Image: The Four Traitors

Description: Illustrated broadside from the Library of Congress, entitled "The four traitors, who most infamously sold themselves to the Dorrites for office and political power". LOC description: An illustrated broadside reviling four Rhode Island Whigs who broke party ranks to support a popular movement to free imprisoned radical Thomas Wilson Dorr. (On the Dorr Rebellion see also "Trouble in the Spartan Ranks, Tyrants Prostrate Liberty Triumphant," and "The Great Political Car and Last Load of Patriots," nos. 1843-6, 1844-19, and 1845-5.) The broadside's author alleges political opportunism in the alliance of (left to right) Charles Jackson, Samuel F. Man, James F. Simmons, and Lemuel H. Arnold with Democrats to support a "liberation" ticket in the spring elections of 1845. This notice, evidently published after the April canvass, laments the election of "an obscure individual like [President James K.] Polk" and "a pompous, self-conceited man like [Gov. Charles] Jackson" as well as "Foreigners, ignorant, barbarous and uncivilized," "radicals, disorganisers, and abolitionists assuming to be jurists" in general. The author exhorts the reader, "Let us not reward Traitors, but with just indignation abandon them as 'Scape-Goats,' to their destiny--forever." The "Four Traitors" are crudely caricatured. Jackson holds a proclamation of liberation, probably the act of June 1845 pardoning Dorr. Samuel Man is depicted as obese, sitting in a chair and holding an infant. Simmons thumbs his nose at Man, and his own coattails are in turn held by Lemuel Arnold. A verse appears below them: O, heaven that such companions thou'dst unfold; / And put in every honest hand a whip / To lash the rascals naked through the world.
Title: The Four Traitors
Credit: Library of Congress, Broadside Collection, portfolio 169, no. 27 c-Rare Bk Coll. REPRODUCTION NUMBER: LC-USZ62-40873 http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/cph.3a41202
Author: Unknown authorUnknown author
Permission: Public domain, due to length of time since publication.
Usage Terms: Public domain
License: Public domain
Attribution Required?: No