DEMOCRATIC CIRCULATION:JACKSONIAN LITHOGRAPHS IN U.S. PUBLIC DISCOURSE BRANDON INABINET I n cartoons from the Jacksonian era, in New York, Boston, and Phila- delphia, lithographers used their skills in partisan politics, portraying the United States president and other major political players in a proliferation of political cartoons for the fırst time. The more famous ones include “The Downfall of Mother Bank,” in which the Bank Veto scroll sends out thunder and lightning that bring down the “temple of corrup- tion,” as the politicians resembling demons scramble to run out with money sacks; “Symptoms of a Lock Jaw,” in which Henry Clay ties shut the mouth of Andrew Jackson by censuring him following his Bank Veto; and “Hard Times,” which shows drunken men, orphans, and members of the laboring poor idling about vacant businesses and streets papered over with bank notes as “shinplasters,” currency so worthless that it was better as paper- mâché for shin splints and warmth for the poor rather than money. These visual rhetorics draw attention to issues of circulation because of the questions they generate. Why at this historical moment do we have the proliferation of this democratic form, tearing down the deference that marked the previous era? Can it be explained by the growth of lithography technologies, the pre-existing partisan press, and the extended voting qual- ifıcations that gave poor white citizens voting privileges? It seems not simply so, with circulation not merely tied to technical innovation and political or media institutions, but also dependent on the type of issues portrayed, the BRANDON INABINET is Assistant Professor of Communication Studies at Furman University in Greenville, South Carolina. © 2012 Michigan State University Board of Trustees. All rights reserved. Rhetoric & Public Affairs Vol. 15, No. 4, 2012, pp. 659 –666. ISSN 1094-8392. 659 This work originally appeared in Rhetoric & Public Affairs, 15:4, Winter 2012, published by Michigan State University Press