James Buchanan Democratic Candidate for President of the United States 1856 LA Poster its lantern-room geometry and Fresnel

its lantern-room geometry and Fresnel apparatus plotted with the precision of men who knew the Pacific takes ships that aren't warned in time

rendered at the dawn of his Oregon crusade — a portrait steeped in the chamber's expansionist fever

like silver

where a planet could be found by arithmetic alone

James Buchanan Democratic Candidate for President of the United States 1856 LA Poster its lantern-room geometry and FresnelJames Buchanan Democratic Candidate for President of the United States 1856 a campaign lithograph of the Pennsylvania Democrat on the eve of his fraught ascension, rendered with the studied dignity of a party desperate to project calm as Kansas bled and the Union strained at every seam. About the Source Bella Frye sources artifacts from the great American historical archive the Library of Congress, the National Archives, regional historical societies,