# State Mining, the 1828 lithograph that seats Jackson on the Rock of Ages

State Mining is an 1828 pro-Jackson lithograph signed M. Williams. Andrew Jackson sits on a rock labelled ROCK OF AGES while riflemen guard him and paid diggers try to undermine it with spades the archive describes as labelled for executed men.

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      "State Mining" Jackson campaign lithograph (1828)

      State Mining, the 1828 lithograph that seats Jackson on the Rock of Ages
      State Mining (1828): a pro-Jackson lithograph seats him on the "Rock of Ages" while paid diggers try to undermine him. Library of Congress, public domain.

## Techniques named on the archive record

TransferName-calling
      Date1828Made byJackson campaign supporters; lithograph signed M. Williams (LOC lists publisher Michael Williams)MediumCartoonCountryUnited StatesRegimeJohn Quincy Adams AdministrationSourceIdentified Openly sourced: the speaker is who they say they areSourceLibrary of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division , retrieved October 2, 2026SourcePublic domain: published 1828, US; LOC: "No known restrictions on publication." Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, LC-DIG-ppmsca-94277 (call no. Unprocessed in PR 13 CN 2019:010)
      Object, image, and catalog record from the FRAME archive. Text on this page is CC BY 4.0. Image rights are as the archive records.

      Full record at propagandaarchive.org

  State Mining is an 1828 pro-Jackson lithograph signed M. Williams. Andrew Jackson sits on a rock labelled ROCK OF AGES while riflemen guard him and paid diggers try to undermine it with spades the archive describes as labelled for executed men.

## The picture

Content note: the archive records that the diggers are drawn with racialised features and that the speech balloons carry period insults. They are described here as printed.

Jackson sits on a rock lettered ROCK OF AGES, with a verse in his honor. Riflemen stand at his side. On the right, men dig under the rock with spades, and a man in a top hat pays them. The Library of Congress summary identifies the paymaster as John Quincy Adams; no printed label on the sheet names him. One legible spade reads "Military Chieftain Ambrister." The archive's description says the spades are labelled for executed men.

STATE MINING.

ROCK OF AGES.

Honor to the Man who fills the measure of his countries glory

[...]

"Dont mind the poor Devils, they can't move me."

[...]

"This is a harder job than I expected I shall never undermine him except they give me a better Spade."

"Dig on my Boys or we will all get out of Job; I have got your pay under my arm, and in my pockets."

Transcription in the FRAME record, read from a master scan and not independently checked; several small labels are marked illegible there. Full record at propagandaarchive.org. Library of Congress, LC-DIG-ppmsca-94277.

## What it claims

The archive tags the print for transfer and name-calling. The transfer is in the title on the rock: a sacred-sounding name is lent to a candidate, so that attacking him looks like digging at something sacred. The name-calling is in the balloons. One balloon waves the diggers off as "poor Devils," and the diggers are drawn as hired hands, paid by the man in the top hat.

That second move is the core of the print. It does not answer the charges about the executions; it says the men making them were bought. A charge is not disproved by pointing at who paid to print it, and this sheet offers nothing else. The bags in the picture are lettered with "Diplomatic Crumbs" and "Crumbs from the [illegible] Government," which pushes the same point: the other side is in it for spoils.

## The other side of 1828

The charges the diggers stand for are on this site too. The pro-Adams coffin handbill printed six coffins named for executed militiamen and called them Jackson's "bloody deeds." On the Jackson side, a Baltimore election ticket answered with a woodcut hickory tree. In 1832 a lithograph by Michael Williams, the publisher the Library of Congress lists for this print, drew Jackson as a barn cat clearing out Bank and Clay rats.

The archive credits the print to Jackson campaign supporters and files the issuer as an individual. It is one of the private campaign prints gathered on the campaign print hub, where every party's pictures are held to the same standard.

## Sources

- FRAME object record, "State Mining" Jackson campaign lithograph (1828). Jackson campaign supporters; lithograph signed M. Williams (LOC lists publisher Michael Williams).

- Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, LC-DIG-ppmsca-94277, catalog record, retrieved by the archive 2 October 2026. Rights as recorded: public domain, published 1828; LOC: "No known restrictions on publication."

Canonical: https://americanpropaganda.org/collection/state-mining-rock-of-ages-jackson-1828/