American Historical Ephemera & Photography, Featuring Property from the James Milgram, M.D., Collection of Broadsides, Ephemeral Americana & Historical Documents

Lithograph with hand-coloring, 1844, image 16 1/2 x 10 1/8 in. (visible sheet 17 x 11 1/2 in.), on wove paper, toned, matted and framed to 25 1/8 x 20 1/4 in., not examined out of frame.

A political cartoon satirizing Van Buren's lack of support for his second attempt at Presidential re-election, published prior to the 1844 Democratic National Convention. Van Buren, known as the "Kinderhook Fox" is shown as a fox being pulled into a Salt River, a representation of failure, by Henry Clay, Daniel Webster, and other Whig opponents. Clay taunts, "Wake up, Matty this is only the Sober second thought of the people", a reference to the catchphrase of the 1840 election "sober second thoughts", referring to the desertion of Van Buren's working-class supporters. On the other bank, Van Buren's Democratic supporters, incumbent President Tyler, Tyler's poet son Robert, and Senator Thomas Hart Benton, tumble after pulling off his tail. Nearby, Andrew Jackson shouts that he predicted the erosion of support.