The County Election by George Caleb Bingham
Elections in the mid-19th century were far different than they are today.
In George Caleb Bingham’s painting, The County Election, the artist presents a busy scene in a rural community bringing together a variety of people making decisions for the common good. While this painting was completed in 1852, election practices would have changed little by the election of 1860, where Abraham Lincoln was elected president. Bingham reveals features of the elections of the times that are far different from today:
- all ages and classes of eligible voters are shown
- African Americans and women had not yet gained the right to vote
- no system of voter registration – the man in red at the top of the courthouse steps is swearing that he hasn’t already cast a vote.
- no secret or paper ballots – voters call out their choice(s) to election clerks who record it (them) in a leger.
- no restrictions on electioneering – a well-dressed gentleman, probably a candidate or candidate’s representative, hands his card to one of the voters in line.
Picturing America1
The lack of a single dramatic focus in The County Election is an expression of the democratic ideal: all men appear as equals, with no one vote worth more than another. Several members of the electorate engage in serious discussion, perhaps debating the candidates’ qualifications. Another group clusters around a newspaper, a potent tool of democracy. Nevertheless, Bingham seems to question the integrity of an election conducted so casually. In the left foreground, a portly man already sprawled in his chair accepts more hard cider from an African American precinct worker, presumably in exchange for a vote. Behind him, a well-to-do gentleman literally drags a slumping body to the polls as he casts a meaningful glance toward the candidate in blue…, and in the foreground, the actions of two boys, absorbed in a childhood pastime in which a knife thrown into the ground determines the winner, suggest that the political process is little more than a game of chance. More ominously, a tattered figure in the front right corner hangs his bandaged head, perhaps to imply that for all the apparent good will of the crowd, violence lies just beneath the surface.
Besides commenting on American electioneering in general, The County Election records a particular political event. As many of Bingham’s contemporaries would have known, the painting depicts Election Day 1850 in Saline County, Missouri, when the artist himself was running for a place in the StateLegislature. Bingham lost that election to E. D. Sappington, whom he represents as the unprincipled candidate in the shinytop hat. Sappington, with his workers, did try to buy votes with liquor, and because he was related to the judge and one of the clerks, the election’s outcome naturally aroused suspicion. Bingham did not contest the results, but The County Election makes an obvious indictment of his political opponent.The artist himself makes an appearance in the picture as the figure in the stovepipe hat seated on the courthouse steps, attended by a friendly dog and two men in white hats who pause to look over his shoulder. Bingham’s quiet concentration sets him apart from the crowd, and we can only wonder whether he is keeping track of the votes in order to tally them for himself, or sketching the unruly practices of a young democracy.
Elected to the Missouri House of Representatives in 1848, Bingham was one of the few artists to serve in elected political office. Living in Europe from 1856 to 1859, he returned to America and again became involved in Missouri politics. After Missouri Governor Claiborne Jackson sided with the Confederacy, Bingham, a dedicated Union man raised troops to oppose Jackson and was commissioned as a Captain. After the Missouri Constitution Convention reconvened, declared all of the state’s elective office’s vacant, and appointed new officers, including the governor, Governor Hamilton Gamble, Bingham was appointed by Gamble to the position of State Treasurer of Missouri in which position he served through the duration of the war. In 1874 he was appointed president of the Kansas City Board of Police Commissioners and, in 1875, Adjutant-General of Missouri, the senior officer of the state militia.
- The County Election, 1852 — Picturing America was a project of the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) that brought masterpieces of American art into classrooms and libraries nationwide. The project concluded in 2009. However, many of the educational materials created for the program are still available for use by students, teachers, and lifelong learners.
