the Southern slaveholder, whose interests were best served by the 1846 tariff, enjoys the shade of the symbolic Liberty Tree, which looms up in the foreground. Slave owner, fanned by a Negro slave: "Surrounded by Slaves & basking at ease by their labor we can have a clearer conception of the value of Liberty." Man borne in a litter by slaves: "Rather than submit to be a slave I would make our State a cemetery of Freemen." Slaves working under the whip of an overseer at right: "I had as lief work as not. If I had my own time to do it in." and "Who likes to be bound down to a Massa." Another: "Give me my own Country before Slavery." Further right a group of slaves converse: "Poor Sampson is dead!" "Is there nothing we can do?" "How many poor fellows heads have been stuck upon poles!" "The American People will come to a sense of Justice." "If they won't liberate "us, " let our Children be free." "Our rejoicing on Bobalition days shew we are not the savages the white people take us to be." "And should our children be free when they are born they might learn the habits of industry & for hire do more work than
