The National Democratic Republican Nomination broadside for Van Buren and Johnson, 1840

E. Durham of New York published this 1840 broadside for Martin Van Buren and Richard M. Johnson. Under an eagle and "LIBERTY & EQUALITY," it prints campaign biographies of both men beside Jefferson, Madison, Washington and Jackson, with battle scenes from Johnson's War of 1812 service.

Content note: the broadside's War of 1812 text uses period wording for Native American adversaries ("Indians," "Indian chief"). This page reproduces that wording without change.

Layout

An eagle carries a banderole reading "LIBERTY & EQUALITY." The sheet also holds portraits of Johnson and Van Buren and a long biography of each. Short paragraphs on Thomas Jefferson and James Madison sit in paired columns, and the transcription also records captions for George Washington, Andrew Jackson, the "Battle of the Horse shoe," the "BATTLE OF THE THAMES" and "Col Johnson charging." The lithography line reads "Lith. of Endicott 152 Fulton St. New York," and the sheet was "Published by E. DURHAM New York."

FOR PRESIDENT MARTIN VAN BUREN

Born in Kinderhook, Columbia County, New York Dec.5 1782; son of a farmer; a self-made man; and a consistent democrat of the Jeffersonian school [...] has nobly devoted himself with unshaken firmness to the great work of rescuing the People and Government of the United States, from the control, and influence of the monied aristocracy, and of rendering them truly Independent; and in 1840, on the ever memorable fourth of July, affixed his signature to the Independent Treasury Bill.

Borrowed prestige

The archive's reading points at two devices. The first is the company the candidates keep on the sheet. Jefferson is "A Statesman reviled and abused by the Federalists," whose old adversaries "are now vieing with each other in their professions of regard for his principles." Madison's paragraph recalls the war in which "the proud and haughty sons of a British King were bravely taught to respect the American Arms" and calls him "sound in Democracy." Jackson "left the Government prosperous and happy." The broadside places Van Buren and Johnson in a line of descent from those men without arguing the point. The second device is the motto: "LIBERTY & EQUALITY" stands where a statement of policy might go.

The one policy the sheet names is the Independent Treasury Bill, which it presents as rescuing the people from "the monied aristocracy." That is the campaign's account of the bill. The broadside gives no figures and no description of how the bill worked.

Johnson's war record

Much of Johnson's biography is the Battle of the Thames, 5 October 1813. It says he "led his battalion against the Indians headed by Tecumseh," had his horse killed under him, took "three several wounds," and had "slain with his own hand, their Indian chief." It closes by calling him "the tried patriot warrior" put forward "by the spontaneous voice of thousands of his countrymen." Those are the broadside's claims. The archive records them as printed and does not test them.

The Whig side of 1840 is on this site in Thomas Sinclair's log cabin print and The Fox Chace. The campaign print hub covers the century.