Southwestern Historical Quarterly

This c. 1852 engraving, Union, which portrays several notable American political figures of the mid-nineteenth century, celebrates the Compromise of 1850. The figures pictured here are (front row, left to right): Winfield Scott, Lewis Cass, Henry Clay, John C. Calhoun, Daniel Webster, and (holding a shield) Millard Fillmore. Calhoun and Webster stand with their hands resting on the Constitution, a bust of George Washington between them. Cass holds a document “Protest [illegible] Treaty.” Scott, in uniform, grasps with his right hand a portfolio from which protrude papers and maps recalling his U.S.–Mexico War victories. In the left background are (left to right): Speaker of the House Howell Cobb of Georgia, Virginia representative James McDowell, Thomas Hart Benton of Missouri, and former secretary of state John M. Clayton of Delaware. In the second row at right: Ohio senator Thomas Corwin, James Buchanan, Stephen A. Douglas, attorney general John J. Crittenden, and senators Sam Houston of Texas and Henry Foote of Mississippi. Behind, beneath a genius carrying a laurel branch and liberty staff, are senators Willie P. Mangum of North Carolina and W. R. King of Alabama. At far right, below an eagle, are Daniel S. Dickinson of New York, Supreme Court justice John McLean of Ohio, and senators John Bell of Tennessee and John C. Fremont of California. While the prominent placement of John C. Calhoun in a piece called Union may seem ironic, Sam Houston never wavered in his stance against secession, as Randolph B. Campbell details in “‘A Sea of Blood and Smoking Ruin’: Reflections on Sam Houston and Slavery.” Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, Washington, D.C., http://www.loc. gov/pictures/item/2004665352/ [Accessed July 17, 2018.]