This cartoon mocks Henry Clay, a longtime U.S. representative and senator from Kentucky. Clay protested the Mexican War in an 1847 speech published in the New York Tribune. His son Henry Clay Jr., meanwhile, led a Kentucky regiment. Popular depictions of Clay Jr.’s death at Buena Vista made him a national icon of battlefield heroism.
Lithograph published by James Baillie, Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress
Great Speech of Clay––Bran Bread is Riz! Lithograph attributed to John L. Mager, 1847
War with Mexico
Westward expansion led to rising tensions in Congress before the Civil War. Some considered expansion a defense against European claims on the continent, but it was also a subject of dispute between northern and southern factions about whether slavery would be allowed in new territories. In 1846, following a skirmish near the border of newly annexed Texas, President James K. Polk asked Congress to declare war against Mexico. Mexican forces wounded American troops, provoking Congress to declare war. U.S. forces won a major battle at Buena Vista in northeastern Mexico and captured Mexico City in 1847. In the peace settlement, Mexico ceded its northern territory to the United States. In December 1847 Representative Abraham Lincoln of Illinois, suspicious of Polk’s motives, called for an investigation.
This cartoon mocks Henry Clay, a longtime U.S. representative and senator from Kentucky. Clay protested the Mexican War in an 1847 speech published in the New York Tribune. His son Henry Clay Jr., meanwhile, led a Kentucky regiment. Popular depictions of Clay Jr.’s death at Buena Vista made him a national icon of battlefield heroism.
Lithograph published by James Baillie, Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress
