09 Jan 2012

Best of Lost: The Gerry-Mander

As I am still in the final stretch of finishing up my scandal book of Capitol Hill, it seems appropriate that this weeks rerun is one of the scandals that will feature prominently in my book. Look for new columns starting in two weeks, and the book to be released Friday, April 13.

With all the discussion about redistricting, and how the boundaries are not being drawn to keep neighborhoods together but rather for other political considerations, it brings to mind the good old American tradition of gerrymandering, a tradition almost as old as the United States – and one that has, of course, a Capitol Hill connection.


In 1812, the Massachusetts needed to redraw the state’s districts, and – in order to keep the current governor’s party in power – proceeded to make a number of very strange-looking districts into which all the Federalists were packed, ensuring that the Governor’s Democratic-Republican party would win all the rest of the districts and thus stay in power.

One particular district, near Boston, was deemed to resemble a Salamander, and this gave rise to a famous political cartoon, which gave the district claws, wings, and a sharp-teethed mouth. Its name? A combination of salamander and the governor Elbridge Gerry’s name: The Gerry-Mander.

The cartoon was widely reprinted in Federalist-supporting newspapers across the state, and soon the word had entered the vernacular at gerrymander. (Though the governor’s name was pronounced with a hard g, ‘gerrymander’ for some reason starts with a soft g)


The Gerry-Mander cartoon as printed in the Boston Gazette on March 26, 1812. Neither the originator of the word Gerry-Mander, nor the author of this cartoon has ever been determined (Wikipedia)
For all the good that it might have done for his party, the redistricting did not do Gerry any good: He was defeated in his attempt to seek a third one-year term in 1812.

Instead, he found himself picked for greater things when James Madison picked him as his vice president. George Clinton, the previous veep, had died in office and Madison picked Gerry, who had in his 68 years been a delegate to the Continental Congress; a member of the Constitutional Convention; and a representative from Massachusetts; as well as being governor.

Unfortunately for Gerry, the office of vice president was no more hospitable to him than it had been for his predecessor, and Gerry died of a heart attack in DC on November 23, 1814.

He was buried in (and here we finally get to the Capitol Hill connection) Congressional Cemetery, and remains there to this day. You can visit him at his grave in Range 29, site 9-11.

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