Fancied Security, or the Rats on a Bender

Art Historical Context

Louis Maurer’s 1856 print “Fancied Security, or the Rats on Bender” offers a lively example of mid-nineteenth-century political satire. Created as a hand-colored lithograph, the work places a barnyard scene at its center, where rats stand in for prominent public figures of the day. The title hints at a false sense of safety amid chaotic or self-serving behavior, a common device in the era’s visual commentary on elections and scandals. The cast of characters—among them presidential candidates James Buchanan, John C. Frémont, and Millard Fillmore, along with newspaper publisher Horace Greeley, Congressman Preston Brooks, and statesmen Howell Cobb and Robert Toombs—reflects the heated sectional tensions surrounding the 1856 campaign. Slavery, abolitionism, and party realignments dominated national debate, and Maurer’s print captures how quickly reputations could be lampooned in popular media. Such prints circulated widely through publishers like Currier & Ives, allowing ordinary citizens to encounter sharp political critique in their homes or shops. Today the work survives in the Smithsonian’s collections as both an artistic artifact and a vivid window onto the rough-and-tumble visual culture of antebellum America.