The ornamentation on the wall maps that were commonly displayed across the antebellum United States fed and shaped communal ideas of the nature of the United States, its history, and its destiny. This map quite ignores the pressing issue of slavery and instead depicts a unified country destined to expand westwards across the continent (see the landscape views across the upper margin and the prominently marked routes of expeditions and future railroads) and also southwards to incorporate Mexico (see the landscape views across the lower margin). The side margins feature images of memorials to Revolutionary battles and generals. And, most prominently, its visual foundation is an image of the country’s political foundation: “Declaration of Independence, July 4, 1776.”
The image at the center of the map is based on the work of John Trumbull. In 1818, for his large painting in the US Capitol, Trumbull worked with Jefferson to depict the moment in which the Declaration of Independence was presented to the Continental Congress on June 28th, 1776. But already, Trumbull was altering the memory of the event itself, emphasizing unity by showing all five members as making the presentation, and not just Jefferson alone. He further dramatized the historical significance of the moment in his 1832 reduced version (Yale University Art Gallery), which he specifically dated to July 4th, the date which the Declaration was formally accepted by the Congress. The 1832 version—the more dramatic and historically significant moment—is reproduced here and in innumerable other popular prints from the period.
In 1860, on the eve of the Civil War, these New York publishers chose to emphasize the country’s Revolutionary heritage as a way to establish a precarious unity in the face of profound sectional tensions.