H. Bucholzer's 1844 cartoon for James Baillie shows the steamboat Texas arriving to Polk's welcome while Clay and his allies sink into Salt River.
Techniques named on the archive record
BandwagonName-calling
Date
1844
Made by
Drawn by H. Bucholzer; lithographed and published by James Baillie, New York
Medium
Cartoon
Country
United States
Regime
Tyler Administration
Source
Identified Openly sourced: the speaker is who they say they are
Source
Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division , retrieved October 2, 2026
Source
Public domain: published 1844, US; LOC rights note: "No known restrictions on publication." Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, Washington, D.C. (item 2008661429)
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.
An 1844 lithograph drawn by H. Bucholzer and published by James Baillie in New York shows a steamboat named Texas rolling toward a welcoming James K. Polk while Henry Clay and his allies are dragged into Salt River.
What the print shows
A steamboat lettered "Texas" crosses a bridge toward James K. Polk, who waves a flag in welcome. On the other side, Henry Clay, Frelinghuysen, Webster, and one more man hang on to a rope that is pulling them down into Salt River. Garrison, perched on a barrel labeled "Abolition," refuses Clay's company.
All hail to James K. Polk, the Frined of our Country !
Welcome Texas ! welcome brothers.
Curse the day that ever I got hold of this rope ! this is a bad place to let go of it — But I must !
Avaunt ! unholy man ! I will not keep company with a blackleg.
TEXAS COMING IN.
Who made it
Bucholzer signed the drawing. Baillie, a New York lithographer who also advertised print coloring "on reasonable terms," published it and registered the copyright. The archive files it under the Tyler administration and the 1844 election, with the themes of party politics and empire. It is a commercial print on Polk's side, not a party document.
How to read it
The picture's claim is that annexation is already happening and only a fool would stand in the way. That is the bandwagon move. The steamboat has momentum. The men holding the rope have only a choice between letting go and drowning. Whether Texas should come in, and on what terms, is a question the drawing treats as settled.
Garrison's line is the sharpest piece of the print. He calls Clay a "blackleg," a swindler, and declines to be seen with him. A pro-annexation artist uses the abolitionist to insult the Whig, which lets the cartoon mock both at once. Whether readers took Garrison's appearance as a smear on Clay or on abolition is not recorded. It works as either.
The cartoon itself puts a barrel marked "Abolition" beside the bridge, so slavery is in the frame even as a joke. Four years later a third party ran on "Free Soil.-Free Labor.-Free Speech." The questions this cartoon skipped did not go away.
Sources
FRAME object record, Texas Coming In (pro-Polk cartoon), 1844. Drawn by H. Bucholzer; lithographed and published by James Baillie, New York.
Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, item 2008661429. loc.gov/pictures/item/2008661429, retrieved by the archive 2 October 2026. Rights as recorded: public domain, no known restrictions on publication.
