A small 1828 Baltimore election ticket for the Jackson side prints a woodcut tree, a two-line rally couplet about "our Hickory tree," and two names for the Maryland Assembly.
What the slip prints
There is almost nothing on it, and that is the point. A heading names the side. A small woodcut of a tree sits under the heading. Two rhymed lines follow, and then the two men a voter was being asked to send to the Maryland Assembly. Jackson's own name appears only in the heading. The tree carries the rest.
JACKSON TICKET.
Firm united let us be,
Rallying round our Hickory tree."
For the Assembly.
JOHN V. L. McMAHON,
GEORGE H. STEUART.
What a ticket was for
A printed ticket like this one was something a voter could carry, and the slip is built for that use: a party heading, a short verse, and the names. The archive files it under the John Quincy Adams administration and credits it to the Jackson (Democratic) campaign in Maryland. The Library of Congress holds it in its broadside collection. No printer is named on the slip.
How to read it
"Old Hickory" was Jackson's nickname, so a drawing of a tree did the work of a portrait for anyone who knew the name. That is transfer: the tree stands in for the man, and two local candidates stand in its shade. The couplet supplies the second technique the archive tags. "Firm united let us be" is a call to join a crowd that is presented as already gathered. It says nothing about the Assembly, Maryland, or what McMahon and Steuart would do.
Set it beside the other side's work from the same year. The pro-Adams coffin handbill charged Jackson with executions and printed coffin woodcuts to prove it. This slip answers nothing and charges no one. One side sold a fear about the man, the other sold loyalty to his symbol, and neither sheet gives a voter a policy to weigh. Both were lawful speech by private partisans, and the contest they served was settled by ballots.
The hub on presidential campaign print, 1800 to 1900 follows the tickets and banners that came after.
Sources
- FRAME object record, "Jackson ticket" with Hickory tree motto, Baltimore (1828). Jackson (Democratic) campaign, Maryland ticket for John V. L. McMahon and George H. Steuart.
- Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, Broadside Collection, portfolio 192, no. 12; LC-USZ61-1453. loc.gov/pictures/item/2008661741, retrieved by the archive 2 October 2026. Rights as recorded: public domain, no known restrictions on publication.
