An 1856 Nathaniel Currier cartoon rolls giant balls lettered with state names over Buchanan and Fillmore under a rainbow reading "FREE SOIL, FREE SPEECH, FREE PRESS, FREE MEN & FREMONT." Labels pinned to the crushed men include "POLYGAMY & SLAVERY" and "BORDER RUFFIANISM."
Momentum as proof
The Republican ticket of 1856 arrives here as a row of giant balls, each lettered with a state, rolling down a track. Banners read "FREMONT" and "DAYTON." In the archive's description, the balls are running over a crushed Buchanan, pinned beneath the "CINCINNATI PLATFORM," and a Fillmore who clutches papers marked "Fugitive Bill" and "ALBANY SPEECH." A rainbow overhead carries the campaign's motto, and an eagle perches on a fasces banded "CONSTITUTION," "LIBERTY" and "UNION."
FREE SOIL, FREE SPEECH, FREE PRESS, FREE MEN & FREMONT [on the rainbow]
Oh James! Erastus! trying won't save me, I hear them coming take me off the track.— [balloon, left figure]
Oh dear!, Oh dear! this Platform will be the death of me, I'm nearly crushed out already.— [balloon on Maine ball]
[...]
POLYGAMY & SLAVERY
BORDER RUFFIANISM
[...]
Scene in Kansas Crushing out Freedom
[...]
THE BALLS ARE ROLLING — CLEAR THE TRACK —
For Sale at N° 2 Spruce St N.Y.
What the labels do
The archive finds four devices on one sheet. The rolling states are a bandwagon: the print offers momentum, state after state, as the reason to join. The rainbow's words, Free Soil, Free Speech, Free Press and Free Men, are virtue words that attach the candidate's name to the end of the list. The labels on the losers, "POLYGAMY & SLAVERY" and "BORDER RUFFIANISM," are name-calling, and the archive notes that "Buck taking the Pot," another Currier print of the same year, uses the same device on the same rivals. The eagle and fasces are borrowed national symbols.
Several of the smaller labels point at Kansas: "KANSAS Bogus Laws," "LECOMPTE," and the caption "Scene in Kansas Crushing out Freedom." The print treats those words as self-explanatory. It assumes a viewer who already knows what they refer to, and this page does not add the history the record leaves out.
A free-speech slogan on a campaign print is still a campaign claim. The words "FREE SPEECH, FREE PRESS" here belong to one party's banner, set beside labels that tie its opponents to "POLYGAMY & SLAVERY" and "BORDER RUFFIANISM." The record shows the claim and the abuse on the same sheet.
The 1856 set
Nathaniel Currier published the print from N° 2 Spruce Street. The archive adds that the "Currier & Ives," "A 4160" and "1854" marks on the scan are library notes, not part of the print. On this site, the Republican ticket also appears in C. E. Lewis's Buffalo banner The Champions of Freedom, and Currier's Great Presidential Sweepstakes runs the same race with Fillmore's coach in front. The campaign print hub covers the wider century.
Sources
- FRAME object record, "The Balls Are Rolling - Clear the Track" (Currier, 1856). Nathaniel Currier, New York (publisher).
- Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, LC-DIG-pga-04725, catalog record, retrieved by the archive 2 October 2026. Rights as recorded: public domain, published 1856; LOC: "No known restrictions on publication."
