Andrew Jackson. "The Union Must and Shall Be Preserved"

Mixed method mezzotint engraving and stipple on cream wove paper. Large format, full-length mezzotint portrait of President Andrew Jackson, positioning him as the protector of America's Union. Full-length portrait of President Andrew Jackson (1767-1845) standing and facing left, right hand at his side, left hand resting on a book propped up on a table beside him next to other books and scrolls, wearing a dark suit with a tailcoat and cravat tied in a bow; column, curtain, and view from a terrace toward a large building in the background. Jackson, one of the founders of the Democratic Party, served as the seventh president of the United States from 1829 to 1837. Before his presidency, Jackson gained fame as a General in the United States Army and served in both houses of Congress. As president, Jackson sought to advance the rights of common white men against what he framed to be a corrupt aristocracy; he recognized the Republic of Texas, leading to its annexation; and he held together the Union when South Carolina threatened to secede. But his treatment of Indigenous people - he signed the Indian Removal Act - has been condemned; his Vice President, John Calhoun, was one of the most racist figures in American history; and Jackson himself enslaved people. Due to this, Jackson remains one of the most controversial figures in American history, with no consensus as to his legacy, though in recent years his strain of politics has seemed to re-emerge. Sartain, the engraver, was a close friend of Edgar Allan Poe and the editor of Sartain's Union Magazine. He pioneered and popularized the practice of mezzotint printing in the United States, and engraved portraits of numerous US presidents. Copies of this print are held at the British Museum, the Library of Congress, and the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. LoC 89710359.

Seller Inventory # 35622