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Very significant & rare "pillar cartoon" issue... Massachusetts ratifies the Constitution, in a Boston newspaper...
Very significant & rare "pillar cartoon" issue... Massachusetts ratifies the Constitution, in a Boston newspaper...
Item # 703264
March 01, 1788
THE MASSACHUSETTS CENTINEL, Boston, March 1, 1788
* United States Constitution
* State of New Hampshire
* Pillar illustration - cartoon
This is one of the most desired & elusive issues of this title to be had, as it contains one of the cherished "pillar cartoons". The only other newspaper we have discovered that used the pillar cartoons is the Independent Chronicle, also from Boston.
Russell, the publisher, devised a cartoon showing each state as a column for the new "federal edifice", adding a new column as word of each ratification came in. Each pillar is labeled by a state in order of its ratification, showing Delaware, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Georgia, Connecticut, & Massachusetts--which ratified on February 6--with the pillar of New Hampshire just starting to be raised with a note above it: "It will yet rise."
In reality, New Hampshire would not ratify until June 21, which being the 9th to do so would put the Constitution into effect. Before New Hampshire ratified, Maryland and South Carolina would do so.
This cartoon heads a lengthy poem headed: "American Poetry" "The Raising: A New Song for the Federal Mechanicks"
This cartoon is among the first political cartoons ever printed in the United States, and it is recognized as the first cartoon series.
The front page has a lengthy address of the governor to the Mass. legislature signed in type: John Hancock. The balance of the front page, and most of page 2, are taken up with very lengthy & detailed reporting of the: "State Convention" - The General Question in Debate" in Massachusetts. This is dated February 4, two days before Mass. would ratify the Constitution, and there is logically much on that debate.
Additionally page 3 has a report from New York that includes: "The utmost order & good humor prevailed throughout the entertainment yesterday for the celebration of the ratification of the Federal Constitution by Massachusetts..." with more on this. This is followed by a Boston dateline noting: "It is with much pleasure we learn that the opinion of that able statesman, his Excellency JOHN ADAMS, our late Ambassador at the Court of London, on the federal Constitution, is decidedly in its favor..." with more on this as well.
Four pages, nice condition.
This cartoon heads a lengthy poem headed: "American Poetry" "The Raising: A New Song for the Federal Mechanicks"
This cartoon is among the first political cartoons ever printed in the United States, and it is recognized as the first cartoon series.
The front page has a lengthy address of the governor to the Mass. legislature signed in type: John Hancock. The balance of the front page, and most of page 2, are taken up with very lengthy & detailed reporting of the: "State Convention" - The General Question in Debate" in Massachusetts. This is dated February 4, two days before Mass. would ratify the Constitution, and there is logically much on that debate.
Additionally page 3 has a report from New York that includes: "The utmost order & good humor prevailed throughout the entertainment yesterday for the celebration of the ratification of the Federal Constitution by Massachusetts..." with more on this. This is followed by a Boston dateline noting: "It is with much pleasure we learn that the opinion of that able statesman, his Excellency JOHN ADAMS, our late Ambassador at the Court of London, on the federal Constitution, is decidedly in its favor..." with more on this as well.
Four pages, nice condition.
Category: The 1600's and 1700's
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