Our featured  cartoon—the Hurley-Burly Pot (1850)—is a witches’ brew that looks awfully familiar. The political cartoonist James S. Baillie seems to have it in for the Union and opponents of slavery and especially William Lloyd Garrison,  an abolitionist who Baillie thinks urges black slaves to cut their masters’ throats:

“Bubble, bubble, toil and trouble—

Abolition

Our condition

Shall be altered by—

N*****’s strong as goats—

Cut your master’s throats—

Abolition boil!

We divide the spoil.”

He likens John C. Calhoun to Benedict Arnold and tars Horace Greeley as a socialist.  Fair enough on that score.  Greeley was a socialist.  

Don’t look for political cohesion in this cartoon, it would take a book to explain the confluence of various forces thrown together as court jesters stirring a cauldron out of Macbeth. Was the satirist, James S. Baillie pro slavery? Pro state’s rights? Who the hell knows? Can’t seem to find his biography. Safe to say, he was no fan of the men he lampooned and charged them with creating chaos, confusion, unrest, mayhem and bedlam.

I.e., Hurly-Burly.

A Civil War ten years hence would decide many of these issues once and for all in lakes of blood.  Making Paladin wonder what lakes will Americans themselves sail in the near future?

Saw this item over at AT on Future Headlines , and decided to push the jalopy a little further down the road. Consider these slammer hammers that might appear soon—they range from the plausible to the preposterous to the unthinkable.

In no particular order:

DESPITE CONTROVERSY CUOMO RE-ELECTED GOVERNOR OF NEW YORK—65% of New Yorkers are cool with Lord Small Hands Granny Killer. Note to blue state governors with similar problems—relax.

PRESIDENT HARRIS APPOINTS HUNTER BIDEN TO CABINET – China Welcomes the Son of Retired President Biden as he takes over as U.S. Trade Representative.

U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES TO DECIDE BILLS IN SECRET BALLOT. A New Rule change allows House Reps to cast their ballots anonymously. Well, if they can slam through the Democrats in Perpetuity Act — HR1 — why the hell not?

MASKS REQUIRED TO FILE TAXES – Internal RevenueService now requires form 1087q Demonstrating Mask Compliance.  Mask Compliance Forms can be validated only in Person at the Taxpayers’ Local Department of Motor Vehicles or Post Office.

U.S. MILITARY TO ENFORCE MASK COMPLIANCE – Widespread Non-Compliance has resulted in the National Guard and the Armed Forces to enforce National Mask Laws.

NEWSROOMS WELCOME MILITARY POLITICAL OFFICERS—Military Political Officers are now stationed inNewsrooms across the country to help news organizations avoid disseminating false information. Tucker Carlson puts Officer on stool with Dunce cap.

NUCLEAR FALLOUT OVER TAIWAN ENDANGERS LOCAL FISH—Authorities are still trying to locate the source of the fallout. China denies any ties and WHO confirms, “curious event.”

THREE AIRCRAFT CARRIER GROUPS GO IDLE IN THE PACIFIC—Navy claims, “These are Not Plague Ships.”

HILLARY CLINTON GIVES KAMALA EULOGY—Speaker Pelosi, “I am ready.”  

TECH GIANTS PREPARE RFID CHIP FOR HUMAN IMPLANT— “It’s harmless and can be switched off at any time,” technicians say.

NATIONAL GUN SEARCH AND SEIZURES YIELD FEW WEAPONS

FAUCI WELCOMES NEW COVID STRAIN AS NEW “NORMAL”.

UNDOCUMENTED CHILDREN FOUND IN UNMARKED TRACTOR TRAILERS—Many flee South of the Border for Food and Safety.

To mangle Churchill from his own book The Gathering Storm:

Who is in charge of the clattering train?
The axles creak, and the couplings strain.
Ten minutes behind at the Junction. Yes!
And we’re twenty now to the bad—no less!
At every mile we a minute must gain!
Who is in charge of the clattering train?

Why, flesh and blood, as a matter of course!
You may talk of iron, and prate of force;
But, after all, and do what you can….
Man is in charge of the thundering train!

Man in all his frailty.  In all his weakness and all his strength. God Bless Him.

The Featured Photo is a political cartoon by James S. Baillie, 1850, and is Public Domain. The cartoon has been altered for this article. 

The artist attacks abolitionist, Free Soil, and other sectionalist interests of 1850 as dangers to the Union. He singles out for indictment radical abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison, Pennsylvania Free Soil advocate David Wilmot, New York journalist Horace Greeley, and Southern states’ rights spokesman Senator John C. Calhoun. The four wear fool’s caps and gather, like the witches in Shakespeare’s “Macbeth,” round a large, boiling cauldron, adding to it sacks marked “Free Soil,” “Abolition,” and “Fourierism” (added by Greeley, a vocal exponent of the doctrines of utopian socialist Charles Fourier). Sacks of “Treason,” “Anti-Rent,” and “Blue Laws” already simmer in the pot. Wilmot: “Bubble, bubble, toil and trouble! / Boil, Free Soil, / Ther Union spoil; / Come grief and moan, / Peace be none. / Til we divided be!” Garrison: “Bubble, bubble, toil and trouble / Abolition / Our condition / Shall be altered by / N*****s strong as goats / Cut your master’s throats / Abolition boil! / We divide the spoil.” Greeley: “Bubble, buble [sic], toil and trouble! / Fourierism / War and schism / Till disunion come!” In the background, stands the aging John Calhoun. He announces, “For success to the whole mixture, we invoke our great patron Saint Benedict Arnold.” The latter rises from the fire under the pot, commending them, “Well done, good and faithful servants!”