N. Currier's 1848 banner print for the Free Soil ticket of Martin Van Buren and Charles Francis Adams sets their portraits under an eagle and a "Temple of Liberty" with the slogan "Free Soil.-Free Labor.-Free Speech."
What the print shows
Two round portraits, Martin Van Buren and Charles F. Adams, sit beneath an eagle that holds olive branches and arrows. Behind the eagle rises a domed building labeled "Temple of Liberty," with flags on each side. At the bottom a farmer drives a plough between two horns of plenty. The slogan runs across the top in three short beats.
FREE SOIL.-FREE LABOR.-FREE SPEECH.
TEMPLE OF LIBERTY
MARTIN VAN BUREN. CHARLES F. ADAMS.
GRAND DEMOCRATIC FREE SOIL BANNER.
From Daguerreotypes by Plumbe.
Who made it
Currier drew on daguerreotypes credited to Plumbe for the faces, then printed and sold the sheet from Nassau Street. The archive dates it 1 September 1848, during Polk's term, and files it under that year's election. The sheet carries Currier's copyright entry and a stock number, 616; the record does not say whether a party ordered it. The ticket was a former president, Van Buren, running with Adams for a party built on the soil question.
How to read it
The archive tags the banner for glittering generalities and transfer, and both are plain to see. "Free" three times is a virtue word repeated until it hums. The eagle, flags, and temple lend the nation's emblems to one ticket among several.
Unlike many banners, though, this slogan points at a real dispute. "Free soil" meant a position on whether slavery would spread into new territory. The record does not spell out that history, and this page will not stretch it. It is enough to say that the three words name actual liberties, and that a voter could test the ticket against them. That is a better use of glittering words than a bare portrait and a flag.
Free speech came back twelve years later on a Republican banner for Lincoln and Hamlin, as "Free Speech, Free Homes, Free Territory." For the annexation that sharpened the question, see Texas Coming In.
Sources
- FRAME object record, Grand Democratic Free Soil Banner (Currier, Van Buren and Adams), 1 September 1848. N. Currier, New York, lithographer-publisher.
- Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division. loc.gov/pictures/item/2001700249, retrieved by the archive 2 October 2026. Rights as recorded: public domain, no known restrictions on publication.
