Object Record
Images
Metadata
Object Name |
Cartoon |
Title |
Cartoon, "Judge Breaking" |
Catalog Number |
1986.21 |
Creator |
Scratch, Hannibal (pseudonym) |
Date |
ca. 1825 |
Material(s) |
Warercolor on paper; |
Dimensions |
H-8.75 W-11 inches |
Description |
Watercolor on paper; cartoon, "Judge Breaking"; ink on paper with watercolor wash; brawl in courtroom with judges on dais fighting off attackers from below; caption below, JUDGE BREAKING/With many a stiff thwack, many a bang/Hard crab tree and old iron rang/ Hudibras"; marked lower left bottom margin, "Hannibal Scratchi pinx[i]t". The cartoon refers to Kentucky's "Old Court/New Court" controversy. |
Notes |
According to Matthew G. Schoenbachler, this cartoon "depicts the chaos of the old court-new court conflict. New court combatants wield clubs labeled 'Replevin,' 'Preamble and Resolution', ... and 'Patrick Henry' (the pseudonym of a particularly controversial new court author). On the left, Amos Kendall blows a bugle labeled 'Argus.' Old court partisans respond in kind with 'Protest,' ... the state constitution, and 'Lapis v. Blue-Skin' (Lapsley v. Brashear, the case that overturned the relief laws.)" The epigraph, he writes, is taken "from Samuel Butler's Hudibras, a Restoration-era epic poem that satirized the excesses of English Puritanism." |
Collection |
KHS Museum Collection |
Subjects |
Old Court New Court |
Physical Holder |
Kentucky Historical Society - KHS |