In this cartoon, “Forcing Slavery Down the Throat of a Freesoiler,” the illustrator John L. Magee portrays a man being secured and held down and having a slave pushed down his throat by what it looks to be Democratic politicians at that time. It was illustrated in 1856, which was right before the Civil War and a very unstable time in American politics. Democrats were in full support of slavery and even expanding slavery into the west where there was freesoilers, but the freesoilers did not want that to happen and they tried to fight against it. Given that the cartoon was published in 1856, which was right before the Civil War, the tension over the issue of slavery in the freesoil territory was at an all-time high. The carton itself explains