THE GREAT MATCH AT BALTIMORE, BETWEEN THE "ILLINOIS BANTAM," AND THE "OLD COCK" OF THE WHITE HOUSE

New York: Currier & Ives, 1860. Illustrated broadside, lithograph on wove paper. 17-1/2" x 13-1/4". Light toning at blank margins from prior matting, else Fine.

The 1860 presidential nominating competition split the Democratic Party into Northern and Southern branches, paving the way for the election of Abraham Lincoln. Southern Democrats refused to support Stephen A. Douglas, the nominee at the Baltimore Convention. His Popular Sovereignty doctrine had rendered him anathema to Southerners and had aroused President James Buchanan's permanent enmity. The Southerners nominated Buchanan's Vice President, John Breckinridge of Kentucky.
This rare broadside describes the internecine strife pithily and humorously, "as a cockfight. Douglas stands, the victorious cock, atop his badly beaten rival, incumbent president James C. Buchanan. Feathers still fill the room from the fray" [Reilly]. Buchanan complains, "I'm a used up old rooster." On the broadside's right, "an unidentified man sets a new cock into the ring" [id.]. This is Breckinridge, who worries, "I suppose now I'm in the pit that I must tackle the bantam, but I don't much like the job." An Irishman, probably representing Tammany Hall, looks on, remarking of Buchanan, "He wos a werry game old bird, but that ere bantam, was a leetle too much for him!"
Reilly 1860-21. Weitenkampf 121. OCLC 191119898 [2- AAS, Clements], 299945388
[1- DLC] as of February 2023.